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Overall, I am pleased with the outcome of my music video. It was great to be able to create a video for my own music, and further analyse my own music through the project and be able to take creative control over the image I’ve had of this song. When I write songs, I always conjure up images to inspire me for writing lyrics, riffs, chord progressions etc. so to manifest this in a video project was a great experience. I initially wanted my video to represent the internal struggle we have with the “right” and “wrong” thing to do, the constant battle with memories and truths, regarding relationships, current or past. Pyro embodies the nostalgic feeling, good or bad, of a past relationship and the aftermath of emotions that flood in. The visual representation of this with the contrast of fire and water was successful in achieving this, both powerful forces of nature but lethal when they encounter each other.

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Initially, I knew that the video for Pyro had to be strong visually to counter the lyrics and energy in the song. To do this would be a challenge to be able to par with the lyrics and atmosphere produced by the song. I wanted it to be dark, but not necessarily hateful or vengeful (however these would be aspects). I also wanted it to be focused on a female (or multiple) protagonist, with Booshka being an all-female band, I felt that this would resonate with women of all ages to have a female fronted film, with a female band and director, as female energy is devoid in so much of the industry. I wanted it to be an inspiration to other female artists and film makers. Originally, I was going to focus on one female figure throughout the film, however, I then decided that having three or four actresses would convey a more powerful message, that as a group we can be untied. The powerful imagery and lyrics throughout the video needed to be presented with a powerful group of women, therefore for my contextual link, I wanted to refer to the Three Moirai in Greek mythology, being responsible for handling the life and death of all people on earth. This powerful myth would be a perfect starting point for my video, and the progression from this point was perfect for my video.  From this I started gathering ideas with mind maps- by starting to think about other groups of women who have been segregated e.g. Salem Witch trials, which led me down the path of the supernatural aspect of my film- and made it easier to come up with the fire vs. water idea of my film. Although this wasn’t the route I initially wanted to go down, I felt this would work well with the fire and water aspects and a storyline to the video. The idea that you can’t have fire without water and vice versa is apparent in the video, with fire representing male energy and water, female. I used symbols and motifs throughout, with the moon portraying female energy and shadows presenting the memories of the past that haunt us. I was inspired to use motifs and symbols from the film Shutter Island (from my contextual links). They give the viewer something to think and feel about rather than the obvious visuals of fire seen throughout. Although overall Pyro is dark and powerful in energy, I also wanted viewers to watch it and feel empowered. I also looked into the art movement of surrealism, to start to think about the abstract and the strange. Artist like Salvador Dali and Man Ray were at the forefront of my research, and their art helped me to visualise different sequences, and also help me come up with the projector idea, using abstract shapes in the back ground. Although my ideas were well developed, I do feel I could have looked more into different film makers styles, techniques and tips to better my own video, as I felt this was were I lacked in my portfolio work.

My storyboards acted more as initial images than something I stuck to for my filming shots. However, I did use some of the frames from my storyboards, for example the moonlit water shots, the underwater shots and the fire shots. If I was to do this again, I would put more thought into the story line of my film and annotate my storyboard with lyrics to help me plan out the whole song, so in the future I would explore this further.

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The editing of my video was a challenge, as I underestimated how long this would take. Colour grading is used on nearly every shot, and this took time to adjust the settings accordingly, considering the exposure, fade, highlights and shadows. I was inspired by The Silence of The Lambs for this idea of using a colour palette when considering my video, Demme uses colour to present powerful moments and foreshadow elements of the film later. To help with creating interesting colour palettes, I watched a few videos from Studio Binder called Colour Theory in Film, which looked at saturation, brightness and hue. Not only was colour grading used in my video to add a more dramatic effect, it was necessary for the underwater shots. When we filmed, we took Industrial lights with use (with five bulbs each) as we wanted harsh ripple lighting. However, it seemed that only two of the lights was necessary for the shots, as it seemed light enough. However, when we looked at the footage on the PC, it was dark, and some of it unusable. Although my video is mostly dark silhouette/noir style lighting, it was a challenge to colour grade it, so it was visible. Therefore, if I was to do this again, I would make sure it was well lit, perhaps more than I feel necessary, and if needs be, I could edit the darkness later. Adding on, due to the plethora of effects I used, the computer found it hard to keep up, often lagging, which made editing harder. Therefore, I exported the video several times, therefore being able to watch the video throughout without buffering. Moreover, from this, I was able to see which shots didn’t work, and were not of as high quality as others. I also spent a lot of time playing around with special effects, including, gaussian blurs, layering effects (with hard light and soft light overlay). I used layering of fire over faces with hard light which I was inspired to do so from the music video Jeremy by Pearl Jam.

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Filming underwater was a challenge, as I had never done this before. I researched into the best ways to do so, as originally, I wanted to film in the sea. Some tips included keeping your hands as steady as possible, keeping the light behind you and adjusting FPS to 80-100, and playing back at normal speed, all of which I tried. The idea of filming in the see was soon scratched, as the weather and season of Winter wasn’t the best for filming underwater. Moreover, due to it being stormy when I was collecting my footage, the water wasn’t clear. Therefore, I decided to film in a swimming pool with a go-pro rather than my iPhone XR I had been using previously. Although the go-pro didn’t have as high quality, I didn’t want to take the risk with my phone. If I was to do this filming again, I would try and be more stable when filming, as in most of the shots the camera shakes, which although doesn’t deter from the video, it would look more professional if it was stable. This would be quite hard to do manually, even with things such as the cop grip, so a gimble would be perfect for this. Adding on, when filming on the beach, the sand was a hard surface to use my tripod with. In the end, I just hand held my phone. Unlike at the swimming pool, I couldn’t bring industrial lights, for obvious reasons of there being no power supply. Therefore, I had to hand hold my phone in my right hand, and a torch in my left, else the footage would be too dark with only the moon illuminating the shot. This meant that the footage wasn’t completely stable.  If I were to do this again, I would have an assistant to help with this. I referenced Scorsese in my contextual links, as I was inspired by his use of camera placement. He often uses high camera placements sometimes for practical reasons so that we may see the action, but also during scenes that feature beat downs or significant violence. He also uses overhead shots to represent God, sometimes to enhance important moments in the story, but also to support practical story elements in a scene. If I were to do this video again, I would try to use different camera placements, and vary the degree to which my subject is in the frame, to add variety and interest.

 

Some elements that I particularly liked from my music video was the graveyard shots which weren’t initially in my plan. It was by chance that me and one of the actors were walking past when I decided to take a few shots, and these became a large part of my video. The colour grading and red tints worked really well in further reinforcing the juxtaposition between red and blue (fire and water). Moreover, I was initially planning on filming the underwater shots from a higher placement angle, but this proved difficult as Poppy found it hard to hold her breath long enough for me to attain the correct angle, so instead I filmed from the same level and/or from below. Although this differed from my initial ideas, I felt this worked better, as the viewer is also immersed in water, and therefore makes it more interactive and interesting. However, I would have like for her face to be more in view, although this could be seen as a lack of identity on her front, linking in with the idea of the song. Parts of my film that that I would change include the moonlit shots with Aysha in the sea. I would have liked to have better lighting on these, as I have previously explained, and also some more close up shots or tracking shots, overall just more of a variation as the image is very powerful but repeated continuously throughout with little differentiation. Also, it would have been nice to have some portrait shots of one of the actresses mouthing to words of the song, to add more of a first person narrative element to the song, relating back more to the words.  

 

I  felt my time management for this project went well, and I felt I didn’t need to rush any aspects of my video. I was quick to organize a schedule for filming with the actors in my video and was flexible when rearranging times. I started editing at the end of November, giving me a full month to properly analyse all my footage and begin to edit to the beat markers I put it place. I did sometimes find it difficult to balance my time for editing and developing my portfolio, as sometimes I wanted to spend all of my lesson time editing on Premier Pro, however as the deadline came closer, I began putting more work in at home on my WIX website, so was then able to bring my portfolio up to the standard I wanted. Looking back, I felt I could have spent more time collecting my footage, as although it turned out how I wanted, it would have been preferable to have more shots to choose from to vary the video more.  

Managing cast and crew was an easy task as they were all flexible with their time as was myself, and willing to stay over on some particular locations to wait for the correct shot (for example the moonlit shots, I wanted the moon higher in the sky so Aysha was willing to wait longer than initially planned). Costume was harder, as my wardrobe was limited, however all of my cast members pitched in with jewellery and dresses. This made my life easier and meant less time was spent sourcing costumes and props and more time editing/shooting.  

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Overall,  I am immensely proud of my music video, and have thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I had an amazing act and crew throughout eh process who have helped me create this video and also help me learn more about my style of filming and directing, and helping to create the end product with jewellery or costume etc. Although there are elements which looking back I don't think were the correct stylistic choices, overall I think the video is effective and portrays the rights message and vibe for Pyro, and visually serves the song.

 

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