Music Video Unit Evaluation

 Evaluation of ‘Doers’ by Bodega Video Plan

Oliver Coulson

The first aspect of my plan for a ‘Doers’ by Bodega music video that was successful was my initial video synopsis because it outlines the video idea in enough detail to paint a clear picture, while still remaining concise and to the point. The synopsis includes a few shot ideas, communicates the story I want to tell in the video, and explains the meaning I want to create and it is therefore very effective in the role a synopsis should play.

Another part of my work for this unit is the moodboard. The purpose of this was to provide a representation of the sort of visuals I wanted to include in the video and it can also help establish the tone of the video based on the images chosen. My moodboard is made up of pictures of business-dressed men in the various situations I wanted to create in the video, such as the suited man on a treadmill and the man being arrested. These illustrate the action I wanted to include in the video as well as the type of clothes I wanted to be part of the singer’s costume. I think this part of the project was successful because all of the images used for the moodboard ended up representing or inspiring shots in the final shot list, thus the moodboard was an accurate depiction of the visual style of the video.

A large amount of the work for this unit consisted of lyric annotation, where I carefully read over the lyrics of the song and annotated them with the images they brought to mind and some initial ideas for shots corresponding to certain lyrics. In some cases the shot ideas in my annotations were very detailed as I began to build a picture in my head of what a video for this song could look like, and many of them were used later in my shot list. I think this section of the unit was very effective and helped me to build a detailed video plan, however one thing I could improve on is to add more annotations relating to the themes of the lyrics and the meanings behind them - as this was something I processed in my head but left out of my writing in favour of initial shot ideas.

The shot list was where I got the opportunity to flesh out my ideas for the visuals in the music video as well as make decisions on the specific composition of these shots, such as the camera angle, shot type, and if there was going to be any camera movement like a zoom or a pan. This helped me to paint a much more vivid picture of the music video in my head and in turn I was able to use my imagination to work out how my isolated shot ideas would stitch together and compliment each other to form the final product. This was a time consuming process that involved reading over the lyrics and listening to the song itself many times over, but I believe this investment of time was worth it because the result is a list of all the shots to be used in the video including detailed descriptions, how the shot will be set up, and the filming location. Furthermore, I also included some basic scheduling information for the filming of each shot which delegated on which day of production filming would take place. When doing this, I took care to group all shots on a location so that, for example, all the treadmill shots would be filmed on the same day consecutively. This makes more sense from a practical standpoint than filming in chronological order as it is a more efficient use of resources and shots can be placed in the desired order during editing. So overall I think the shot list was very successful, although to improve I could add more types of information for each shot like the required camera equipment and perhaps the lighting set-up. Another way to improve might have been to include a more detailed breakdown of the filming schedule in order to achieve more efficient use of time during the production of the video. This would also make the schedule more useful as a tool for the production team while working on the project than just a day by day breakdown.

With each aspect of my work for this unit considered, I think it would be fair to evaluate my efforts overall as very effective and successful. This is because, while there are still a few points I could improve upon, I see each aspect itself as a success. Looking at the purpose of this project as a whole, the assignment was to create a viable plan for a music video and I believe this plan could be used to produce a music video of reasonable quality for the chosen song. Plus, the video idea I constructed as part of this plan would fit very well thematically and tonally with ‘Doers’ by Bodega.