My Music Video

This is the link to my final finished and converted to mpeg format music video for the original song Lost at Sea by Benjamin John :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqJ6gQ9UOJQ

This is the first music video for Ben, so the audience has no preconception as to what it will entail. The song's tempo is quite slow, but builds to a crecendo in the latter half which is when the pace of the video speeds up in order to fit in time with the music. This was a conscious decision I made after viewing numerous videos in which the song starts of slower and builds, along with the visuals. The type of music video is a narrative, in which Ben is 'following' a mystical girl around a city and she eventually leads him to the beach, always ust out of his reach, where she then disappears. I decided to produce the video in this way because the way he was following her made him seem 'lost' which then referred back to the lyrics. I shot the footage in Rhyl, North Wales, and because it is a non-descript sort of place, and due to the genre of music, Ben was dressed in simple clothes typical to the indie genre; jeans, a t-shirt and a soft woollen hat. The edits and cuts vary between slow fades and cross fades when the song is still at its slowest in the beginning, but as the tempo increases, the cuts become quicker in order to kee pace with the audio and visuals. Because there was a great deal of noise when I was filming, I had to remove the sound later when I was editing and replace it with the actual recorded song, syncing the words in time with the lips. This took a long time to do as the song was quicker than the footage at times so I had to either slow down or speed up the clips as needed.

If I could have done anything differently, I would have maybe got some 'insurance' shots of one or two pieces of footage as when I replayed them they had large jerks or the lighting was wrong, which meant I couldn't use them. Although I got more than enough footage, there was always the chance that all my shots weren't perfect and then my music video would not have been a success. Overall I feel that the video works well. The audio and visuals fit well together and the editing varies to meet the tempo. My favourite part is the high-angle view of Lucy looking down at Ben through the railings, then down to Ben looking up, and then back to Lucy's view. This is when the song's speed increases and Ben's urgency, teamed with the guitar riff and followed by the spinning around as Ben searches creates a frantic, desperate effect that I believe works well. My least favourite part is in the very beginning few lines when Ben's lips dont fit perfectly, and looking back I wish I'd spent longer on it.

  Some of the feedback I got from showing my video to people in the target audience were:
"I thought the black and white made it look very Indie-ish, and the slowed-down bird shot looked so cool! I like how the girl wasn't really there." comment by Andy Holden who is in my target audience, therefore I am pleased he likes it, as it bodes well for acheiving my goal of appealing to my target audience.

"It looks so proffessional! The lip-syncing with the music is really sharp and the editing so fits the music, I'd buy this dvd probably, yeah" Emily Williams, who is also in my target audience.

"I really like the outcome, it looks professional and was just what I wanted! I like how she edited it so the girl was never in my grasp." Ben Mitchell, who wrote and performed the song, Is in the target audience also, and it pleases me greatly to know he likes what I have done with his creation

"It's great, really suits the lyrics and what the song's trying to convey." Davd Mitchelll, Ben's older brother whom I've never met and is most likely to be honest as he doesn't know me personally. I am most pleased with this comment, as suiting the video with the lyrics was my main aim.