My group was given Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head by B.J Thomas. After listening to the song more times than we can remember, memorizing every lyric and note and taking in every mood we felt from the song, we began to plan our own video.
First, we knew the singer was a man, so we made a male the main character/artist in the video. Then we decided to opt for what we believed would be the easier options for our first piece and relate the visuals to the music and also to the lyrics. The music sounded 'old' and very upbeat, with a certain air of sophistication. We decided to put our 'main artist' in a suit to represent the sophistication, with a hat to add an upbeat, amusing look on the video in order for it to correspond to the music. The lyrics where all about it raining and being miserable, however, the artist wasn't letting it get him down with an optimistic approach to life. We decided that the most obvious thing to do would be for the visuals to show a man in the rain with his umbrella, who despite being out in groggy weather, is still really happy and optimistic, looking as if he is having fun!
We also wanted to follow a few other trends to show more inclination that what we was creating was indeed a music video. We decided to put in the generic close up shots in order to focus on the main artist and make the receiver aware that he is the main artist. We also wanted to cut to different shots and make the video seem fun, showing the artist doing a variety of things that made him happy, such as having fun like a child in a park. We wanted to show the man skipping along, almost as if we're following him through part of his day. We chose to film him walking towards the camera, as if he's moving forward with his day, as if he's keeping on going despite the weather, watching the world disappear behind him. We wanted him to lip sync the song to make it appear that he's singing the song to us, telling his story. The eye contact with the camera is important too to make the video seem even more realistic. The end needed to be more dramatic, as if it's built up to it, so when the lyrics "it won't be long 'til happiness steps up too greet me.." we decided people should jump in from either side and sing and dance along with him before performing jazz hands for the exit. We also decided credits would be a good idea to make it look more official.
So off we set to film.
Unfortunately it was not raining on the day, so we decided to use the rain effect when it came to editing and make it black and white to represent a dull, plain day. Other than that, the day was fine and filming proved no problem. We where constantly bearing mise en scene in mind, making sure there was no passers-by in the background and that nothing but what we wanted would be in the frame and that all the camera agles and the framing was all appropriate and well thought out.
Next comes editing.
Once we had all the appropriate materials we needed, we headed back to class to begin our editing. After uploading our footage and deleting the bad takes, we began putting the shots into order. We then added the audio to the clip and cut the video's appropriately to the spaces we filmed them for and carefully made sure all the lip syncing was accurate and in time to the music, which was very difficult and took many attempts. After finally getting there, we added the rain and black and white effect over every clip as planned. All we needed now was the final credits, which where easy to do and only covered a few seconds of the end of the song, so not to miss anything out. We then faced a problem.. we had forgotten all about transitions whilst focusing on mise en scene, framing, lip sincing, shots, and editing so needed to think fast and decide what to do. We used fade out and fade in for the opening shot to cut into the music and followed the spinning of the umbrella with a rotating transition. However, due to leaving it to last minute, we did not have time to finish adding in transitions which was a huge shame! But we learnt a lesson that every aspect whether it's big or small is important in creating a music video and there is a lot that must be planned and applied or else it could bring it all down. Planning is VERY essential.
Over all though, we are very pleased with our first creation and here it is.
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