So we finally finished the music video! It’s been a bumpy rollercoaster ride and I’ve discovered many things about the world of music video making and my assumption making tendencies that need to be stopped. I have to say that I went into this project thinking it would be a lot easier than it was and I think had I planned better, and not been so pig-headed, we could have come out with a much better result. However, after being unsure about the quality and standard of our video for many weeks now, the final result has made me very happy and I actually think Jac and I have done a wonderful job, even if most of it was…by accident.

Our main hurdle that we needed to overcome during this process was actually our camera settings on the day of shooting. Our ISO was mostly incorrect the entire time we were filming. We had so many different locations and I’ve learnt now that you NEED to continuously reset the ISO especially when changing locations. We also bumped the levels of the ISO up too high a lot of the time so many parts of our footage were over-exposed when we looked at it on the computer. Jac and I were pretty bummed when we realised all of this, thinking we’d just have to put up with grainy footage and try our hardest to make it work, WHEN SUDDENLY Jac clicked something wrong on the screen whilst editing and all of a sudden we had a tiny screen on top of an enlarged screen and it happened to look rather aesthetically pleasing. This then determined the entire theme and aesthetic for our whole video clip and essentially saved our lives. From here we decided we could use the grainyness of the footage to our advantage (kinda) by making the whole thing very 90’s looking. This wasn’t very hard as Conor’s clothes (lead singer) in the clip already looked like something straight out of Degrassi High. Throw in some static and a VHS sound effect at the beginning and we had what looked like an intentionally low quality/ home-made looking video clip.

Halfway through the editing process we realised we actually needed more footage. Yes, we already had heaps of footage already, but not the right kind. We tried to call in Conor for another shoot but it wasn’t possible so Jac and I headed back to Footscray to film some stuff ourselves. It was this day of shooting that in the end, took our clip from being mildly enjoyable to watch to quite visually entertaining. All we did on this second shoot was film more graffiti walls and $2 stores, but this time we went in with the knowledge of what it was going to look like in the editing suites and where it was going to be used within the clip so it was much easier to gage what to film.

Jac and I spent so much time in the edit suites we might as well have signed a lease and moved into suite #07 but it was all worth it. Funnily enough, after exporting the final video clip and watching it back, a lot of the grainyness actually disappeared? We found this to be quite odd but also a nice little surprise. Making the clip has been such a great opportunity and I definitely want to make more music videos in the future.

Today’s director in focus was Chris Cunningham who was actually quite a young guy when he started directing music videos. He started out in robotics and you can see a lot of how that influenced him within his works. He’s done clips for artists such as Bjork, Portishead, Aphex Twin and more. This was one of the clips we were shown today and even though it’s really creepy, I couldn’t look away. Most of Cunningham’s work has this aesthetic.

I hadn’t heard much of Goldfrapp before this class so I didn’t know what to expect from her music videos either. But what I have since learnt, is that her music clips are absolutely mesmerising to watch. We watched at least 4 of them in today’s class and they’re extremely cinematic. This was my favourite, purely because it was so captivating and once it had finished, I had this weird sense of timelessness like I’d been watching the clip for hours rather than just a few minutes.

Jac and I started editing today! We realised our footage is a little..um…grainy. Not too sure what to do about that. Jordan happened to be down in the edit suites when we discovered this and he thinks it’s happening because our ISO was too high….which he is probably absolutely right about. Boujee Jaq and I are quite clearly, a bunch of nobs but I’m determined we will fix the issue somehow. Not sure how, but somehow.

The good part is that the colours in the pool sequence look really good. The actual water inside the pool is full of vivid purples and pinks which is great because they’re two of the main colours we’ve picked for the clip’s colour palette.

If we can deal with this grainy issue then I think we might have a good-looking clip ahead of us. Fingers crossed.