M4 - Meeting the Client Brief

The Brief:

You have been asked to create a music video for either an established artist or a local band.

The music video can be narrative, performance-based or conceptual and can include live action and/or graphics elements. It must run for the length of the chosen song and be suitable for the music's target audience. 

You can work in a maximum group size of 3 and if you do, each of you must take on specific roles during production.

All content produced must be original and produced by you. However, video elements from a copyright-free source may be used, but must be referenced.

How I met the key elements proposed in the brief:

-create a music video for either an established artist or a local band

This point can be interpreted as having 2 requirements: first, that I create a music video and second, that the video is for an established artist or local band. The first requirement implies that my product must resemble a music video; i.e. following the common conventions of music videos as well as conventions specific to the genre of music. I have demonstrated how I have achieved this in M3.

The second requirement is similar, implying that my product must suit the artist or band it is made for. In my case, the narrative and aesthetic of the video was based around a game from which the artist gained his popularity, so there is a strong association between him and my video, through the medium of Hotline Miami.

-The music video can be narrative, performance-based or conceptual and can include live action and/or graphics elements.

As mentioned in M3, I have created a suitable narrative for my music video, so it would fall under the narrative category. Although I originally planned for the video to be live-action, due to remote learning restrictions I chose to instead record all shots digitally in a video game. Fortunately live action footage was not required as "graphics elements" would include digital footage, so my video fits that sentence also.

-[the video] must run for the length of the chosen song and be suitable for the music's target audience.

Technically, my music video does not actually run for the entire length of the original track. My video is 3:21, while the source track is 4:51. I believe that I was justified to cut a portion from the original track because from the 3:20 mark, the track only repeats previous sections and develops no further. Also, the video is longer than many songs already, and filling an extra minute with visuals would have resulted in production taking too long. 

Besides, many existing music videos have altered or shorter versions of the song for the music video compared to the album version, for similar reasons to mine.

My music video is suitable for the target audience of both EDM music and fans of Hotline Miami. In both cases, this is mostly made up of under 30s with a slight lean towards lower economic classes and a more significant lean towards men. The genre conventions of EDM largely overlap with EDM's target audience in elements such as the inclusion of party / club settings, dancing, contrasting lighting, high visual pace, strong sense of rhythm etc. All of which were outlined in M3. As for the secondary audience of Hotline Miami fans, my video is also suitable for them because the narrative and style of the video is heavily influenced by the game.

-You must work in a maximum group size of 3

This was not a problem, as I was working alone throughout the project.

-All content produced must be original and produced by you. However, video elements from a copyright-free source may be used, but must be referenced.

Most of the character models and other textures that I have used in my video are copyrighted by either Valve or independent users who created them. Some model textures are also intellectual property of other companies (for example, Rockstar games created the original mob boss and jacket's car textures)

I didn't really have a choice to use copyright-free models or create my own, as I would have to learn how to port / create the textures to avoid copyright. 

In reality, my video is protected by fair use, given that the content is transformative and has an educational context. However, if I were creating an actual music video for commercial purposes, I would need to contact the original creators of all the models I used for permission. 

Issues, Risks and Adapting my idea (COVID-19)

My music video has possibly gone through more change and compromise than any other, most prominently shown in the total overhaul of my footage attainment methods. Instead of filming my video live-action in school, I chose to adapt my video to be filmed virtually in a video game called Garry's Mod. I made this decision due to the unexpected shift to remote learning after christmas (in which we still remain until March), where my plans to film in-school were no longer achievable. I saw no plausable way to film my video live-action while adhering to COVID-19 restrictions, since most of my video would need to take place indoors with people from other households. 

Of course, this wild change in course was not without it's problems. Many of these problems were discussed in P4 / P5. Most of the issues I encountered could be placed in one of two categories: Technical and Aesthetic. 

-Technical issues were problems like video stutter from recording inconsistencies or software being incapable, at least with my skills, of producing ideal results. Some of these problems could not (to my knowledge) be solved, so instead I did my best to mitigate their effects or find alternate methods to avoid them entirely. An early example of this was that I had to lower the frame rate of my recording software from 60 to 25, as my computer could not reliably render and record footage at such rates.

-Aesthetic issues were not so much problems like the technical ones, but nonetheless barriers that I had to overcome or find my way around. For example, the lack of human actors, physical costumes, physical props and real-world location meant that I had to find digital substitutes that I could use in my new virtual set, given that creating my own digital assets is beyond my skills and the constraints of time given for the project.

Fortunately, there was a "silver lining" in using virtual sets with virtual actors and locations; COVID-19 restrictions were no longer a problem. I could have characters interact and be in close proximity without worrying about mask-wearing, social distancing or household limitations. I think of it as a payoff to not being able to have articulate movements, complex facial expressions or particularly realistic lighting that could not be achieved in a digital environment (at least not without significantly more skill and time investment).

Deadlines and production schedules:

The original plans for recording schedules and footage deadlines for my video were essentially thrown out of the window when I took to digital filming. This was for 2 reasons: firstly, I had to plan and prepare entirely new locations, props, costumes and filming methods as their real-world counterparts were rendered useless. Secondly, the actual process of filming the shots was fundementally changed. I no longer needed to travel to a location with actors, bring all required equipment and set everything up before filming. Instead, all of the sets for my video could be saved in files and perfectly preserved so that I could return to them at any time and nothing would have changed. 

I had little use for schedules, since recording was simply a matter of opening up the software, loading the set and getting to work. I could enter and leave production at any time convenient to me. As for including other people in production, I only occasionally needed to recruit the help of my friends for acting, in which they too could easily and instantly join the set, act their shots, then disconnect at will.

The wider deadline for acquiring all of the shots and finishing P4 was not met, due to reasons listed above. However, I did not miss the deadline by very far and more than made up for the lost time in my swift editing process, during which much less problems occured. The editing process was essentially the same as I had planned, as shot timings, special effects and cuts did not need to be changed like the shots themselves did.

Exporting the music video:

Export settings on Adobe Premiere

After I had finished editing the video, the final product was ready to be exported. I used the H.264 codec and set the resolution and frame rate of the video to match the source footage, which was 1920x1080p at 25fps. The sound was output at 48kHz, which is standard for sound output. The file format is Mp4, which is one of the most commonly used audiovisual formats.

This file is suitable for distribution purposes because the settings I chose for exporting are very commonly used and are supported by all major distribution platforms. For example, The H.264 codec and Mp4 format are both readily supported by the YouTube platform, on which I uploaded my music video.