Initial Idea Development

 Initial Idea Development

I've chosen to change the song for my music video. Starman was too upbeat to fit the brief so I've chosen to switch to I Want it That Way by the Backstreet Boys. With this new song I can rely more on on-site shooting rather than the idea of creating the environments and effects in post.

I will draw inspiration from popular Boy Bands such as One Direction, The Vamps and the Beatles. This song will allow me to feature a group of people all moving around the scene and directly addressing the camera, something which was not included in my idea for the previous song.

That's What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction is a key exsmple of modern boyband music videos. The way that the band is moving around a scene in casual clothes suggests a candid nature, developing the false relationship that fans feel when seeing the members believing that they know them from their band personas. The personas of each member is also reflected by the conventional breaking off that they do when singing their own part of the song, each acting differently to create unique identities for fans to choose a favourite, creating engagement with the band and other members of the fandom. The footage of the members singing along to the song is broken up frequently with candid moments of them doing activities and close up shots of girls, linking to their teenage boy girl-crazy identities.

Somebody to You by The Vamps featuring Demi Lovato is a similar music video showcasing a band in a beach setting 

Music Video Test Footage

 Music Video Testing

For my music video I want to utilise computer generated imagery to create impressive and interesting visuals/ scenarios that would be difficult with practical effects on no budget. To experiment with my current preferred song for my NEA I have created a 30 second test of a scene I would like to remake at a much higher standard if I were to continue with this current idea.

The test footage was created in an extremely short space of time, using many pre-existing assets sourced from the website Sketchfab. The 3D scenes were created in Blender, using the built in particle system to create the rough thruster effect. For performance reasons additional effects such as motion blur were not included while rendering and bloom was not present in certain shots. If I were to redo these shots I would make sure that all objects are highly detailed and that I am achieving a visually appealing end result rather than prioritising time like I did for this previsualisation (pre-vis).

To break up the shots of the main narrative of the video I will splice in footage of the music being played, similar to the music video for Aerosmith's 'I Don't Want to Miss a Thing'. For my test I recorded various angles of my friend Seth playing the guitar in his room. I turned the lights off and made his television screen only show the colour red so the only light casted on him would be the red light, creating a dark , gloomy atmosphere. I later on changed the colour of the shots in post in DaVinci Resolve by adjusting the Hue of the clips in the 'Color' tab.

Here is a screenshot of one of the shots of the rocket towards the beginning of the test in Blender. You came see the placement of the camera in the scene as well as the path that the rocket object is following. The view of the camera is visible in the window on the left. A small window displaying the rendered view of this shot can be seen below.

Here 

is a screenshot of the timeline for the edit of the test. I used multiple video tracks to make sure I could layer clips to easily adjust the duration of each clip so they would flow into each other better and align with the timings of the music.

To achieve the rough look of my face appearing in the astronaut's helmet I set up a model of an astronaut sitting in a cockpit I had previously modelled and applied a material to the visor part of the helmet that appeared a bright green. In DaVinci Resolve I then used the chroma key effect to select the green area of the helmet and make that region transparent allowing me to place the footage of my face in a layer below it, also placing a layer of a bronze texture between the helmet and face layer to replace the visor that was lost when given a different material and also help make the face look as if it belongs on the body better.

Intertextuality

• First person shot of looking around following a large white flash- similar to Assassins Creed (2007)
• The placeholder ship used for the alien ship is a star destroyer from the Star Wars original trilogy
• Shot of face in space helmet is similar to Dave Grohl in 'Next Year' by the Foo Fighters
• Rocket sequence shares similarities to the Apollo 11 launch

Music Video NEA Idea Inspiration

 Music Video NEA Idea Inspiration

Music Videos

The Music Video for Chris Hadfield's cover of Space Oddity is iconic. The video shows many different shots of Hadfield playing along to the music whilst floating around inside the International Space Station. This is the first music video to be shot in space, with previous videos with sci-fi elements using CGI to achieve their look.

Aerosmith's 'I Don't Want to Miss a Thing' splices together clips from the film 'Armageddon' and the band playing the music. I want to employ a similar technique in my music video of cutting between the main action and shots of the music being played to help better link what's being shown on screen to the music.

'Next Year' by the Foo Fighters uses stock footage of the Apollo 11 launch and footage of the band playing astronauts as if they were the ones on the Apollo 11 mission. The first act of the video specifically stood out to me with the frequent closeups of Dave Grohl's face through the space helmet showing his expressions as I want to use similar ideas in my music video where the idea of wonder and excitement must come through to the audience.

Film and Video Inspiration

'SOLSTICE - 5' is an online series on YouTube using the 3D software Blender to create incredibly detailed sci-fi scenes at a huge scale. For my music video I want to try using Blender to create epic sci-fi scenes to match the theme of the lyrics of an alien coming down to earth.

Star Wars as a whole will be a large influence for this idea as it revolves around spaceships and interaction between alien species. However, I'd like to focus more on the ships aspect mostly from Star Wars creating shots similar to the opening scene of Episode IV, A New Hope.

 NEA Initial Ideas

Music Video Brief

Pros

• Larger creative freedom
• Can use different programs to achieve various effects
• Taste of filmmaking
• Develop video editing skills

Cons

• Time consuming
• May require reshoots
• Effects may not be executed to a high enough standard to appear visually impressive
• Editing relies on competency of the machine being used
• Restricted to a pop ballad

Song choice ideas

• As the World Caves In - Matt Maltese

-slow

-powerful

-intertextual links to 'Fallout'

• Starman - David Bowie

-space epic

-alien visits earth

-rocket sequence for astronaut to reach visitors

-colourful space sequences

• Here Comes the Sun - The Beatles

-stop motion

-nature oriented

-calm, peaceful

• welcome and goodbye - Dream, Ivory
• There Is a Light That Never Goes Out - The Smiths
• Exit Music (For A Film) - Radiohead
• Where'd All the Time Go? - Dr. Dog
• Butterflies - Iluvmsj, willoh
• Lover, You Should've Come Over - Jeff Buckley
• Cherry Wine - grentperez
• Space Oddity - David Bowie
• Something In The Way - Nirvana
• meant to be - bbno$
• No Surprises - Radiohead
• What Would I Do? - Strawberry Guy
• I Want It That Way - Backstreet Boys
  
  
  
  

Magazine

Pros

• Less time consuming than a music video
• Aligns with typical conventions of magazines allowing for plenty of inspiration
• Photoshoots can be done relatively quickly with a plan in mind

Cons

• Restricted to photo and text rather than video