Why Do You Feel So Down?
Pre-Production
For this project, Kenia Diaz and I barreled head-first into creating a story-driven music video. We were dejected to find we were required to mimic, rather than craft our own. Disheartened, we scrapped a multitude of storyboards and did a complete one-eighty, deciding on a preppy, eighties themed music video instead of the previous serious, grim plots we had worked on. Declan Mckenna's Why Do You Feel so Down? includes a variety shots in one location, partnered with bright costumes and choreography reflecting an old eighties work-out tape that appealed to every one of my team members; Ella desired something bright and uplifting, Brogan wanted to avoid anything too mainstream, Kenia preferred a song with meaningful lyrics, and I only wished for an exciting-to-film music video.
Since I suggested the song, everyone agreed I should take the role of director. Kenia was the location-scout as well as art-director, Ella was in charge of organization and graphics, and Brogan assisted in casting along with filming. We all partook in editing the final product. Casting was simple, yet working around individual schedules proved to be exhausting, not to mention the weather left much to be desired. We ended up filming less than a week before deadline, acquiring all of our footage in under two hours.
Post-Production
We entered this project knowing the editing would be a challenge; geometric transitions and constant moving graphics were out of our range of knowledge. I put together a rough cut while Ella pieced together the three star-transitions needed in After Effects and Kenia created the graphic. The day I intended on filtering the final cut I was absent and the video was left unfinished. Had we more time, I would have spent more time on the choreography. The poor actors looked like fish out of water. In addition, I would have focused more on costuming and editing. I'm still rather fond of the finished product, but there is always room for improvement.
Conclusion
As my first time as director, I was not assertive enough and did not communicate as much as a should have. Taking this knowledge with me into the future, I know to trust my crew yet still maintain a solid line of communication. As the main editor as well, I learned how irritating it is to sync audio to images. Hopefully one day I'l gain the patience to move a clip a centimeter back and forth i the timeline until I achieve a perfect sync.
