During classes this week the director in focus was Michel Gondry. We looked at a variety of his work, but I think my favourite was his famous Kylie Minogue music video for her song Come into my World.
I remember watching this particular video on TV when I was quite young and not thinking too much of it other than “wow so many Kylies”, but I found it really fascinating to watch it again now, considering it from more of a production side of things. It was interesting to think about how Gondry went about setting up the film and learn about how it involved shutting down several roads in busy Paris. There were also heaps of things to think about in terms of how postproduction would have been approached, how they went about achieving the concept of the duplication of everything at each chorus and the challenges they would have faced and the inconsistencies that can be seen in the final product.
This music video was something that at the time no one had really seen before and its concept and construction was something that fascinated, confused and excited a lot of people. I think this is what makes it so successful as it is something so different and as a result memorable and ultimately it is a piece of work that still leaves audiences having to really concentrate and think about the content even years later.
In order to create the desired effect with our artist appearing in silhouette and having our cool experiments making up exciting and colourful backgrounds, we were going to have to use a green screen. However, no one in our group had ever worked with green screen before so naturally, class this week presented the perfect opportunity to discover a bit about where exactly we had access to green screen facilities and how to use them – with the assistance of Rohan of course.
Three years in a Media course and I had never once been inside the green screen room in building 9! It was exciting to go inside for the first time and see how everything in there worked. We played around with getting the lighting right in order to be able to create our silhouette idea most effectively in post and took notes on which buttons to press, where to situate our artist, instructions to give them, where to set up the camera, what settings to film on etc. Having gotten everything worked our we even filmed a little of ourselves to ensure that we would have some footage to practice with to make sure that we would be able to produce the results we after in Premiere. With a quick play around below you will find what we managed to put together in order to present some form of visual example of ideas going into Thursday’s official pitch!
As explained in the previous progress post we have decided to use simple backyard/home experiments that involve different textures and colours in order to create content to use throughout our video. These videos would work as a background alongside the profile heads of the band.
Below is a video of me experimenting with very simple stuff to begin… food colouring with water and ice.
It’s amazing how in such a short space of time so much can be achieved. This week we certainly made significant development in terms of the content we would require in order to produce our music video for the Pockets and also started to begin forming some significant structure in the lead up to next week’s pitch.
As things stand we are hoping to incorporate the logo of the group into the video by using the profile heads that represent each member of the band and bringing them to life. We want to use this in combination with the interesting and engaging effects of some backyard science experiments which will provide interesting colour and textures to create the slightly psychedelic effect the we envision. We aim to break down the elements of the song so that we can coordinate different experiments and the visual effect they produce with a section of the music that it is best suited. Below are some of my notes made while brainstorming ideas during the week.
Backyard science experiments (potentially progress throughout the song), can look at varying speed and reversing play
Use the logo as a base to come back to throughout song, start simple and build with more heads, shapes, colours, movements
Potentially have the profile face’s mouths (of the logo) moving in some sections with the lyrics
One head represents each of the band members
Filming using green screen – have band member(s) heads in profile like in the logo and have them singing lyrics. Potentially use different props (hats, glasses, lollipops, windmills etc) to make the profile view more interesting and varied)
Next week we plan on experimenting with the green screen in order to see whether we are able to create the effect of isolating the profile heads of the band members. We plan to test this with each other and also see what kind of effect using the different props mentioned above could make.
This week in class we were required to present a short presentation on a music video of our choice. I think the biggest struggle of this whole task for me though was actually managing to select a music video to present on. Adding up the hours spent working on this task I would probably find the majority were spent watching countless videos of making mental pros and cons lists.
I did, however, eventually decide on a video to use. It was a song by the New Zealand group Naked and Famous called I Kill Giants; the director of the music video was Joel Kefali. The reasons for me finally deciding to go with this particular video included:
I found it incredibly beautiful. The location, the lighting, the dancers, the dance were all captivating
It was simple but engaging
I really liked the song
It was very different to all the other videos I had considered
I found myself wanting to watch it on loop
If you want to have a look the video can be found at the end of this post.
I really enjoyed this task, not only because it was an excuse to spend hours watching film clips on YouTube, but also because it was really interesting to watch and learn about the film clips that others in the class had selected. I found that I hadn’t seen most of the music video that people presented on and it was exciting to be exposed to new styles and to learn about how they were interpreted by my classmates.
The reading for this week was situated around the concept of narrative/non-narrative in music videos. Vernallis explains that music videos are more complex that being simply narrative or anti-narrative and their role of “underscoring the music, highlighting the lyrics and showcasing the star” is something that must be considered.
When I think of music videos that tell conventional stories, I am immediately reminded of 2008 when Taylor Swift released her music video to Love Story. Perhaps this was especially obvious given the song title and it being based on one of the most well known narratives in the world, but this was certainly a video where from start to end it portrayed the formation of a relationship between Romeo and Juliette.
I find Vernallis’ stating, “music videos most often do not embody narrative” to be true though as I agree that Taylor Swift and her videos of generally an exception. Many videos encompass elements of narrative, however, a lot of the time they leave much of their content up to the interpretation of the audience and are regularly more random than anything, representing a message or meaning as opposed to telling a story.
If anyone, like me, feels the urge to revisit 2008 and the Love Story music video, here it is below:
With this week’s “director in focus” being Anton Corbijn, as well as watching a series of music videos that he had created, we also were fortunate enough to have a class screening of his 2007 film, Control.
I had never seen the film, but was excited to be able to see some of Corbijn’s more recent work. I found the film to be beautifully shot and a very powerful portrayal of the life of Ian Curtis, who I learnt to be the lead singer of the 1970’s band Joy Division. Before watching this film I was unaware of Joy Division and the story of Ian Curtis, but despite having no prior knowledge, Corbijn’s film successfully engrossed me in the world of music at that time. Through Ian’s monologues I was able to gain insight into this character and Corbijn created a voice that expressed the pain and struggle that we imagine Ian would have experienced dealing with both epilepsy and mental health issues.
Despite not being a music video, this film still expresses the stories behind songs. Instead of providing small snippets of insight, however, it captures the bigger meaning surrounding the development of a group of artists.
Whoosh! And Week 1 of Music Video Production has been and gone!
So what did we achieve this week in terms of working towards our major assignment you may ask? And I mean, what even is our main assignment?
Well, by the end of this short summer semester the idea is that we will have sourced some appropriate talent and have produced an epic music video for them – but where do we even start in this whole process?
This week we were separated into small groups with classmates from all different background whom with we are to work with in order to create these music videos. Placed in a group of 5 people, we got to work right away throwing around potential ideas of musicians we might be able to contact, songs we could potentially uses and ideas and techniques we could experiment with. At the conclusion of week 1 we have:
Locked in a Band – Pockets
Locked in a Song – Ten Different Names
Brainstormed some potential ideas – thinking about the use of colour, shapes, animation, considering the different moods/feel to the song
Discussed consulting with the band in the coming days
Researched upcoming performances that are scheduled for the band – closest of which is 8pm Friday 8th Jan
Below you can listen to the song which we will be using for a our music video – Ten Different Names by Pockets
One of the first tasks we completed this week in class involved taking the idea of silhouettes and sunsets and seeing where this criteria could be taken in terms of producing a hypothetical music video.
This task obviously proved a fun way to get to know our fellow classmates, allowing us to establish some initial relationships with those we might be working with over the semester. For me personally, however, it did much more than just this. I felt that this particular task really helped kick start my brain into thinking like a filmmaker again. Throughout 2015 none of my courses were set around producing short films and it is definitely safe to say that I have been feeling a little rusty. Through this task we were encouraged to not only think about the creative aspects and ideas surrounding how we could take sunsets and silhouettes and produce a music video. I was reminded of just how many things need to be taken into consideration when producing something even small scale and began to again familiarise myself with thinking creatively and realistically simultaneously.
In this one short exercise I was able to remember things like location, food, legalities, transport, budget, equipment, extras, weather, makeup, costume, lighting etc. which are all imperative to consider in any production.
Although our 20 minute creation of the silhouette of a band playing in front of a sunset on the beach might have been short lived, practicing this way of thinking was a valuable exercise if we are to be successful in producing our own music videos within a short 6 week timeframe.
Although this subject is focused around ultimately producing a music video, I really see opportunity throughout the course to reinforce and in expand on some of the skills I have learnt throughout my degree. With music video production making up the final credit points required in my entire Bachelor of Communications (Media) degree, I feel that it provides the perfect opportunity to test out some of what I’ve leant over my three years studying. It is exciting to think that we are going to be able to produce something for a real client and being able to experience working for a client before going out into the real world myself will be an extremely valuable experience.
I have made several short films as part of various subjects throughout my time at RMIT and during this course I really hope to expose myself to areas of production that I have shied away from in the past. I know that it can be easy to allow others who are more comfortable with or have more experience with certain aspects to take over, but I really want to take the opportunity over this summer to learn more about the things I am less familiar to enable myself to develop a wider range of skills.
Ultimately, I am really excited about taking this course, not (only) because it marks the beginning of the end of my degree, but because it provides the perfect platform to experiment and showcase what I have learnt. With week one already complete, and so much already accomplished I am ready for whirlwind that will undoubtedly be summer semester and I can’t wait to see what comes out of it!
