I decided that my expertise video would be about the process of beatmaking. I don’t proclaim to be an expert at it, but it’s something that I have self-taught myself to do and am passionate about.

Firstly, let me make my own distinction between beatmaking and making music. I do both, but to me beatmaking is more about sampling, chopping, distorting; essentially manipulating the components of sound. This is while also having the drum beat as the focus; it’s more about rhythm. That’s not to say that this isn’t making music, it is. But to me, the idea of making music is more technical and the focus is on the melody.

The process of anything is always something I’ve found interesting, more-so after reflecting on Paul’s idea that filmmaking is about learning about filmmaking. After all, it’s the process of any artistic endeavour that I find most enjoyable, even more than the end result.

I spent some time at home messing around with the audio from the original audio exercise. I cut up some different sounds and worked with them until they resembled different percussive sounds; kick, snare, clap, cymbal amongst others. I tried to order them in a way so they were in time and had some kind of rhythmic value. The end result wasn’t great, but it was fun to toy around.

I decided that this would be my film idea; essentially deconstructing the process of beatmaking. After shooting footage that I knew wouldn’t directly relate to my idea, I thought about the ways I could incorporate the footage and still make my point. I thought about the process of beatmaking and film editing. To me, they both share the same language of order, in terms of using the components. I decided I would use the track of the (unfinished (no work is ever finished)) beat, as well as one image, representative of the finished product. The image would be cut up through editing and ordered in a way that represents the process of making a beat; repetition, changing length & speed, basically just manipulation. All this unfolds while hearing the raw components of the sound in the background. I don’t judge this as a finished product, because it’s not about that.

I think the result of this idea isn’t as focussed as I hoped it would be. I think my hesitation with the whole ‘expertise’ idea meant that I grabbed onto the first idea that was worth my consideration. I’m not disappointed, deconstruction is something I’ve wanted to explore, but the visual half of the idea could have been more interesting.