Music Videos
True Hate
Music Video Concept
The concept of my EP My Mask, and the act of wearing a physical mask as an artist is a metaphor for autistic people like myself having to “mask”, or the act of “masking” which is something done in order to fit in with neurotypicals.
Particularly those who are diagnosed late in life who now struggle just as much or more since childhood, but mask the emotion well enough to pass as “socially acceptable” (Stokes, 2023), to the point some people never end up getting a diagnosis and therefore not learning vital skills to help understand their condition and receive answers as to why they are different from most.
True Hate tells the story of how I felt due to the murder of a family member and how that emotion increases to the point of seeking revenge. Taking influence of the horrorcore style, with exaggerated mention of violence. Suggesting the enjoyment of torture for revenge.
This combined with the majority of the song expressing real emotions to the traumatic event made the song gritty and realistic, and subjectively the darkest track on my EP. That's why I chose this song for my first music video.
To enhance the impact this song had I wanted to use ballet dancers doing en pointe, a beautiful form of dancing that is also known for the pain it can cause long term. I felt this was a suitable form of dancing for my plan. It's a complete contrast to the sound of the song. The beautiful dancing next to the dark, depressing and angry horrorcore style lyrics makes both the dancing and the darkness stand out next to each other. to contrast the dark vibe.
Collaborators
I collaborated with an amazing ballet dancer Lucy Dunn who assembled a group of dancers, choreographed the dance and helped shoot and design the video. She was essential in bringing this video together. I hope to work with her again in the future and I would highly recommend her to anyone looking for a professional ballet dancer and/or choreographer.
The dancers consisted of CJ, Laurren, Harley and of course Lucy. All were amazing to work with and very professional.
On camera I had Neil Whitehead, a professional phtotograpgher who did a brilliant job and really knows his stuff.
Equipment
We used three cameras to shoot this video:
The 360 camera was great to use, it reduced the amount of shots needed and the angles and positions can be adjusted in post quite easily.
The FujiFilm was the best quality camera we had, used to capture high quality, still, wide shots.
The music video was captured at night. These cameras were good, but struggled in some low light shots.
This is why I got the trail camera which is designed to be used at night.
Combining these three cameras proved to be great in providing a variety of different shots and editing opportunities.
We had a several portable lights to possition in various places. However the key thing learned from this music video experience is that a bigger more powerful floodlight is essential when shooting at night and will be yoused in future projects.
location Hunting =====================
We hopped on our bike/scooter and went around Brighton looking for locations that suited the aesthetic we were looking for, using a location mood-board as a reference, but mostly feeling out a place as we saw it.
During the actual shooting we would pass a few locations not off our planned list and improvised recordings there and then. Some of the best shots in the video were done this way.
We had vague ideas of where to place the cameras for each location but we ended up deciding where to place them as we went.
Initial Storyboard...
This was a first draft of my story board containing various scenes laid out in a .gif.
As you can see the initial idea was to perform on stage which later changed to the bandstand on seafront, which was a much better location logistaiclallly and visually. A change introduced by Lucy.
Further Storyboard development...
Using the location images, I put together a few .gif's of how I'd want the scenes and characters to move or be positioned with more clarity than my drawings.
Video shoot =================
First shoot:
On the first recording session we began with the location from the storyboard above.
We stopped at two planned locations and stumbled across two more on our way past.
It was not in the plan original plan to have Lucy dance in these shots. She was just to play the "target" being followed in the video.
Since she was a dancer I had her bring dancing gear too as it would be a shame not to utilise her skills. As none of this was planned all dances and movements were improvised.
I was very happy with these first shots which further changed the video direction.
The new idea is to have this character Lucy plays to represent any remaining light/good/innocence in my character.
Which follows me around while I follow the target I plan to exact revenge on. My conscience dancing around me and the idea of revenge, is it worth it?
In these moments I still have that light, but if I go through with the revenge my character plans this would disappear and I would lose that beauty and that light.
First Shoot Issues:
A few issues I noticed from reviewing these shots were:
My jacket needed to be open more to reveal the costume underneath
The lighting was particularly dark, we should be able to fix this, but getting bigger flood lights or even changing to lighter locations for future shots may be needed for future shoots.
There were a couple shots I had ideas to improve, but not until after reviewing the full footage at the end of the shoot.
The only way to implement these improvements is to re-do the shots. So the lesson learned here is to review the footage carefully and multiple times after each shot while on scene. This way we could have identified these issues earlier on and been able to rectify some.
Second shoot:
For the second shoot all the dancers Lucy managed and myself went to the bandstand on Brighton seafront to run through some scenes.
This went very well and gave us a good idea of what needed to be worked on and the order of shots we wanted.
These shots show the ballet dancers dancing around me. Their elegent movements in contrast to the masks being worn mixing the dark with the light concept.
2nd shoot issues
For this shoot I noticed:
I needed to move some more as I was mostly stood still.
The mask I used didn't provide the aesthetic I wanted.
For this i decided to add a few hand movents in the next shoot. I will also change masks to the same style as the dancers but with different colours. Which was the initial plan, but I tried this one and didn't notice how much I didnt like it until I watched it back on a big screen.
Third shoot:
This was my favourite shoot. I was again just the 3 person crew like the first shoot, but with none of the scenes planned. The other dancers were unavailable and so Lucy on dance, Neil on camera and myself got together to gather any shots we could think of to help make sure we had enough footage for the whole video.
We used a location Lucy noticed during the first shoot where i took the opportunity to create a scene that showed the mask i was wearing change from the white one, to the black that was in line with the dancers.
This was incase I made it part of the plot to start with the white mask and then change, instead of re-doing the last shoot with all the dancers, as i was not going to youse the white mask again,
What I enjoyed most about this was the complete freedom of creativity. In almost every street we past we were able to to see a location and think of a scene to record as we went. I fount this to be an excellent opportunity to collaborate creative minds and ideas. Which gave further inspiration for scenes in the next shoot.
I had no issues with this video shoot. I enjoyed all of it ad didnt find any issues apart from maybe taking too long. The camera man was growing tired and ended the shoot earlier than I would have liked. But a success, and great fun doing this one.
Fourth huge shoot:
This was the biggest and longest video shoot. Over 7 hours in total. Starting with all the dancers and ending with a four person team to gather as many shots as we could. This was our big final day of shooting for the end of the summer, so we had to get all the footage we needed as the dancers were separating for the summer.
One of the biggest set backs we had right from the start was the bandstand being used by annoying dancing old people.
As this was our only chance to record we had to improvise. We found a location on the seafront and adapted our routine for that location instead.
Eventually the bandstand was free between 10-11pm and we went back to shoot a couple scenes and create some new one while we still had the dancers. Two had to go home after a while (thank you guys so much!) and we were left with our power team of 4.
We gathered as many shots as we could from the bandstand, improvising a lot to make the most of it. The benefit of using the bandstand at this time was the moonlight behind us.
We then set off towards the planned locations while looking out for any other improvised shots along the way. Continuing the creative methods we used in shoot 3.
One of the best looking scenes was down a graffitied ally, a location we had made note of but didnt have a specific idea for. As it was right opposite the location we came for we used it to our advantage.
The colours and lighting of this was one of my favourites.
(NOTE: after we finished shooting, far in the background of the ally we noticed there was actually a couple of people doing unspeakable rudey things! 😱)
This was a funs shoot, but also very demanding. There was one planned shoot I really wanted to do, but it was far away from yous. We created as many shoots as we could along the way and then I had to make a decision to either venture to the scene I wanted, or continue with spontaneous shots....
I decided to go to the planned location. Unfortunately by the time we got there the sun was rising. As it stands i'm unsure if ill be able to use much of these shots as it stands out from the rest of the video. We will see.
There was a lot of creative problem solving during this shoot. This shot of Lucy on the wall for example....it was too dark for her see the wall she was walking on through the mask, and it was a fair drop to the beach. She had the idea to place her mask on her head and look down. You cant even tell in the pictures.
I was incredibly impressed with everyone in the team, their creativity, commitment and patience. It was a long and cold night of shooting. And I owe them all greatly!
Next step is to create the video. We are months behind. My editing guy was a bit of a let down. So i'm currently teaching myself how to edit videos as well and put together this video while I wait for him to be available.
Takeaway:
Through this entire process there are a couple lessons I learnt and would recommend others look out for:
Be prepared for compromise - if you have a specific location you want, have a 2nd as backup just in case it's not available.
Have a person dedicated to one task - if I was to redo this I would have someone working on the shotlist and constantly running through it with us all. As i was doing most of everything, i would forget a lot of things and get distracted far too much. It would have been better to have someone keep us on plan.
Have backup people - whether that would be cast, camera operators or editors. Having such a small team meant that when one person didn't do something, it had a drastic impact on us all. We have the videos but no video yet. I'm working hard and learning fast.
This was my first music video. I think all in all it was quite good. A great experience and really fun. But ill definately do things differently moving forwards, This was quite ambitious.