Music Video Planning

The planning for my music video has gone through multiple changes in regards to music selection and themes. I was given the opportunity to create a music video for a students band, however decided not to do so due to feeling as though it would alter the creative direction I wanted to go in. Initially I had intended to shoot a music video to a different Kanye West song titled 'Fade' feat. Post Malone and Ty Dolla $ign. I felt as though a Kanye West song would be a good starting point as I knew I wanted to create a video with a lot of energy and also felt that picking a bold artist such as Mr. West would make my video somewhat distinctive from my peers'. However, upon picking this electronic/dance influenced song I quickly became aware of many potential difficulties.

The first problem being the multiple instances of profane language. While I believe it adds to the authentic expression of emotion within the song, I knew that the video would be potentially viewed by future students and parents/guardians of such that could find it off-putting and offensive. While this was not necessarily the deciding factor upon why I ditched the song, as I considered censoring these instances, the song also seemed to be too repetitous and not substantial enough to justify its length. I felt as though the video could risk becoming somewhat boring because of this.

Finaly, after having imagined visuals that I desired to see in my video, I beleived that the pace and feeling of the song did not match this and so therefore decided to drop the song from the process. Unfortunately this wasted some otherwise useful time I could've spent developing my current idea. Swifty, I tried to search for an alternate song ranging from the likes of Daft Punk, Radiohead, Arcade Fire and even Death Grips to no luck for a few days. That was until I stumbled upon another Kanye West song titled 'Guilt Trip' from his 2013 album Yeezus. This song is very erratic and digital in nature and so I therefore plan on producing visuals combined with editing techniques that suit these qualities. After listening to the songs synth instrumental, the image of ferrofluid, a fluid containing a magnetic suspension, came to mind. I had previously seen the fluid used in the incredible opening title credits to David Fincher's remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and more recently in Lady Gaga's Fame perfume ad campaign. 

I have chosen the idea of procrastination as a theme for the video (a subject I know only too well!) and a sence of escapism from reality via different experimental methods. It's the methods in particular that I want to keep unconfirmed due to their problematic nature, so this is one reason as to why my video will be experimental in nature; to both imply but not necassarily confirm the meaning behind some shots. I also strongly feel that this theme would suit a lot of my desired imagery as it is will be primarily shot from a first person perspective. To expand upon this, I plan on manipulating a lot of my imagery in Adobe After Effects in order to give the illusion of an altered reality.

Inspirational overlay editing technique in Locke

In regards to editing, I plan on overlaying some imagery in the style of the instances in the film Locke starring Tom Hardy (left). This display of two separate images can create a sense of the distortion of time and space - an effect that I hope to achieve within the audience as though they were experiencing the escapism for themselves.

First makeshift attempt at
filming the oil.

A couple months ago, I helped my friend (a Foundation Art student at my college) shoot some footage of flowing oil and ink in different liquids in order to achieve a psychedlic asthetic. I used the college equipment such as a macro lens, tripod and Canon 650D to capture the close up imagery and later incorporated this into a video demonstrating editing visuals to music. After seeing the huge potential of shooting and editing psychedelic art to music, this has now become a basis for my video's imagery.


Once I have shot some of the video, additional ideas may come to mind as it starts to take shape.
I plan to shoot in as high of a shutter speed as possible to ensure I can slow down any footage without compromising 25fps in post-production if the need arises.