Attempt at Making a Music Video...

"Nintondo-San" (Nintondo-San) 09/04/2014 at 23:10 • Filed to: None

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So recently a friend and I have been out Urban Exploring. She had an idea for a music video to a song she heard while in Japan. The idea was for a post apocalyptic themed love story, so we found a place and a some dude that looked apocalypse-ish and went to work. I shot it, her and her the post apocalyptic looking dude starred, and her and I edited it. Filming took place over the span of two hours on an early morning, and the total budget was $1.59 for a cookies and cream chocolate milk from Wawa to stay hydrated. All other props were found on site.

What do you guys think in terms of the shots, panning, creativity, editing, color balance etc? Constructive criticism is appreciated and welcomed. Also, if you don't understand the story line, let me know and I'll explain. I find accurately conveying the story line without the use of words to always be quite challenging, but we tried our best. This was our first real attempt at anything like this. Her and I always have a bunch of ideas but never do anything with them. So the fact we actually finished this is a miracle.

**This film was entirely made possible by the trusty 1995 Mazda MX-5 Miata support vehicle**

Agrajag > Nintondo-San 09/05/2014 at 00:13

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Pretty cool.

orcim > Nintondo-San 09/05/2014 at 03:50

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No matter what I say after this, I think it's very good. Way better than I could ever have done. I had reactions to various elements, but well done no matter what.

Birds in the intro - I liked those. I would have faded them into the initial soundscape instead of cutting them off like the video blackout/transitions. (Keep the audience connected to what you're doing from the beginning.) That point of silence with video black was jolting.

The case for the murder didn't have enough video lead in and not enough video lead out for the suicide in my opinion. But I've never done a short like this. Suspect there's some old school (ie: 40's or 50's dramatic presence) to "act" out the emotion in video to match the audio.

For the scenario, I'd have wanted to see them display more paranoia - more looking back over their shoulders while traveling to the current place, or looking out of windows to make sure no one was following. It's an apocalypse thing. Otherwise, it's too "romantic" in initial mood to justify the murder later. There has to be an external tension to make the transition from carefree "oh look we found a place" to "murder" to "oh shit - I can't live with what I did" because 'paranoia'.

I take the water scene was "this sucks, I'm upset", except survivors would have been thankful for any water. The video/audio translation was ok, but didn't track truthfully given human/animal motivations. This goes into the fight scene where survivors would never trigger on trivial stuff. They would only trigger on deep stuff, like public betrayal, lying, etc. (For instance, the fight scene could have been shot with the lady greedily drinking the gatorade privately, and the man catching her doing it. Argument ensues, no aspect of survival is thrown away [like life giving water] and then the tension ratchets up to murder.)

Crowbar didn't have enough blood on it in that final shot after hitting the dude. (imo)

What was with the Sake.. steps? I liked it, but... didn't know what it meant.

Eazy-O > Nintondo-San 09/05/2014 at 04:58

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I love post-apoc, but if you didn't tell me it was, I'd think you were portraying junkies/hobos. Sorry dude... I didn't catch the post-apoc vibe that much.

Some thoughts...

The working powerplants in the background don't help the impression.

If water is so scarce, why are they so clean? This is my major problem with a lot of popular post-apoc stuff.

Not saying that a sunny day kills the mood, but shitty weather helps sell it.

More survival gear, scavenged crap on your persons. More of their possessions in the hideout. A difference between a junkie/hobo and a post apoc survivor can be as small as a gas mask or maybe a med-kit. Junkies don't walk around with gasmasks. :)

I know, budget is non-existant, so these things are hard to pull off. But then again, you don't need much more than trash. Getting your actors to wear a bunch of grimey shit is a different matter. The easiest way to establish a post apoc narrative is to show an artefact from the past, somehow connecting the character and viewer with the pre-apoc. Perhaps instead of looking at clear skies in the scene where they lie down and smile, they could look at some idealistic pictures of the pre-apoc world. Maybe have them walk over a newspaper clearly showing the downfall of society or a disaster which brought about the apocalypse. It's cheesy, but with 5 minutes run time, if you don't wanna make it all about the post-apoc itself, but just set it there, it's the best idea I've got, sadly.

Just ideas anyway. You did way more than my armchair film scripting ever did and in a cool setting, so major props for that. Keep on truckin'!

Harold says hi.

Nintondo-San > orcim 09/05/2014 at 15:56

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Thanks for the compliments!

As was said it was a bit of a spur of the moment shoot, so not much planning or attention to detail to the story line took place. Editing was done rather quickly without an excessive amount of detail. We did what looked great at the time, but after looking at it again, I definitely feel the transition from the bird noises to the music is rather abrupt.

And it does feel, as you say, a bit too happy. I feel it starts off on the right note, but then once the music starts it was hard to keep a dreary or suspenseful mood. The song is positive, and we made a video trying to spin off of the lyrics and make it negative.

I could also not agree more with there not being enough time before and after the murder. Unfortunately, as seems to be one of the biggest challenges in editing, is time restrictions. The song was a bit short, and we either ran out of time or editing talent to condense it all. We had many more transition clips we would have liked to use, but we just couldn't fit them.

The very basic idea we had for the whole thing was that there are two lovers living in a post apocalyptic world together. The spot that they "find" is actually intended to be their primary "home." I guess we could have added a bed into it or something of that sort. And the finding the chair and bringing it to the home was just something we found and added in for the hell of it. Actually a bit documentary style in that sense. When they sit down for a drink, they begin to argue about how their water supply is extremely low. The guy storms off, and when the girl goes over to wipe off some of her clothes, she finds the guys has been hiding water from her. They fight, then agree to go find water together, but her plan all along is just to kill him, then herself. Now looking at it though, that is a rather short time frame to make such a decision. We probably should have made it more sinister from the get-go.

The "sake" on the steps was the same thing as the "SOAP" next to the door to nowhere. I have no idea! That stuff has been there for years. ;-)

Thanks again for the compliments. Next time we head out we will certainly put some more thought into the story line. We did this spur of the moment because the location is so awesome and we always wanted to do a film there. I guess we focused a bit more on getting moving shots, rather than creating a moving story line.

Nintondo-San > Eazy-O 09/05/2014 at 16:04

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Haha! I can totally see how you are seeing junkies rather than the last of the population.

The working power plants were something I hadn't noticed until after the shot was done and we were editing. Was the only take we had of that key shot so we just said screw it and left it in.

Totally agree with the water bit I'd have to say. We did attempt to dirty them up a bit, but as you say if our primary focus was a lack of water, they should have been much dirtier.

As for shitty weather, I also agree, but it would have taken much more planning and dedication, which given it being a spur of the moment shoot we didn't have much of. So we just made it a point to wake up early and utilize the hard sun and try to create a nuclear summer look. Could have been a bit more harsh I admit.

Anyways, much appreciate the feedback! Looking back at it, I do wish we gave the details a bit more consideration, and made a better attempt at conveying the story line. We focused less on the story line and more on just finally getting some "beauty shots" of the location. We just added the story and music video in to give them some purpose and make them at least somewhat interesting to anybody who normally wouldn't care at all.

I'm sure we'll be back at it again sometime, and should be better thanks for the great feedback.

Cheers to Harold!

Eazy-O > Nintondo-San 09/05/2014 at 18:13

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Fair game on all points. :)

When you say you wanted to add story and music to what is basically a location... presentation(?), like Petrolicious would present a car, for example... Maybe go pure, full on beauty shots with actors. Or actually as you explore it for the first time. Perhaps a bit spontaneous? A series like that would kick ass on youtube, since you say you're into urban exploration. And if you plan it correctly, it would be less work than this was. :) Even some wearable action cam moments would fit in here. Every one of these videos could be a music video, if you feel like it, or just have some mood music added. I dunno. Just food for thought. It's friday, I'm out. :D

Nintondo-San > Eazy-O 09/05/2014 at 18:44

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Very good ideas... I've had many similar ones. My ultimate goal with that location is just a pure "nuclear winter last person on Earth" suicide. Constant flash-backs to the past, and a very minimalistic, eery song playing. With the dreadful winter we have forecasted hopefully I can make that a reality.

This is totally unrelated but relevant at the same time but my goal in life is to make pure, unadulterated car films to market and advertise either new cars, or classic and exotic cars for sale. Think Winding Road POV on steroids. :-)

orcim > Nintondo-San 09/06/2014 at 00:50

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Thanks for the follow-on. I understand just getting to the point, and love it. Well done.

Story-boarding is something that can consume months up to a year of pre-production for big productions. It took me many years to come to a "this is more valuable than shooting" opinion, but I think it's true, given the need to pre-conceive work before embarking on getting it done.

In any case, you're doing good. Keep at it.