This was our first rough edit, and the reason it is unfinished is because half way through filming different scenes we realised that our style of music video didn't fit with the genre of the song and the band and was not using the conventions set by Goodwin to create an effective music video which engages the audience. My group and I felt like we had a good narrative, however we were only relating it back to the lyrics of the song and not the genre or the style.
Our strengths and ideas we will keep for the next edit are the basic style and reflections of other music videos and films. We used a Wes Anderson style opening of the classroom and Panic! At The Disco "This is Gospel" shot for Lauren, the main character, waking up. These connotations reflect the genre because Panic! At The Disco have the same brand as Gameplan. In addition, Wes Anderson's qwerky style to filming mirrors the variety of the song and how we want the music video to look like; qwerky.
On the other hand, our weaknesses were that a lot of our shots weren't framed properly. Some of our shots were wobbly, like the classroom tracking shot, (0.22) so we will try and improve this by using a dolly rather than a hand held camera or using a make shift dolly with an office chair. Furthermore, our shot variety was very basic using forward mid shots and long shots, with limited close ups to connect the audience with the character and to show little movements between the key scenes.
We also made the narrative of the music video very confusing with the idea of Laurent not liking her reality because it was boring and torture, It would then cut to her waking up in her dreams with her imaginary best friend. Our first problem we came across was that the idea of the imaginary best friend did not work because it wasn't clear whether she was just a random person in her dreams or an imaginary best friend. Also our dream ideas were very cheesy like the paint war. It didn't feel natural, and the theme of the paint war didn't reflect into our genre conventions.
In conclusion, we are going to improve the music video is by researching more into the genre conventions of our band and how we can reflect similar visual styles they use in theirs. Also, we are going to bring back the narrative and make it simpler, so it is easier to follow. We are going to get rid of the imaginary best friend because it was too confusing to establish her as more than just another random person.
