Creative Media Reflective Journal - Infinite Sky: May 2014

Accepted Proposal for Negotiated Study Two:
Music Video ‘Progress’

For Negotiated Studies Two I will create a 3 – 4 minute, non-narrative music video. The featured music will be a minimalist techno track entitled ‘Progress’ composed by electronic music producer Ashley Hewitt. This track is currently scheduled for general release over the summer of 2014 and my film will comprise the official video to accompany its release.

Rationale/Working Statement:

Even within an urban setting, the human is still subconsciously influenced by the wild, natural world of which they are a part. In this project I will create an original video that delivers this powerful message whilst conveying the atmosphere, mood and rhythm of the track with which I am working.

Aims:

Exploiting the tension created by narratives that are visually contrasting, yet thematically connected represents a challenge that will be productively explored through the medium of this high quality, entertaining and thought-provoking music video. The music for this film will be provided by Leeds-based techno and house producer Ashley Hewitt who composes electronic dance music. The completed film will be the official music video accompanying the commercial release of this track and comprise part of my graduation showreel.

Details/Content:

This will be a predominantly non-narrative music video incorporating live footage, still images and animation that explores the unseen connection between human activity within a city environment and the rhythms and appearances of nature, mainly through the juxtaposition of urban and rural scenes. The point of this is not to draw a direct comparison between the relative merits of either lifestyle, but more to demonstrate the existence of an underlying sympathy between them both whilst contrasting their differences.

The research for this project will take two forms: firstly in consultation with the artist himself, to ensure that the film meets the stylistic requirements of his work and reflects his personal aesthetic and secondly by examining relevant films and music videos in order to broaden my original concept and to provide me with a clear set of production values to aim for.

A work plan, an online client-related moodsheet and portfolio, a list of locations and key shots and a working storyboard will then be arrived at, together with a list of equipment and approximate (weather-related) shooting dates. This will allow me to keep track of my schedule and meet my deadlines.

Specific Skills:

To successfully complete this project I will need to liaise closely with the artist whose work I will be representing in the video during the initial consultation period. This will require good communication skills on my part and the establishment of an effective feedback system with the client.

In order to deliver a high quality product it will be necessary for me to broaden my film-making skills with regard to capturing compelling shots in both types of environment and to deepen my knowledge within the spheres of video editing and post production Adobe software.

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Introduction

Ashley Hewitt is a music producer who lives in Leeds; having already decided that I wanted to create a music video for my Negotiated Studies Two module, I contacted him during the summer of 2013 to ask if he would be agreeable to my creating such a video for any of his forthcoming tracks.

I explained that for the purposes of this project our relationship would be formalised as that of professional client and video designer/producer. Ashley said that he would be happy with this arrangement, adding that he was currently working on a minimal techno track - under the working title 'Progress' - for which he would like me to provide the official music video. He expected this track to be completed by the autumn and released in June 2014. He sent me a short sample from the unfinished composition to listen to and it was exactly the kind of track that I had been hoping to work with.

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Concept Development

Having obtained the initial go-ahead from Ashley, I then set about generating ideas for the music video. The theme of ‘town versus countryside’ has always been close to my heart and plays an important role in my life choices. Thirty-five years ago I relocated from a hectic existence in London to the peaceful mountains of North Wales in order to live a quiet life in contact with nature. Ashley meanwhile, having been brought up in Snowdonia, now prefers to live in a bustling city. Although I have been very happy living in the mountains, there are aspects of city life that I have always missed. Moving temporarily to Wrexham for study highlighted the fact that I enjoy occupying both worlds – albeit for very different reasons - and it is this experience of conflicting needs that inspired me to develop ideas for a video that would explore this dynamic for my Negotiated Studies Two project.

I began to develop ideas for the kinds of shots to include in this video by creating a spidergram:

I initially considered working with the idea of split screen. One side of the screen could show the countryside during the daytime – in which probably very little would happen - and the other a bustling city. During the night, the city would become more glamorous with artificial light and revellers going to clubs and pubs whilst the countryside screen would show a time-lapse of the stars and the moon. After giving this idea some consideration however I realised that it was not only lacking in subtlety but would also run out of steam fairly quickly.

A second concept that developed out of the first one was to concentrate entirely on the city, comparing specific views of it during the daytime – families shopping, people chatting in cafes or feeding birds in the park – with a much more menacing aspect of those same locations at night, dark figures lurking in alleyways and drunken brawls spilling out from pubs and clubs onto the pavement. I couldn’t however see a way to continuously interweave such shots without jolting the viewer and I had already explored the idea of going smoothly 'from day to night into the following day' in a previous time-lapse video.

A third idea was to contrast the gritty urban decay of city life with the serene calm of the countryside by means of a continuous flow of scenes going back and forth between the two. Such a video would be relatively straightforward to make, but wouldn’t actually offer very much by way of creative scope and on reflection I felt that the message would be too simplistic.

My final idea was to explore the way in which the rhythms and movements of nature are echoed in the urban world without people noticing - even though the life of the city-dweller generally feels very disconnected from anything natural - using judicious editing to imply subtle visual and associative parallels between the two.

This concept seemed to offer the greatest scope for creative investigation and at this point I created a second spidergram to explore the connections between these ideas in greater depth:

Using this spidergram as a guide, I began to compile a list of shots from rural and urban locations that would express these ideas (please see the 'planning' section of this blog further down for this shotlist).

As summer in the mountains is brief and I wanted to ensure that my footage of the countryside looked attractive and colourful, I also began capturing footage from the rural scenes listed in my shotlist during this time. It quickly became apparent however that the number of rural clips I could reasonably capture that would demonstrate 'natural movement' was limited to subjects such as flowing water, the effects of wind on the environment, the rising and setting of the sun and moon and the movement of insects and animals. In order to deliver an engaging viewer experience I realised that I would need to broaden the original concept. I therefore decided to also include footage which contrasted these two environments, as per my third idea. Doing so would not only make the video easier for viewers to understand and relate to, but would also enable me to edit the film using shorter, more dynamic clips, creating a more exciting viewer experience all round.

Having established the basic concept for the video, I investigated some of the methods by which ideas for a video treatment could be most effectively pitched and constructed a simple proposal that would clarify my ideas for my client whilst offering us both some flexibility regarding the actual content.

I then discussed this finished outline with Ashley by telephone and he responded with enthusiasm, saying that this was a set of ideas that he could relate to at a personal level and that the overall concept would gel with his track. Since I wanted to provide him with a video that would meet his needs as a professional musician, I also asked him at this time to start up a Pinterest page on which he could place items that he felt related to his personal vision for the track.

A few days after this telephone conversation, Ashley emailed me to confirm the commission and also sent me a link to the Pinterest Page he had created for the project.

Email Exchange with Client

From: ashleyhewitt@XXX
To: Sky@xxx
Subject: Video Request
Date: Sun, 15 Sept 2013 18:15:36 +0000

Hi Sky,

Further to our recent phone conversation I wish to request that you create a video for the track I have written entitled 'Progress'.

It is a minimal piece of Techno music. With this, I have in mind a video that reflects the compositional techniques used within this track.

I'm looking for a non-narrative video that reflects the fast pace and repetition of the track. It would be great if you could interpret this using visual elements that reflect everyday life in a mechanised manner, in the same way that the track uses musical elements that reflect contemporary music within a set rhythmic/melodic structure.

I look forward to discussing this in person when we meet up in February. I have added some shots to my Pinterest page which reflect the visual techniques which I would like to see implemented within the video. There is a link to my Pinterest here: http://www.pinterest.com/innerscapemusic/

Thanks

Ashley Hewitt

Subject: RE: Video Request
Date: Tue, 17 Sept 2013 12:21:21 +0000

Hi Ashley,

Thank you for your recent email with the link to your Pinterest page. The work you have posted there has provided me with a clear set of production values to aim for.

I have pleasure in attaching a brief for the proposed video, please let me know if this meets with your approval. In respect of this, I have already put together some footage of the countryside and hope to come up to Leeds towards the end of February 2014 to obtain footage of the city environment for inclusion in the video and also to speak to you in person regarding the videos and images placed on your Pinterest page, as doing so will assist me to gain a deeper insight into the overall design of the video.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Sky

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Infinite Sky Productions:

Proposal for Music Video – ‘Progress’

Proposal:

1.) Infinite Sky Productions will provide Ashley Hewitt with a 3:00 to 4:00 minute video produced in 16:9 HD MP4 format, to accompany the official release of Ashley Hewitt's electronic music track, currently known as 'Progress'.

The completed video is primarily intended for viewing on video sharing websites such as YouTube and Vimeo and the target audience is expected to fall mainly within the 16 to 35 age-group.

2.) The video will be completed and delivered by 05-05-14.

3.) Infinite Sky Productions will retain full copyright to all visual components of the film, whilst Ashley Hewitt will retain full moral, mechanical and distribution rights to the original track and combined track and video.

Proposed Content of Film:

Exploiting the tension created by narratives that are visually contrasting yet thematically connected, this will be a predominantly non-narrative music video that incorporates live footage, still images and animation in order to explore similarities between rhythms observed in nature and human activity within a city setting. This will be achieved through the rapid juxtaposition of urban and rural scenes, the point being not to draw a direct comparison between the relative merits of either, but to demonstrate the underlying sympathy between the two whilst exploring the nature of their contrasts.

Even within an urban setting, the human is still subconsciously influenced by the wild, natural world of which they are a part and your video will deliver this powerful message whilst conveying the atmosphere, mood and rhythm of your minimal techno track 'Progress'.

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It will be seen that the proposal above that I sent to Ashley is similar in content and layout to my Negotiated Studies Two Proposal shown at the top of this post. This is because the two documents were written at around the same time and then adapted for the purpose of each. Ashley approved the above proposal by telephone later in that week.

For the next stage of this project it was necessary for me to examine the contemporary context within which this music video would be placed, both from a cultural standpoint and also with regard to production values.

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The research I undertook during the development stage of this project was of two kinds: personal and client-based.

Personal Research

a) Non-Narrative Feature Films

1) Koyaanisqatsi

I began my research for this project by investigating the cinematography of two non-narrative films which I already knew to be relevant to my project in terms of their content, starting with ‘Koyaanisqatsi ’ - the first of three films in the Qatsi trilogy produced by Godfrey Reggio - a film that Senior Photography Lecturer Stewart Edwards had recommended to me for research, kindly lending me his own copy to watch.

Koyaanisqatsi – or ‘Life out of Balance’ in the Hopi language - was made in 1982. It was directed by Godfrey Reggio and Ron Fricke was the cinematographer in addition to being credited as a writer and a film editor. The sound track for this film was composed by classical minimalist composer Philip Glass and the lyrics used in the music are presented at the end of the film:

This film has no dialogue and the content consists entirely of lengthy shots of American landscapes and cityscapes, often from an aerial vantage point and utilising both timelapse and slow motion to describe the differing environments.

Fricke had to develop specialist techniques to facilitate the creation of such footage because at the time that this film was made, timelapse sequences were used far less frequently than they are in today’s digital age, where such subjects can be easily captured and processed using a DSLR camera and editing software.

The images for this film vary from long shots of clouds boiling over the Grand Canyon to close-ups of people in the city.

Still from Koyaanisqatsi

The overall message is one of quiet despair at the way in which human beings have lost touch with and desecrated their natural environment as a result of obsessed consumerism. It is a shocking and saddening film which has left an indelible impression on my mind.

Many of the sequences from this film resonated with the plans I was developing for my video, in particular the timelapse sequences of motorways both during daylight and at night, scenes of crowded streets and shots of clouds reflected in glass-fronted office towers; viewing this film has given me the opportunity to reflect on the best vantage points from which to capture such footage.

Still from Koyaanisqatsi

I also examined the editing and noted the ways in which Fricke moved from subject to subject, sometimes linking similar images – such as white cloud vapour and white waterfalls - and at other times using abrupt cuts to jolt the viewer.

I intend to try out these techniques when editing my own work.

Whilst this film is intense and slow-moving – it almost forces the viewer into acknowledging the message being offered – my own film will have a very much faster pace. I hope that I will still be able to convey the contrasts between the two environments at this rapid speed.

2) Baraka

The second non-narrative feature film that I investigated was Ron Fricke’s ‘Baraka’ – meaning ‘gift’ in Arabic - made in 1992 and described by Fricke himself as "a guided mediation on humanity."

I had owned a copy of Baraka on video for many years and it remains one of my favourite films. Fricke was not only responsible for the cinematography in Baraka but also the writing and direction, whilst the music was composed by Michael Stearns.

This non-narrative documentary explores humankind’s relationship with the sacred. Beginning with beautiful and tender footage of natural environments, the film then records people from many different nationalities and faiths conducting their religious observances. Halfway through the film the focus shifts to scenes depicting the destruction of natural habitats and footage of life within our oppressive urban dystopias, before returning to the quietness of the natural world as the stars turn slowly above the desert.

In many ways the ideas explored in Koyaanisqatsi reach their apogee in Baraka, both conceptually and in terms of sheer visual spectacle. The stage is broadened from the United States to twenty five countries over six continents and if human beings have fallen from grace in Koyaanisqatsi, they have merely lost their way in Baraka and the return path is clearly indicated. By the time that Baraka was filmed Fricke had fully developed the techniques of timelapse film and photography that he had begun in Koyaanisqatsi. In particular he had perfected his innovative use of motion-controlled cameras to create timelapsed tracking shots captured over the course of several hours or days. This broke new ground in cinematic technique at the time. His lingering style is still powerful but – with the exception of the final sequence – the shots are generally shorter than in those of Koyaanisqatsi and the overall pace of Baraka benefits as a result.

This film has a profound effect on me each time I view it. Several iconic scenes are worthy of particular mention within the context of my own project. The view of distant city traffic mechanically shunting across the street grids as night falls, the kecak performers in the ruined temple moving like leaves in the wind, the dazzling ceiling of The Mausoleum of Shah-e-Cherag h glittering like stars and the repeated use of the arch motif as a doorway offering a choice, are all ideas that I would like to re-interpret in this video. If I can connect emotional concepts, physical movements and abstract shapes with even a tenth of Fricke’s fluency I will be very pleased.

Featured below are four stills taken from Baraka: the kecak performers, the Mausoleum of Shah-e-Cheragh, two examples of Fricke's use of the archway motif and Screenshots from videos of the traffic sequences.

http://archives.artank.fr/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/baraka.jpg

http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2010/21/1274663893-baraka_34.png

http://vitogogola.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/800-large-baraka-blu-ray9.jpg


http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews42/baraka%20blu-ray/large/large%20baraka%20blu-ray8.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HChNMsqc3Cw

b) Music Videos

Having examined these two feature films I then investigated several IDM music videos in order to establish a clear sense of the current production values and techniques used. I also wanted to explore some of the methods by which video makers had undertaken the task of coherently connecting non-narrative visuals with music.

3) Nova Dream Sequence - ‘Dream #4’

The first video I looked at was Justin Paul’s film for Nova Dream Sequence’s acclaimed 2006 release ‘Dream #4’. According to the accompanying text on YouTube, this video was later included on the Motorola iTunes phone launch and was ‘shot on a very foggy night in Northern Liberties Philadelphia after several beers at the Standard Tap.’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FwkpUrz_OM

Nova Dream Sequence’s ‘Dream #4’

This is a jazzy, chromatic track set against a shimmer of fast, broken beats. The footage in the video - captured by Justin Paul & Tim Motzer - is highly stylised and consists of shaky, blurred and distorted clips of a man – possibly producer King Britt or ‘Nova Dream Sequence’ himself - walking down a deserted Philadelphia street at night. A blue filter has been placed over almost all of the scenes, presumably to tie them together in some way.

Still from Nova Dream Sequence’s ‘Dream #4’

The camera is held at unusual angles. It swoops and swerves and is frequently out of focus. The man’s walk appears to weave and we see him occasionally pauses to stare at oncoming traffic as though slightly bewildered. He remains unsmiling throughout the film and does not look into the camera lens at any point. The overall impression given by the video is that a tipsy camera operator is stalking the homeward meander of the depressed and inebriated protagonist.

I felt that this film was essentially a triumph of style over substance; some of the visual concepts could have been developed much further and thirty seconds into the film one had more or less seen everything it had to offer. The editing however was clean and well thought out and the disorientated and confusing images worked very successfully with the splintered nature of music track itself. The blue colourisation provided a strong motif, giving the movie a sense of cohesion that it would have probably otherwise lacked. This is an area that I will investigate further to see whether it can be applied to some of my clips.

4) Burial and Four Tet - 'Moth'

This video is titled ‘Burial & Four Tet - Moth (Official Music Video HD)’ but I don’t believe it is ‘official’ since only around two hundred copies of this dark, chill track were ever released on vinyl and most YouTube uploads of Burial’s sample-based tracks were taken down after large music labels flagged his work for copyright infringement. I can find no information about the creator/s of this video and can only assume that several parts of the footage - possibly all of it since the content is so disparate – have originated elsewhere and have then been edited together to form this one film. Despite this I have included it as part of my research because it is a lovely spectacle and a video I can watch over and again without becoming bored.

The video opens with an animated digital form reminiscent of the visualisations generated by Windows Media Player, which resolves into a figure of a wet dog shaking itself and a female dancer suspended in mid-air. A mirror effect is then applied to the footage resulting in abstract patterns that lead the viewer to clips taken from the 1988 feature film "Dark City" (1998) together with clips from other films that I have been unable to identify. The entire video is glitched to run a few frames forward and an equal number backward in time to the rhythm of the music. Extensive use is made of contrast and blur effects - I particularly liked the use of the mirror effect as a joining motif between clips that were very different in content and intend to experiment with this technique myself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxzPzfkXpWs

Burial & Four Tet 'Moth'

This video conveys the strange and unsettling nature of Burial’s track. The dark and mysterious mood evoked by the music is fully explored in the video, but whereas the nature of the track is introverted, the visual content expands from singularity to duality and eventually crowd scenes and night-lit cityscapes, creating a broad perspective which enhances the listening experience.

Still from Burial and Four Tet - Moth

Despite its apparent eclecticism it maintains a narrow set of stylistic themes and is non-narrative without becoming repetitious or dull. I feel this was achieved through the consistence with which the video effects were applied, which is something I now intend to apply in my own editing, to help tie the different clips together. I also would like to experiment with use of the mirror effect in Adobe Premier Pro to see whether it might have any application within my film.

5) The XX - 'Chained'

The rhythm of this predominantly vocal track from indie band The XX is unsettled at first and occasionally stutters whilst the two vocalists sing independently of one another about their failing relationship across a sparse musical background, as they do in many of their tracks. The official music video which accompanies this track is non-narrative to the extent that it is even unclear what one is looking at: a dun-coloured texture like the skin of boiled milk with rainbowed edges that gently ripples and flows in time with the music for the duration of the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD7IwXWfDW4

The XX - 'Chained'

These visuals and accompanying album artwork were created by graphic designer Davy Evans and comprise part of a larger body of work for the band. They were designed to provide the projected backdrop for live performances as well as online plays and as such they are completely abstract in nature. On his website Davy Evans describes these videos as:

Photography and moving image for the new XX album 'Coexist'. Visuals were created for each track for online presence and projections at live shows including Bestival 2012. All footage and photography has been created 'in camera' to mirror the organic sound of the record (Davyevans.co.uk, 2013).

Although the content of this video is not particularly interesting to watch for any length of time, I feel it is it is unfair to judge it too harshly because such work is probably not intended to provide entertainment but rather to create an ambience that reflects the music in the same way that production music in a film is meant to subliminally convey the atmosphere of a dramatic scene.

Songs by The XX generally explore the theme of dysfunctional relationships and this track is no exception. To the extent that these visual patterns provide a contrast to the emotion of the track this visual wallpaper works well enough, but I felt it eventually became distracting due to lack of variety.

http://davyevans.co.uk/index.php?/project/the-xx/

Image from Davy Evan's website showing the visuals on hand-held devices

Still from The XX - Chained

These misgivings aside, I liked Mr Evan’s use of a muted colour palette and the sense that the textures that I was looking at had some kind of organic origin. This is something that I could explore in my film where textures such as leaves or ripples on the surface of a lake are concerned. Such footage could then be contrasted with the harsh, man-made textures of buildings and roads.

6) John Hopkins - 'Open Eye Signal'

This official music video for London producer John Hopkin’s 2013 track ‘Open Eye Signal’ was directed by Aoife McArdle, who said of it:

The track is really special. I saw it as a singular, hypnotic journey that's almost endless. You get lost in it. I liked the idea of a city kid taking us on that journey... just one day suddenly deciding to escape his life and see more of the world in the only way he understands... via skateboard (McArdle, 2013).

It was the winner of Best Cinematography, and nominated for best alternative video and best colour grading at UKMVAs 2013.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q04ILDXe3QE
John Hopkins - 'Open Eye Signal'

This is a narrative video that features a young man played by skateboarder Chris Chann travelling through different environments in America. The viewer sometimes sees close ups of the protagonist’s face – mostly calm and expressionless although sometimes his eyes are closed in rest or his features suffused with bliss – but for the majority of the video he is seen in profile through medium long shots.

We watch him drift through leafy suburban neighbourhoods, derelict desert shanty towns, along the coast and down straight, empty highways.

Still from John Hopkins - 'Open Eye Signal'

Most of the scenery he passes appears true-to-life and fairly unremarkable, but near the beginning of the video he skates past a rolling tyre on fire and towards the end of the video he passes a man who appears unaware that the back of his jacket is burning. This repeated flame motif jars slightly within the context of the rest of the footage and I am not sure why its inclusion was considered necessary; perhaps it is intended to imply the surreal things one notices when young.

Still from John Hopkins - 'Open Eye Signal'

In the last sequence of the video the music becomes purely percussive and at this point he steps off his skateboard and walks past a shack on which the words ‘Everything must end’ are graffitied.

Still from John Hopkins - 'Open Eye Signal'

In the final scene we see him looking slightly desperate, back on his skateboard and clinging to the back of a truck driving away from this desolate area, implying that perhaps he had reached the point where he did need some adult help to re-orient himself in life.

This is a lovely video which asks the viewer to explore these environments with the same sense of detached curiosity as the teenager on his skateboard. Like much of McArdle’s work, the narrative is empathetic and accessible. There is a wonderful sense of freedom and adventure about this film and the cinematography by Steve Annis is thoughtful and well executed. The video has been subtly colourised throughout. Saturation has been slightly reduced and the magenta and cyan tones enhanced, giving the production a fresh, modern appeal.

Unfortunately the continuity is noticeably poor, which is slightly distracting. The young man begins his journey with a left black eye, only for it to swap over to the right eye a quarter of the way through. We are even offered a close up of the bandage around his left hand and wrist, despite the fact that the same bandage was clearly visible on his right wrist in the previous scene.

Still from John Hopkins - 'Open Eye Signal'- left black eye


Still from John Hopkins - 'Open Eye Signal' - right black eye

Still from John Hopkins - 'Open Eye Signal' - right arm bandaged

Still from John Hopkins - 'Open Eye Signal' - left arm bandaged

Such simple, obvious errors are surprising in a film of this calibre. These niggles aside, it is an enjoyable piece of work and highly evocative of the desire to explore the world that comes with one’s teenage years.

Some of the ideas presented in this film have helped clarify my own plans for the music video I’m about to make; the inclusion of clips that show my client Djing - and perhaps occasionally glimpsed as a lone figure within the broader setting of an anonymous and busy city - will help give my video a heart.

Research Experiment with Mirror Effects

Inspired by the use of the mirror video effect I saw used in the music video for ‘Burial & Four Tet – Moth’ during my researches, I investigated what could be done using Adobe Premier Pro and whether I could make use of this effect in my Progress video, possibly as a linking device.

I used a clip of an apple tree filmed through a rainy window to experiment on because I wanted to use a soft, organic shape rather than a harsh-looking man-made object. The effect allows one to set the mirror at any angle, so I began with one at 90 degrees, which chopped the footage in half horizontally. I then added a second mirror at 180 degrees, dividing the clip vertically. This combination was successful but I felt the edges of the screen needed something to balance all the activity in the centre. I therefore duplicated this track four times, scaled down each copy to 25% and placed one in each of the four corners, allowing the clip from which they had been copied to play in the ‘cross’ shaped space between them. The results of this experiment can be seen below, starting with the original, unaltered footage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxCd3joBjcI
Experiment with Mirror Effect

I really liked this effect and would one day like to make a video that utilises it. For the purposes of ‘Progress’ however I decided that it was not something that would add in any way to the video and therefore discarded it as an idea. The use of a startling and abstract effect such as this needs to be part of the early stages of the planning process and not something added in at a later point as a novelty.

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Client-Based Research

I conducted a telephone interview with Ashley on the 21st February 2014 to discuss with him the videos and images he had placed on his Pinterest page. A transcript of his comments together with my own notes are given below:

Client ‘Pinterest’ Telephone Interview 21st Feb 2014

Videos

In early February I began my researches for this project by examining the videos my client had pinned to his 'Progress' Pinterest Board. I then conducted a telephone conversation with him regarding their content, the purpose of which was to establish a clear idea of what it was about this selection that appealed to him and whether there were any particular elements that he wished me to emulate in the Progress video. At this point in the project the rural footage had already been captured and any opinions he expressed could only have been applied to the editing process. The city footage however had yet to be shot and therefore had the possibility of being tailored towards his expectations.

The first thing that struck me about my client's selection of videos was the fact that all three were in black and white, which worried me a little. Whilst I am open to the idea of working within a particular palette, I didn't feel that the video concept that we had already agreed upon would work in monochrome because although the city would appear gritty and harsh in black and white, the soft tones of the countryside would simply appear dull and drab, taking the message of the video in an entirely different direction.

When asked about this, Ashley replied that:

The three videos I've put up on the Pinterest page are all in black and white and they're visually minimalist, just like the minimalist techno music they're for. Black and white allows the viewer to consider the visual composition of the elements without expending too much effort on working out what those elements actually are, so it's kind of like wallpaper..it's a texture you're looking at, not a story. But as far as the Progress video is concerned I'm happy for it to be in colour, although it might be interesting if the colours were biased in some way, if that's possible?

Whilst were were talking I sent Ashley a link to Nova Dream Sequence’s ‘Dream #4’ to ask if this is the kind of treatment to which he was referring and he responded:

Yeah - having a single consistent strong colour correction can make sense as it ties everything together. However at the same time I can see that the colour correction was used to give atmosphere to mostly shoddy footage, whereas your footage is usually too high quality to do that to.

I then explained that because I had already processed the gamma, saturation and contrast levels in my footage of the countryside it would probably not be possible for me to apply an overall colour filter to the entire film without throwing up some odd results, but that I was willing to try to gear the city footage I had yet to capture towards his colour preferences. In order to obtain some idea of the colours he would like to see in this video, I therefore suggested at this point that I email an open-layered .psd file of a moodboard template for him to complete, together with instructions on how to fill the squares with colours of his choice in Adobe Photoshop. This template is based on the paper one that we used for a project in our first year at Glyndwr and I had found it such a useful resource that I created my own version that I have used for every video project since. Ashley's completed moodboard can be seen further down in this post.

I then examined each of the videos Ashley had placed on the Pinterest page in greater detail, beginning with the unofficial music video that YouTube user lesneveux had created to accompany Anthony Rother's haunting 2005 minimal techno track 'Art is A Technology'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t96pq45kJcE

Making use of no editing technique other than a threshold filter, lesneveux's hand-held video footage features passing industrial scenery viewed at an angle from within a vehicle of some kind, presumably a train carriage.

Still from the video for Anthony Rother’s ‘Art is a Technology’

The footage is looped so that towards the end of the film one becomes aware of having seen these particular clips earlier on. This visually simplified black and white imagery perfectly exemplifies the minimalist and repetitive nature of the music.

Still from the video for Anthony Rother’s ‘Art is a Technology’

Of this video, Ashley said:

The key thing about the Anthony Rother video is that it's repetitive - it's dull, grinding repetition. I mean if it wasn't for the music it would probably be unwatchable after a minute or so, but it goes with the repetition of the music. The threshold effect works well here because it makes it more interesting to watch than if the video was simply showing natural shots of the houses and flats alongside the railway. The most important thing though is that the visuals match the music..I mean the Rother track is actually the same loop modulating very slightly throughout, and the video is the same loop as well, so they work well together.

The next video we discussed was the official music video for Delta Funktionen's 2008 track 'Nebula - Electromagentic Radiation Part 1' made by the Dutch media production company Buro Lamp&Kap. This is a very simple and quite eerie video consisting of around seven shots played over four scenes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQRLlnVzNFM

In the first and second scene, a lone male figure walks slowly across a desert-like, post-apocalyptic landscape beneath a dark and stormy sky.

Still from the video for Delta Funktionen’s ‘Nebula’

In the third scene the figure approaches their shadowy doppleganger visible in the beams of the setting sun, beside the silhouette of a tree.

Still from the video for Delta Funktionen’s ‘Nebula’

In the fourth scene a tree very similar to the one previously shown in the distance fills the frame. At a relevant moment in the music, the tree appears to begin dissolving as black ink (presumably suspended in clear fluid) flows upward from it, flowing downward around it in the final shot.

Still from the video for Delta Funktionen’s ‘Nebula’

The atmosphere of this video is powerful and dark - like the music it accompanies - and the editing techniques used rely heavily on deeply saturated tonal contrasts, layering and the extensive application of blurs and softening effects. Interestingly, this footage is not actually black and white but rather a heavily desaturated sepia.

Of this video, Ashley said:

I think out of the three vids I put up on the page, this one is my favourite. The film draws the viewer in through simple points of focus over extended shots. What I mean by that is that there's only three or four different scenes throughout the whole thing, but each one uses a different kind of shot..like the first and second ones are distant, but the tree at the end is closer. The bit at the end where the tree blows up, that's the biggest change within the point of focus in the whole film and it creates a high amount of drama by altering a relatively small amount..you know, 'multim in parvo'. And that's why I like this video..in the way it does a lot with a little.

The third video on Ashley's list was a black and white amateur video by Kevin Duffey Cyclorama6 made to accompany Arpanet's 2007 release 'Infinite Density'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_UQagTuah4

This video is constructed entirely from mainly hand-held footage of cityscapes.

Still from the video for Arpanet's 'Infinite Density'

Much use is made of zooms and pans; the images change rapidly from one scene to another and the visual emphasis is upon the grid-like patterns and structures that predominate within an urban setting.

Still from the video for Arpanet's 'Infinite Density'

It is at times a slightly nauseating video to watch because of the amount of camera movement and the dizzying speed with which one scene changes to another, but there are some powerful and clever moments in amongst the mix.

Still from the video for Arpanet's 'Infinite Density'

I particularly liked the shot of the plane. The image of a plane flying above a city powerfully symbolizes the human conquest of the natural environment and this clip reminded me of Fricke's use of this motif in Koyaanisqatsi where a passenger jet lands amidst a flickering heat haze.

Still from the video for Arpanet's 'Infinite Density'

I also liked the film-maker's frequent use of the grid motif and hope to be able to capture similar clips of planes and grids when I visit Leeds to film there in February.

Speaking about this video, Ashley said:

This is an amateur, unofficial video but it's got this nice, fresh feel..I mean it uses lots of ideas along a general theme but without getting stuck in any of them. What I like about this video is the rapid pans and zooms creating a sense of disorientation. You're not looking at anything in this video from a fixed point; your viewpoint is constantly shifting. I think it makes it more exciting to look at.

What all three of these videos have in common is a sense of not being rooted in the day to day real world, I like that because the music describes the underlying structures of things in the man-made world but without any kind of forward narrative. To quote Richie Hawtin: "Techno music is music stripped down to its most basic elements"*.

For the video you make to go with Progress I think what I'm looking for is a reasonably fast-moving but visually cohesive video. I want it to draw on the elements of the track itself to create an accurate reflection of its musical content. I would quite like to see some creative use of colour work in the film - or it could even be in black and white - although I'm not fixed about this and I'll leave the final say on that side of things up to you.

*English techno producer Richie Hawtin's statement regarding the aesthetic of techno as paraphrased by Ashley refers more specifically to the sub-genre of minimal techno, rather than techno per se. To quote in greater depth from the Dutch Oranjebus site:

Minimal techno is a minimalist sub-genre of techno. It is characterized by a stripped-down aesthetic that exploits the use of repetition, and understated development. Minimal techno is thought to have been originally developed in the early 1990s by Detroit based producers Robert Hood and Daniel Bell, although what is currently referred to as 'minimal' largely developed in Germany during the 2000s, and was popularised by labels such as Kompakt and M-nus (Oranjebus 2013).

Similarly, in his essay on 'Minimalism in House and Techno', Music journalist and DJ Philip Sherburne states that:

The origins of most contemporary electronic dance music - found in Kraftwerk's 1974 opus "Autobahn" and updated in the late '80s and early '90s with the streamlined electronic funk of Detroit techno pioneers like Derrick May and Juan Atkins - emphasized a pared-down palette that cut away all the excesses of a bloating rock and pop tradition. Since then, much dance-floor fare has restrained itself to a limited set of sounds and has produced forms heavily reliant on loops, recurring sequences, and accumulation-through-repetition. These are key tropes in much pop music, but electronic dance music particularly foregrounds the strategies pioneered in the work of so-called Minimalist composers like Steve Reich and Philip Glass (Sherburne, 2006).

Paintings

In addition to the three videos, Ashley also uploaded images of three paintings which he felt were reflective of the kind of mood that he would like to see in the finished music video.

The first of these was by Canadian artist Russell Leng. This abstract image, somewhat reminiscent of a crystal, employs multiple perspectives and shows strong cubist influences. The forms are sharp but not harsh. The overall sense of dynamism elicited by many straight lines radiating from a single point is mitigated by the softness of the tones and the introduction of a 'salmon' tint into an otherwise ostensibly monochromatic canvas.

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/a2/36/80/a2368074f6fc8a9d931dba62ea53c93a.jpg

Untitled Abstract by Russell Leng

Ashley said of this painting:

This picture is quite inhuman. I mean it's not about the soft, human world, it's harsh, kind of like brutalist architecture..beautiful because it's ugly. I like the way there's different points of focus within it. And it's quite dynamic, with this weird, sharp energy, like broken glass or something. I also really like the way that you think it's black and white but also there's these really faint pastel / salmon tones, so it's not full colour but nor is it completely monochrome, either.

The second image Ashley had posted to his Pinterest page was one that he attributed to American Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko (1903 -1970). Whilst it looks superficially similar to one of Rothko's earlier works, I have been unable to verify whether this is actually by him. I was interested however in why Ashley had selected such a richly coloured painting in comparison with the muted hues of the previous example and the three videos; it is a deeply saturated and meditative canvas with a warm and serene glow.

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/3a/e2/c3/3ae2c381180c9a6cf933f18a59c37c9c.jpg

Untitled canvas attributed to Mark Rothko (1903 -1970)

Of this painting, Ashley said:

I love Rothko and have a poster of one of his paintings on my wall at home. What I like about this image is that it reminds me of an evening in the summer when the sun is going down after a really hot day. The lines are like telegraph wires but then they're also like a track or a river..so the evening could be happening anywhere, in a city or in the countryside, by a dry road or a canal. It's a very still picture, you get the feeling of waiting for something to happen, but of course nothing actually will..a bit like minimal techno.

The third painting that Ashley had uploaded to his Pinterest page was also a Rothko - a known one from the early 1950's this time - and exhibits the marked style for which he became famous. This canvas is divided into roughly three blocks of textured colour, the uppermost two being soft acidic greens and the small lower block their complementary opposite lilac. It's a fresh and positive-looking painting that - like so much of Rothko's work - invites deep and quiet reflection.

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/rothko-untitled-t04148

Untitled canvas Mark Rothko (1903 -1970)

Speaking about this image, Ashley said:

What I like about this painting is that there's an imbalance in the composition which somehow actually works. It kind of looks bottom-heavy, but that's what gives it a sturdy structure. Despite its limited use of colour it creates a warm feeling of hopefulness. It's a very peaceful, impersonal kind of picture.

This concluded my telephone interview with Ashley. As a result of our conversation I felt that I had gained a deeper insight into my client's aesthetic requirements for his music video.

Specifically, these requirements were for:

The use of different types of shot (such as long shots and close-ups)
Repeated motifs
A fast pace
Shots taken from unusual angles
Footage and editing reflective of the musical values
A percipient approach to the use of colour
Shots and editing expressive of the underlying structures of the seen world

Following our earlier discussions about the use of colour, I then emailed Ashley a copy of the moodboard template as arranged, for him to fill in. The colours in the moodboard he subsequently created and posted to his Pinterest page were quite constrained and I felt they worked very well together:

Client's Moodboard

Although I liked his choice of limited hues I felt that the tones were probably a little too muted to evoke the kind of energy that I wanted the video to have and I therefore created a second moodboard that was based on Ashley's but with much stronger tonal contrasts in order to provide the city footage with a feeling of drama and excitement:

My tonally modified version of his moodboard

I emailed him a copy of this modified moodboard for approval and he replied that he was pleased with my adjustments and happy for me to use this as the basis for the colour palette of the film.

Research Experiments with Colour Correction

Earlier on in this project I had read up on colour correction, beginning with Cracked.com’s humorous but informative article on the subject. This had led me to a good resource that explained the history of colourisation on the CG Society website and with a little research I located a video tutorial on three way colour correction on YouTube.

Whilst I don’t have the same software as the one demonstrated in the video, I had located an equivalent tool in the video effects section of Adobe Premier Pro. Having learned from this video tutorial that it was essential to start with raw footage, it was evident that because I had already processed and colour-adjusted the rural footage taken over the summer I would be unable to use colour correction across my entire film because it would produce unsatisfactory results - as I had explained to Ashley during the course of our telephone interview - and to apply it solely to the unprocessed city scenes would damage the visual continuity of the video. Nonetheless I was curious to see what could be achieved and whether such a treatment might still have an application during the editing process of this video.

Once I had acquired the city footage - several months after my initial investigations into the subject - I selected several clips that I had been working on that combined both rural and urban scenes and applied three types of filters in order to check whether this actually was a path worth pursuing for this particular video. The results of this experiment can be viewed in the video below which contains three clips:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8iB3kv4lEM v

Experiment with Colour Correction

The first example in the video above shows the effect of Adobe Premier Pro's Single Colour Corrector which I used to apply a soft blue filter over the footage. This works well in the city scenes, giving them a cool, contemporary feel but it takes too much warmth out of the countryside scenes, making them look gloomy and uninviting. Given far more time than I actually had for this project I could have probably tweaked each individual clip to an acceptable point, but to do so within the deadlines for this project was simply not viable.

For the second clip shown in the video above, I tried out the slightly more sophisticated 3 Way Colour Corrector. This video effect allows one to individually adjust the colours of highlights, midtones and shadows.

For this sample I chose to apply a blue / magenta / lemon colour bias familiar to users of the Instagram mobile phone app to give the film a contemporary appeal and also create a slightly detached look. As suspected, the fact that I was not dealing with raw footage meant that the colour balance was distorted even when held at the lowest levels, the cobalt blue cast causing its complementary yellows to take on a dull, bilious tinge that dominated the scene. Whilst scenes that were predominantly cyan, magenta or neutral in colour benefited from the blue-green addition, clips containing reds, oranges and yellows suffered badly, losing their impact and looking quite peculiar.

In the third clip I tried out Adobe Premier's Black and White effect, which confirmed my thoughts on the subject: the city scenes looked wonderful in monochrome and the countryside looked meaningless, creating an unfair bias toward the city. The fact that the city scenes look so good in black and white however has inspired me to make a monochrome city film for my next music video and I have already begun making plans for this.

This was an interesting exercise to undertake and now that I am aware of what can be achieved I will plan my videos with these effects in mind and keep the footage raw to facilitate the application of such filters. I have also realised that in the future I will need to ensure that all issues regarding colour styling are fully explored with the client at the planning stage before any footage is shot, so that I can tailor both my filming and pre-production editing to accommodate any such requirements.

___________________________________________

Planning

Sketchbook

During the course of this project I carried a sketchbook everywhere and noted down any ideas as they occurred to me. Some I discarded as impractical due to lack of time and facilities, others I developed but realised they carried too much narrative - these I will save for future videos. A few examples from this sketchbook are included below:

Storyboard

I then used some of the ideas noted in my sketchbook to arrive at a preliminary storyboard, shown below.

This was not intended as a final guide to my production, merely a means by which to begin clarifying the visual elements of my concept towards the development of the shotlist. Whilst I already had a clear overview of the keyshots necessary to create this non-narrative video, I wanted to maintain a fresh and open mind about the order in which these clips would be finally assembled so that I would be able to approach the task unhampered by preconceptions. Additionally, since I had no narrative to follow, no external camera operators, no actors who needed to be kept informed and I was not financially accountable to an outside source for this project, a fully finalised storyboard at this point was not strictly necessary. Nonetheless, in order to keep my client up to date I emailed him a copy of it and he replied that he was happy with it.

Schedule

I also developed a simple schedule to help me stay on track with the project. This proved very useful as it meant that I always knew which tasks to prioritise at any one time.

TASK	DETAILS	DEADLINE
Sketch Ideas	Sketch and notate all ideas. Assemble a spidergram.	20 Feb 1
Shotlist:	Arrive at basic Shotlist and Storyboard. Create maquette/s to facilitate client feedback before finalising design. Notate all client feedback and negotiate where necessary.	02 March 14
Capture Countryside Clips:	Panning Shots: Mountains Watercourses: Lakes, rivers, underwater clips. Movement: Animals; Insects.	31 Oct 14
Capture Urban Clips:	Streets: Manchester; Wrexham; Leeds. Traffic/ Movement: Bus Stations; Railway Stations; Motorways. Crowds/ individuals: Shopping Precincts; Leeds Trinity; Regent Street. Dwellings: Burley Park.	16 March 14
Create Linking Animation:	Swirling autumn leaves transforming into litter.	12 Feb 14
Research EDM Music Videos:	Research notable EDM music vids, past and present. Examine angles, viewpoints, narrative composition and post production values, including colour values. Make note of any recurrent themes.	17 Feb 14
Client-Centred Research:	Email a Moodboard Template to the client for them to fill in and ask the client to place this, together with any other items they feel are relevant to this video - such as music videos and images - on a Pinterest board, sending me the link.	27 Feb 14
Research Client Music Videos & Moodboards:	Examine the client’s choice of videos, moodboards and comments to obtain a clear idea of their taste and the ambience they wish their music video to express. Evaluate how these choices can best be expressed in the film I intend to make.	20 Feb 14
Transport & Accommodation	Book filming dates with client, train tickets and arrange accommodation whilst filming.	12 Feb 14
Editing & Post Production for Individual Clips:	Edit clips on continuous basis in preparation for final assembly.	14 April 14
First, Second and Third Edits:	Assemble Progress Video. After completion, leave film for at least three days, then rework and tweak as necessary.	14 April 14
Submission:	Deliver finished film to Simon Hall for Showreel	28 April 14
Update online Journal:	Upload stills, sketches, spidergrams and shotlists to journal together with all research, links to external sites. and final selection of images. Upload completed film to YouTube account and supply link on Journal.	18 May 14
Email Links to Tutors:	Provide Tutors with finished copy of film on memory stick, together with e-folder containing copies of all correspondence between myself and the client; sketchbooks; a copy of the ‘Progress’ music track; Storyboard; Schedule; 24 Stills for exhibition and links to Online Reflective Journal.	1pm 06 May 14

Blue – task completed
Black – to do
Red – to do urgent

Shotlist

The shotlist took slightly longer to arrive at than the schedule, because although I was creating a non-narrative video, it would not be completely random. Whilst I wanted to allow myself leeway when it came to editing, there were keyshots noted in my sketchbook and preliminary storyboard that I wanted to obtain, plus city and countryside shots where I needed to have elements that would 'match' one another, in order for the video to have some kind of form. I therefore created two shotlists that I printed out, one for each environment. As I completed each scene I was able to tick it off the list.

Urban Environments Shotlist

Subject	Location	Shot Type
Traffic	Leeds; Wrexham	LS and MS where possible
Trains	Manchester Picadally; Leeds	LS and MS where possible
Planes	Leeds	LS
Bus Stations	Wrexham	LS
Motorways	Leeds; Plas Coch	LS
Railway Stations	Manchester Picadally; Leeds	LS, MS and CU where possible
Roundabouts	Central Leeds	LS & MS
Intersections	Central Leeds	LS
Bridges	Leeds	LS
Shopping Precincts	Leeds Trinity, Eagles Meadow	LS and MS where possible
Clubs	Leeds	LS, MS and CU where possible
Offices	Leeds	LS
Tunnels	Leeds	LS
Canals	Leeds	LS
Housing	Burley Park	LS & CU
Shoppers	Leeds Trinity, Eagles Meadow	LS, MS and CU where possible
Litter	Leeds and Wrexham	MS and CU
Ash walking past himself	Leeds	MS and CU
Ash Djing	Burley Park	MS and CU
Streetlamps; Night City	Leeds	LS
Journeys: Window Views	Manchester; Leeds	LS
Timelapse Sequences
Traffic	Leeds; Manchester; Wrexham	LS
Shoppers	Leeds; Manchester; Wrexham	LS
Day-to-Night	Wrexham	LS
Trains	Leeds; Manchester;	LS

Rural Environments Shotlist

Wrexham

Subject	Location	Shot Type
Mountains from a distance	Wales	LS
Mountain views of landscapes	Wales	Panning, LS
Rivers	Wales	LS and CU
Streams	Erddig Park	LS and CU
Underwater	Afon Bron	CU
Lakes	Wales	LS and CU
Rain	Wrexham	LS
Insects	Wrexham	ECU
Animals	Wales	LS and CU
Trees	Wrexham	LS and MS
Flowers	Wrexham	CU
Autumn Leaves		CU
Snowfall	Wrexham	LS
Coalfire	Wrexham	MCU and CU
Effects of wind	Wrexham	LS, MS and CU
Timelapse Sequences
Sunset	Wrexham	LS
Sunrise	Wrexham	LS
Moonrise	Wrexham	LS
Clouds	Wrexham	LS
Moving Shadows	Wrexham	LS

__________________________________________________________________

Production

Shooting

Whenever the weather permitted during the summer and early autumn of 2013, I went into the hills around my home in Snowdonia to photograph landscapes for my Negotiated Studies One and was therefore able to capture footage for this video project (such as the mountain lake and river scenes) in these locations at the same time. The timelapse sequence of clouds rolling above a mountain flanked by holly trees was shot in my back garden over the course of thirty minutes whilst the underwater scenes were taken with my Canon Powershot point-and-shoot lodged in the base of a glass vase that was dunked beneath the surface of a local stream. The Powershot videos in 640 x 480 at 30fps, so this footage required a bit of work to integrate it with my Canon 60D’s HD 1080 x 1920 24fps format footage, but I was pleased with the results overall.

By mid-November I had captured all of the scenes on my shooting list including a seething ants’ nest - of which we have several in the garden - and the last of the colour left the landscape as the heavy rain of winter set in.

During December I animated the ‘Leaves and Litter’ sequence that was intended for a linking shot. The objects in this animation were picked from my garden and recycle bin and individually photographed against a blue background. After converting them to .tiff files and replacing the blue background with a transparent layer I then imported them into Adobe Premier Pro where I individually animated each image, layering the resulting tracks over a .tiff of garden leaves at the beginning and a kerbside at the end, as illustrated below:

The finished animation is shown below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkNGbYFyOUc

'Leaves and Litter' Animation

Over the winter months I filmed both urban and natural footage in Wrexham but due to study commitments I had to wait until March 2014 to film in my client’s city of Leeds. I only had one evening, one day and the following morning to acquire all of the scenes necessary and worked flat out during my time there to film everything on my shotlist, together with anything else that presented itself as having the potential to add to the video. Ashley generously put aside a working day to take me to suitable locations and with his help I was able to capture all the footage that I needed.

A month or so before my trip to Leeds I had additionally asked him to provide me with some brief footage captured on his HD-capable mobile phone of scenes taken within a club or rave setting. I was aware such footage would be shaky and blurred but told him that I would be quite happy with whatever he could acquire, atmosphere and ambience taking precedence over technical proficiency. He presented the results of this to me upon my arrival in Leeds and it was exactly what I had been hoping for: raw, colourful and filled with energy. The first clip was taken during a Drum n Bass night and was predominantly blue in colour with projections of a flashing blue grid to the front of the clubbers, whilst the second was taken during a techno night at a much larger venue where the crowds were swept with multi-coloured strobes.

After each shooting session during the course of this project I processed the contrast, gamma and saturation levels of the captured footage as well as cropping, panning, zooming and altering the time values where required. Each collection of processed clips was then loaded into a single compilation - with gaps left between the individual sequences for ease of access - and exported as a single .MP4 file. The reason for doing this was that I would be using a very large number clips when editing the film and to make such changes at that point would not only take up far too much rendering time on my laptop but run the additional risk of frequently crashing it. I therefore traded off the slight depreciation in quality resulting from the use of clips that were now essentially pre-compressed copies of the originals – a drop in resolution and colour depth which would not be particularly noticeable on YouTube anyway - for the benefit of a streamlined and faster workflow. I kept a brief record of each export in the chart shown below.

Processed .MP4 Clips

Subject	Location	Details	Date Filmed
Tree Shadows stretching over paving slabs	Wrexham	Timelapsed – 3 Speeds	15 Mar 2013
Ivy in the wind	Wrexham	Transition shot	15 Mar
Steady Snowfall	Wrexham	Possibly link with Water / Reflections	23 Mar
Ants Nest CU & ECU	Wrexham	Timelapsed– 2 Speeds plus Zoomed	5 July
Manchester City Centre & Piccadilly Gardens – Shoppers and Sunbathers	Manchester	Timelapsed & Normal Speed. Possibly Split Screen	7 July
Manchester Piccadilly Train Station – Tains and Passengers	Manchester	Timelapsed – 4 Speeds & Normal Speed	7 July
Bron Manod Stream	Wrexham	L ->R, R->L, Oncoming & Downstream	20 July
Crystal Ball & Stove	Wrexham	Rolls L ->R then back.	7 Aug
Underwater view of Stream	Wrexham	L ->R	22 Aug
Llyn Manod	Wrexham	5 Views, L ->R, front on & 3 CU	26 Aug
Telegraph Wires in the Wind, Branches in the Wind	Wrexham	Timelapsed	2 Sept
Back Garden – Mountain & Shadows	Wrexham	Timelapsed – 3 Speeds	7 Sept
Shoppers viewed from Undegun Upper Floors	Wrexham	Timelapsed – 4 Speeds	10 Oct
Apple Tree in Rain	Wrexham	Thru Rainy Window – Transition shot?	26 Oct
Train Journey from Wrexham	Wrexham	Dolwyddelan Castle	11 Nov
Cwmorthin River & Lake	Wrexham	8 Views: 3 River, 3 Weir, 2 Lake	13 Nov
Cloudscapes	Wrexham	Timelapsed – 3 Speeds	16 Nov
Garden at Nightfall	Wrexham	Timelapsed	16 Nov
November Moelwyns	Wrexham	Panning shot of Mountains & 2 Shots of Sheep	23 Nov
Leaves & Litter Stills	Wrexham	For Animation	9 Dec
Close up of Coalfire	Wrexham	Slow Zoom to go with Streetlights	20 Dec
Ash Tree Pool Stream	Wrexham	Oncoming Water, 5 Clips	29 Dec
Burley Roads Nightfall	Burley Park	Timelapsed - 4 Speeds	18 Mar 2014
Ash Djing	Burley Park	Zooms & CU	18 Mar
Leeds City Centre –Brigate, Fairground	Leeds	Timelapsed & Normal Speed	19 Mar
Leeds – Ash Walking beneath Arch plus Pedestrians and Office Towers	Leeds	For Split Screen & Timelapsed– 2 Speeds	19 Mar
Leeds – Canal, River & Trains	Leeds	Litter on Riverbanks, Rainbow over City, Broken Trees, Jet Tower, Cyclists	19 Mar
Leeds – Roads, Townhall, Traffic	Leeds	LS & Cu	19 Mar
Leeds – Under the Arches & River flowing Underground, Ash Walking	Leeds	Metal Grids, Bricks, Darkness, Rushing River, Ash on Walkway	19 Mar
Leeds – Motorways	Leeds	Timelapsed – 3 Speeds	19 Mar
Leeds – Trinity & Shoppers	Leeds	Interior & Exterior Shots’ Timelapsed & Normal Speed	19 Mar
Leeds - City Centre, Escalators & Trains	Leeds	Match with Ants? CU Tulips	20 Mar
Leeds – City Views from Train	Leeds & Manchester	Canals, Reflected Trains, Passing Trains – Window Shots for Framing Transitions & also Station Grid	20 Mar
Views from Coach	Mostyn, Betws y Coed	Hills and Fields, Sunset over Mountain Ridge	28 Mar
Erddig & Eagles Meadow Roundabout	Wrexham	Link shots for Fairground & Turntable	3 Apr
Stream with Yellow Flower, Hawthorn Trees in Blossom, Lambs, Bron Manod Waterfalls	Wrexham	Timelapsed & Linking Shots	21 Apr

Editing

By the time I was ready to begin editing I had accumulated over 94GB of fully edited HD footage in .MP4 format. It was at this point that the construction of a formal stills storyboard became necessary in order to help me to examine the ways in which a selection from these clips could be cohesively combined. From my post-production processing of each captured clip I already knew which shots were the most successful in terms of visual and emotional impact and these became my keyshots; the reason for the stills storyboard at this point was to assist me to experiment with their order to convey the concepts whilst avoiding a direct narrative.

For this storyboard I tried to follow the advice given by animator Barry Purves during his keynote speech at our recent Glyndwr Creative Futures Student Conference week, that to create a project one needs only to use three scenes. Beginning with sequences of flowing water that led into scenes of other horizontal movement, this storyboard then took the viewer into a set of dark, powerful-looking archways before releasing them into scenes of rapid movement in all directions, at first natural movement and then finally of mechanical origin (see image below).

I began to edit the video using the keyshots in this order but came unstuck around one third of the way through. The three grouping of stills that had looked so logical in the storyboard – lateral movement, dark archways, diverse activity - simply didn’t gel on screen and I found myself struggling to connect the ideas coherently. When editing a video I like to take charge of the viewer’s experience, signalling through the timing of my cuts that they are in safe, competent hands. On this edit that confident message was not coming across and I knew it.

I therefore abandoned this edit and set about constructing a second storyboard that was not based on either triadic groupings or the underlying meaning of the scenes, but purely on their motion, shape and colour, which was much closer to my original concept for this video anyway (see image, below).

This second storyboard worked far better than the first and I was able to adhere to it fairly closely.

Although I had been unable to exploit Mr Purves’ three-scene formula for this film – presumably because my non-narrative video was not actually a story as such – during this second edit I did succeed in implementing the advice given by music video conceptualist Keith Williams during that same Conference Week. Mr Williams had suggested that we work counter-intuitively to the music, creating a direct contrast to it rather than an interpretation of it. I therefore placed hectic city scenes against quieter passages and calm and steady sequences against moments when the music intensified. This approach worked well for the video and it is a tool that I will use again since it allows a freshness and energy to infuse the work.

Whilst I was filming in Leeds, Ashley had suggested that he would like to see a rapid play of still shots introduced toward the end of the film and it occurred to me that a multiscreen approach that created a feeling of tension in the viewer as they struggled to absorb the information they were seeing (much in the way that a rare visit to the city can affect a country-dweller) would be the best way to integrate such material. I included three such multiscreen sequences in all, two containing live city footage and a third which rhythmically flashed these city stills above a rolling panorama of a mountain village. This too transitioned into live footage.


Screenshot from 'Progress' Music Video

Screenshot from 'Progress' Music Video

I also created two 'Progress' logos to obscure those of a well known store in the background of one of the road sequences.

Whilst editing, I kept in mind the guidance that Senior Film and Photography Lecturer Stewart Edwards had given me during a tutorial a month before, which was to avoid any vagueness and make sure that the ideas came through right away, creating fast edits that changed rapidly and excluding any long, lingering shots. He had also recommended that I home in on any quirky moments of serendipity and when unsure of a clip to introduce a ‘soft edit’ - either slightly before the beat or in between beats. By following these recommendations I was able to keep the film moving at a fast but even pace throughout.

Whenever I felt the viewer had been exposed to too much rapid movement I gave them something simple to look at for a few seconds to allow their eyes to adjust and as the video neared its end I slowed the pace right down to increase the dramatic impact, using the split screen shot of Ashley walking past himself towards the two different environments to introduce the two final rural scenes. This split screen shot shot was inspired by a scene from the 1971 TV adaptation of Laurie Lee’s autobiographical novel ‘Cider with Rosie’ that I had watched a child. Although I have been unable to locate an image from the scene for this blog, I recall a poignant moment near to the end of the film when a mature Mr Lee watches his younger, carefree self striding past him up the green lane and out of shot. I found this cinematographic metaphor very powerful and have wanted to use it ever since.

The editing of the film was completed over the course of ten days. I was glad that I had taken the precaution of processing all the clips beforehand since towards the end of the editing process my laptop was crashing on an hourly basis due to the pressure on its CPU, which slowed my workflow to a crawl.

In the final scene of the video I added an animated still of the rising moon (that I had photographed a just a week earlier) and its reflected glow in the water of the lake (see moon image below). I also added stars animated to rotate at the correct rate in relation to the moon, but this was too much for my laptop - the CPU simply couldn't cope - and I had to abandon the idea.

After a few minor adjustments to the transitions, I uploaded the completed film to YouTube and sent a link to my client for his feedback.

Ashley rang me to say that he thought I had ‘done a great job’ and that ‘there were some absolutely incredible shots in there, the closing fifty seconds in particular’. He thanked me for making his official music video for 'Progress', adding that he would like to assist me to publicize my work once I graduate.

The finished music video may be viewed below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJJv-dIlolE

Ashley Hewitt 'Progress' (Official Music Video)

_________________________________________________________________

Evaluation

This project has provided me with a wonderful opportunity to develop my video making skills within the context of working with an outside client. Having known the concept for my video well in advance I was able to acquire a large number of clips; never before have I had so much footage with which to make a video. The amount of choice this gave me made the process of editing very straightforward and this is something that I have made note of, for future projects.

I was also extremely fortunate to have a lovely soundtrack to work with and a client who not only understood and liked the concept of the film I was making but who was also willing to engage with it at a practical level, putting aside a whole day to assist me filming in the city. This attitude of openness and trust enabled me to run the whole operation quite smoothly from inception through to final production and has underlined for me the importance of clear and coherent communication with one’s client at all times.

I met all of my targets and deadlines for the production of this film without problem and as a result I now feel more confident as a film maker and ready to take on further work of this nature. When undertaking future projects however, there is one aspect that I will tackle slightly differently: I will arrive at the colour-styling for the film at the same time as the initial concept and pitch both to the client as a single package. This will not only assist me to create shotlists tailored to work most effectively with such colour choices, but will also enable me to colour correct the clips as I go, during the first post-production phase.

As a result of my researches and experiments for this film my understanding of the creative breadth possible within the genre of techno music videos has been deepened. The research into colour-styling in particular has inspired me to start generating ideas for three more such videos, one with a colour-cast to it, one in black and white and a third that is composed entirely from abstract patterns. I look forward to posting the results of these projects in the future.

After graduation I intend to take up Ashley’s offer of help with bringing my work to the attention of a wider audience and over the course of the summer hope to establish my own website where my photography will be displayed and my music videos embedded, as a first step toward attracting commissions from other musical artists.

I would like to finish this journal entry by thanking my client Ashley Hewitt for giving me the opportunity to create the official music video for his track ‘Progress’ and for all his assistance during the course of this interesting and very enjoyable project.

__________________________________________________________

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