Within this music video I had numerous roles, I worked closely with Lauren throughout pre-production, production and post-production. We decided to divide all the jobs evenly to make it quicker and easier.
For pre-production we completed all tasks together (excepting one or two.) We both collaborated on costume design as we knew we both had to be on the same page with the direction the video was going, this meant we both went shopping for all costumes and props together. The only character that I designed wholly by myself was the cat. I knew id be the one painting it so I researched design myself. We both completed all forms necessary for pre-production ( Call sheets, location recces, health and safety and contingency plans) together but with storyboards and proposals, they were done separate. We took parts of the audio visual script and broke the scenes down between us so we were creating the storyboard for each part equally. The only other thing I did separate was the annotation of the lyrics.
During production I was on camera, director and a make up artist. I also participated in a few scenes as a dancer. There became a routine of if I was in a scene Lauren would take over on Camera and film, and vice versa. For a few scenes I had to go do the make up for a few characters so Lauren became Director and Cameraman. For the most of it I was directing whilst being on camera as Lauren had to be in the scenes. I found this challenging but in a good sense. I enjoyed it.
As with the majority of the work, the editing was split between us. Lauren would edit the parts that were her strength e.g. transitions whereas I would edit the sound and sync up the lyrics. When Lauren was absent, I would edit and contrariwise with herself.
I believe that my communication on this project was of a good standard. At times it became essential. I was able to secure actors for this, free props from certain places and I managed to gain gels for the lighting on location. When directing communication was the key way of ensuring the shoot flowed without a hitch. I guided the actors through the scenes and helped them with blocking. The blocking aspect of the shoot also meant I had to ensure the cameraman knew exactly what was about to happen and where to position herself.
There were numerous "speed bumps" that we hit. The first being the reliability of the actors, the first person we had secured for the lead had to pull out due to family issues. Fortunately we had a contingency plan in place and was able to replace her straight away so it didn't interrupt a planned shoot. Another problem we had was trying to find a day where all of our actors could film but this was solved relatively quickly as we were ready to film earlier than most people giving us that advantage of filming during the holidays where most people were available. We did have to plan the shoot around the times people would arrive though as most had to leave early or couldn't get on set till after they had finished work. It was a challenge but we saw it more as a learning experience.
The main problem we had came from editing. We had finished filming earlier than anyone but for weeks we had to sit on hours of footage as the programme used to edit wasn't working properly. For the first week we couldnt view footage as the lag on Adobe Premier was bad. The second week wasn't much better either. On the third week we managed to view some clips but it was hard to mark in and out as the lag meant clips were showing at 3 second jumps. Meaning it took about half an hour just to edit a 5 second clip. Another problem arose in the form of zooming on Premier. For some reason it decided to zoom in on each of the clips, we eventually solved the problem but it meant we lost another session in editing. The final cut did consist of over 107 individual clips so this was probably why it was running so slow.
Personally the main success of this project would have to be filming in the small amount of time that we did. Originally when we told people of our idea they were skeptical that we were going to get a big idea done in time. We filmed in two days and I believe this is an achievement because we had to film enough scenes to last a song that was over 5 mins long but on top of that it wasn't a straight forward story. Another success is finding all the costumes and creating the characters we did whilst trying to create that intertextual link with Alice in Wonderland.
Originally we intended to create a video that was of the "Home Video" style by using different shots that were either 16:9 or 4:3, we didnt do this but we did create the style by having some grainy shots. This was created by the lights used in the room. We put pink gels on the main light and it caused the camera to film in a grainy style and we loved it.
We also wanted more characters but this wasnt possible due to casting issues. We did still manage to keep some main characters from Alice in Wonderland though; The White Rabbit, Alice, The cat, Tweedledee and TweedleDum in the form of dinosaurs and Absolem.`
If I were to redo this brief I would still stick with the same idea but make the party scenes animated. This would have made it less reliant on actors and cheaper to pull off. I'd keep the scenes of Alice waking up but whenever she was in the living room or kitchen I would have made them animated. It would have kept the storyline the same and still give characteristics of the EDM genre. It would have been easier to show Alice "Tripping" as well. It would have made shooting longer but editing easier. To do this though I would have needed much more time in pre-production.
We showed this video to numerous people to gain their opinion. One of the criticisms we had was that the intro was too long and could have just cut to where the lyrics have begun. This isn't something I would take into consideration though as the EDM/ House genre isn't about short tracks, I wanted to keep the track at its 5:27 minutes length as that's the duration House tracks are meant to be. If I cut it down I wouldn't believe that I was being true to the conventions of the genre. They also said it was confusing that the main character was a girl but it was being narrated by a mans voice, again it adds to the "trippy" effect of the video so I wouldn't change this. Another criticism was they would have liked to see more characters. This is something I agree with but as previously stated, I couldn't do.
Positive comments about the video is that they liked the unusual storyline of the video and could see how it would appeal to the genre. The editing was also done well with transitions and it cut to the beat perfectly.
The key skill I have developed in this production is communication. For the first time I had to direct a large group of people whilst making sure it went smoothly. I also had my first experiences of bartering for props, trying to bring production costs down.
I also learned skills in creative thinking. The whole thing started from reading a few lyrics and trying to create a storyline to a story about a modern day Alice in Wonderland. We filled a video with semiotics and hidden metaphors along with intertextuality in order to appeal to the conventions of a genre, and I think we achieved that.
My teamwork skills improved as well. By dividing the tasks we were done with pre-production in next to no time.
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