Music Video Questionnaire

In order to gain an understanding of what audiences wanted to see in a music video, I created a quantitive questionnaire and gave it to each student in my class. The questionnaire garnered a mixed bag of results and in general I did not find it to be very helpful in the creation of my video. However, in some instances such as when they were asked whether they preferred fast and energetic or slow paced music videos, the majority of the group (72%) answered that they preferred a mixture of the two. Fortunately I had already made plans to use a mixture of shot lengths and alternating speeds of on-screen movement. But on the other hand, this feedback did get me thinking about how important making sure the visuals matched the pace of the music was in terms of the videos overall effectiveness. Pacing can be one of the most important aspects to consider when producing a music video as otherwise you could run the risk of losing your audiences interest. While editing I still had to re-cut scenes in my video a few times in order to improve the pace. I found it somewhat difficult to edit some of the footage such as that of the ferrofluid. This was due to its rather slow nature in comparison to the portion of the song I wanted to use it in. To overcome this problem I sped 

The participants were also asked about their favourite music video and why they enjoyed it. This gave me the following responses:

1. The 1975 - A Change of Heart because of the intertextuality and the references to previous songs and music videos.  And also it has dancing clowns.
2. One direction - History. I think the difference between the narrative and performance.
3. Bts-I need U (19+ ver.) because so much happens it's more than just dancing and singing, it tells a story and it's a little bit scary. 
4. L$D - Asap Rocky. (No explanation)
5. Honey - Moose Blood. Because I like how it has a narrative, how the artists make an appearance and how it's almost parody-like 
6. Michael Jackson - Thriller. The story, performance, and costume.
7. Alt-J - Every Other Freckle. Because it gives a very loose narrative but is very experimental 
8. Chico - Chico Time. Inspirational.
9. Michael Jackson's - "Thriller". The zombies dancing, Michael's charisma, the song itself, the cinematography, playfulness.

Most of the responses above listed the inclusion of a narrative as one of the reasons for their music video choice. However, I have already decided upon and planned to not shoot a plot driven sequence, instead opting for a more symbolic and experimental piece. I believe the reason for the interest in narrative is that it makes the audience eager for answers. The anticipation of a conclusion to a complication allows the audience to become invested. Often the music video narrative will mirror and pay homage to a genre of film. A widely recognised example being Michael Jackson's "Thriller" of which is heavily inspired by horror films and was even directed by horror director John Landis. 

In order to gain a good, solid understanding of what audiences want from a music video, I decided to create a questionnaire and send it to the other students in my class to fill out. This method of research is called quantitative, as it relies on facts and figures, whereas the other methods of research were more qualitative, which  produces more varied and in depth results. Quantitative research methods are more structured ways of getting information and they produce solid information in a formal, often numerical manner.

The purpose of the questionnaire I created was to gain an insight into what an audience prefer a music video to include and to find out their thoughts and opinions. 

I had hoped that my questionnaire would provide me with lots of data that would help inform my work and give me some ideas and inspiration, however, this proved not to be necessarily the case. This is because not all of the answers I received from the questionnaire were in as much detail as I would have liked, with some of the replies being very short. Another reason why I did not get the quality of information that I had hoped for could have been due to the fact that a lot of the questions had multiple choice answers and some people may have found it difficult to choose an accurate answer, or even didn't have an answer that reflected their own opinion at all. As a result of this, I believe that the reliability of my results may be questionable, but I am glad I conducted this method of research because it gave me some idea of what kind of video audiences enjoy watching. 

Music Video Edit Decision List

Music Video Evaluation

Music Video Evaluation

Pre-production
Intended to shoot some moving ferrofluid. Inspired by The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo opening title sequence. This sequence has a gothic horror vibe to it. The fluid is evocative of death and aliens.
Footage of fluid moving, ink, oil and glitter/acrylic paint in water.

I ultimately decided upon Guilt Trip by Kanye as I felt it best suited the visuals I had in my head.
I desired to have a one-point-perspective shot from the front view of my car travelling along the A5 towards Dordon. I had travelled a lot down this road in the past year while visiting my close friends who all live there. Seeing the beauty of this road often, I knew this was going to be a desired shot long before we started the music video unit.
I wanted to make a piece that had some connection to my experiences over the last year.
The song is about trying to figure out why his relationships have gone wrong. I see the video as an expression of escapism from reality.

Production
I carried out three separate shoots of a mixture of fluids. I purchased some ferrofluid and borrowed a couple magnets from the physics department. In order to carrying out some more diverse experiments I tried to extract some fluorescent fluid from some glow sticks. However, that proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated and I didn't have enough time to go to plan B which was to extract and melt down some highlighter fluid. So instead I decided to just shoot the ferrofluid on its own and fortunately I think the footage turned out better than I had anticipated regardless. I attached the GoPro to the front grill of my car using a car attachment I bought offline. We went to Earls Shilton skate park with A2 student Cal Dawson. I was told by a friend that he was a proficient at skateboarding so I decided to get in touch to see if he could be apart of the video. I tested out the attachment prior to installing the GoPro to ensure it would be safe to use while driving.

Post-Production
I decided to go with the 2.35:1 anamorphic aspect ratio to give the piece a cinematic quality. The one point perspective of the road shot transitions into the light vortex well. it goes with the line: "I'm losing my... Im living my..."- these lyrics convey a story or purpose behind the visuals. The flashing psychedelic liquid sequence was inspired by West's own video for his other song 'All Of The Lights'. The overlay of the imagery was inspired by the editing of Locke starring Tom Hardy. I see the purpose of the video as a response to a guilt trip - when someone tries to make you feel guilty for thinking/feeling/doing things a certain way. Its a visual representation of the act of taking illicit substances in an attempt to escape feelings of guilt and existential worries. During editing, I wondered if the lack of a close-up to create an attachment to a central figure was missing. However I think the result is instead a video that makes it seam as though it were from the audiences own perspective. I wish in heinsight I had used a two camera setup as it would then have had the opportunity to be viewed in 3D via a VR headset, making it a more immersive experience. The ferro fluid footage was actually edited the same colour hue as the fluid seen in David Finchers title credits.

Music Video Editing

"Guilt Trip" Music Video

Guilt Trip Unofficial Video by ethancoledelaney

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.