Lo4 - Evaluation

I have created an audio visual for a Sheffield-based, indie band named 'The Stoops'. Who I became in contact with through Sheffield Hallam University's events management department. Because of this, we had access to film in a studio / showroom that was funded by Sheffield Hallam, used by their events and art students. Because our client was a genuine band who we're looking for a serious music video, it was important for me that the audio visual promo was of a professional standard and met all the necessary codes and conventions of both the indie genre and music videos in general, meaning the mise-en-scene, quality, and narrative had to be perfect. Because of the lyrics and theme of the song being about wanting to escape a relationship and have fun being single, our approach to the music video was originally to include both a narrative and performance based scenes in order to tell the story of the lyrics. However, since our band members were in their 30's, some with kids and some too busy with work, this wasn't going to work for them. Meaning, we had one day to film - resulting in us having a solely performance based music video, which despite sometimes being a little repetitive, is very conventional to the indie genre. The audio visual had two purposes, one, to entertain the audience, and two, promote the band and their music. Originally, the band were going to upload the music video to their YouTube channel however they were so happy with it that they also uploaded my version of the video to their Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Re-assuring me that I met their expectations.


The music video was shot using Canon DSLR cameras, which are of extremely high quality. The fact that we were able to use these cameras benefited the outcome of our music video highly as good quality visuals connote a high-budget production and therefore also professionalism, making the audience want to watch the video as we're stereo typically enticed by luxury products and believe them to be better when made by professionals in the industry. We also used professional equipment such as tripods and a slider again to ensure that our video was up to professional standards. During filming we got some amazing scenes however we were faced with a problem when we realised that the studio lighting automatically went through a cycle of different lighting effects when trying to change to alternate the lighting between spotlights and multicoloured, moving lights. In this cycle one of the settings wade the room pitch black and others had very little lighting. Contrastingly, other settings flooded the room with extremely bright lights to the point where the cameras couldn't pick up the faces of our band members. The lights changed too quickly for us to alternate the camera settings in order to capture the right amount of light, consequently leading to many clips being unusable as they're either too dark or too bright. In order to overcome this issue during editing, I changed the individual colour effects of each clip, lowering the brightness and increasing the contrast if the scene was too bright, and doing the opposite to scenes that were very dark. The inclusiveness of a range of different shot types was also extremely important since our music video was purely narrative based, meaning we had to include a range of different shots and angels between jump cuts and transitions to the beat in order to create a catchy, entertaining video. Therefore we ensured that we brought three different cameras and back up batteries, making the band perform the song around 6 times and using different angels both manually and on the tripod each time. During filming it was hard to avoid getting some of our team members in the clips as we were both walking around filming, this was a huge inconvenience as we weren't able to use many clips because of it. In the future I'dd ensure that we had a set plan as to where and what scenes we were each going to film so that we knew to stay out of each others way.

Again, because our music video was solely performance based, the editing played a dominant part in making the video look professional and conventional to the indie genre. In my original first draft, I was going to leave the original colour of the clips within the video and hadn't included any special effects, sound effects or titles. This first draft didn't satisfy me and I would have felt disappointing sending it to my client as it didn't include anything special or especially conventional to a music video considering effects and editing. After gaining feedback through a survey I sent out, despite knowing that this wasn't the final product, I realised that I needed to use all these elements in order to create both a visually appealing and entertaining audio visual for my audience and client. Therefore I decided to make changes from my previous version by firstly changing the colour of the entire video to black and white. Since, a monochrome denotation is very conventional to the indie genre due to it connoting darkness and feeling down, which are popular subject matters within this genre. I thought by using this colour I'd be making my video look more professional and realistic. However, despite the video looking better than my previous, I found that the use of this effect was again very boring as it made the video look the same throughout in a way hat was boring. I also added a title to this video that occurred through an animation and stayed on the screen during the first four seconds of the first clip, I thought that this looked appealing however it is also quite random how the title is on it's own separate blank screen and the also occurs at the beginning of the music video. I added sound effects such as the sound of footsteps, which I got from a website called free sound.com, I also got sound effects of microphone feedback and a buzzing noise that is typically heard before you plus a guitar into the amp. I really liked these sound effects as they helped tell more of a story and overall made the beginning scene more appealing to watch. However this version doesn't include any SFX. Overall I wasn't happy with my second draft.

In the final version of my music video I decided to change the colour from black and white to have a cool toned, contrasted wash over it. I decided to use colour in a grunge and dark way in order to meet the conventions of the indie genre. I used the three-way colour, to enhance the blue tones within the shadows, midtones to enhance the green tones in the video and highlights to enhance the warm red tones. I did this because not only would it create a cool contest in highlights and low-lights but I also watched a music video called 'Kathleen' by Catfish and The Bottlmen which had an old-school, 3D red and blue effect on it, which I thought looked really appealing and 'indie'. I also increased the contrast and decreased the satiation to get a stronger opposition between tones without making the video too colourful. I think doing this creates an overall professional, defined denotation rather than purely indie based. I think it was a good idea to do this as in my two previous drafts the colour was boring throughout, however because I enhanced different ones throughout the video the aesthetic of the video was much more appealing and enjoyable to watch. 

I also changed the title scene in the video tube on it's own blank screen as I thought the fact that the title also previously carried on playing during the beginning scene looked un-proffesional like I didn't;t know what I was doing. I also added the sound effect from freesound.com of a crowd talking and let that carry in playing during the title scene to build tension towards the start of the song and reinforce that the band were playing in a live studio. Lastly I added SFX such as the 'additive dissolve' and 'non-additive dissolve' transitions as they made two separate clips merge into one another before completely transitioning, which I think gave a visually appealing and conventional indie denotation as it allowed to viewer to denote both the drummer and the lead singer at the same time, reinforcing the unity of their band and genre. I also think this transition was ideal for my music video as I used other effects such as the 'echo'  which created a ghost like / merging effect. Therefore both effects complimented each other well. 

When I received by feedback on the first draft I was informed that the silent introduction of my music video made the viewer feel bored and confused as to what was happening. So I thought that it was important to create an atmosphere and add to the realism of the introductory scenes using sound effects. The sound effect of the crowd talking also helps reinforce the target audience of my audio visual as you can hear young men and women, which is ideal as my target audience is of mostly males, partly females aged 16+. Hopefully my audience can relate to the people talking and therefore want to carry on watching as they could in-vision themselves watching this gig. I wanted to use a footsteps sound effect as not only was I told that this would make the video more entertaining to watch through feedback but I also wanted to add as many realistic sounds that were relevant to the scene i order to create a better atmosphere and allow the clips to make more sense. Since, you'd clearly be able to hear the band members footsteps if you could hear noises such as the crowd talking in the background. Lastly I added a xylophone static sound effect to act as the buzzing noise that occurs when you play an electric guitar into the amp. This effect helped reinforce the fact that the band were using instruments such as en electric guitar and keyboard, therefore connoting the genre of the audio visual to the audience. This sound also helps add to the realism within the scene as we also hear other noises such as the crowd taking and the footsteps of the band members. This noise is something that people who play an instrument will be fairly similar with, which many indie fans do. Therefore hopefully allowing the audience to relate.

Throughout the process of making my music video I was in contact with my client, expressing my concerns for the video and asking him what preferences he had, but he always told me to take the initiative and do what I thought looked best. Which I'm now really happy that I did, since my client is in love with the video, which was what I was aiming for. I think that my music video met the codes and conventions of the indie genre as the shot types and angles used connoted the band in a way that made them look fearless and dominant. For example many dutch angels were used in order to make the band look edgy as the twisting movement of the camera connotes uncertainty shown in that the band are spontaneous and 'dare devils', a stereotype conventional to the indie genre. I also think that the music video met the conventions of a professional music video due to the quality being exceptional in most clips, however some of them are a little grainy due to me having to zoom some of them in to position the band in a conventional way. However this created a distorted looking effect which is conventional to the indie genre regardless. If I could do the whole thing over again I would ensure that we went to the studio previously in order to figure out how to use the lighting correctly as we had no one to show us on the day, and I'd take a wider range of shot types of the singers face from the front rather just showing his mouth on the microphone. Overall i'm really happy with the music video and have learnt a lot about editing and what I can create using software throughout this project.