Monday, 16 May 2016

Major project 2


1 - Video Objective


I was approached to continue making the music video for the drag queen Intra Venus(IV), having been present at the filming of the song I was aware of the shot set ups, outfits and general theme of the song.  The first step was to go through the existing edit that had been made and then construct a plan of action for further editing. This led to Isaac Page taking over the re editing of the shots, which I assisted with, I then worked over what he had done adding further shots, and all of the effects at a much later date.


Whilst I have been helping with this video very slowly over the last two years as an on the side project, helping out were needed it was only recently that I started making informed choices in the creative process when I focussed on doing it as part of my major project, as I decided I would like to work on something fun whilst still at university, and key feedback or the work presented.
“My video objective was to create a contemporary drag queen music video that captured my artistry and identity “
Attractive to men, jealousy from women, appreciate different types of people, follow on social media, talk about music.” - IV
Whilst IV had a series of objectives for promotion of herself and ideals, for myself I was focussing on several other attributes. Such as getting better at premier pro, after effects and editing. To start to build a music video/ editing reel as this is one of the several areas I am interested in. I also wanted to use this as an opportunity to better understand colour, composition and the music video genre. Keeping in mind IV’s objective and core aspects of the video which were to represent the artist, send a message of appreciation for different types of people, and to make the video shareable on social media to get people talking about it.

2 - Target Audience

“My target audience is anyone who is willing to watch or listen but is specifically relatable to certain members of the LGBT + community, U.K. USA Australia 17-38”
From the audience already in place I could see that there was a strong female following from twitter, and a predominantly male one on Facebook. Most were active on social media, and almost all were under 30. Key points of interest seemed to be the makeup and outfits and also the wit/sass in the posts. Several members of the community were involved in contributing towards a patreon fund for the videos to be made which shows the active interest already in place. The LGBT community has also increased in awareness recently thanks to Ru Pauls drag race, that has opened drag up to the mainstream media and online communities. Whilst this craze has now slowed there is still a strong following in both the UK and US. Another area that is consistent throughout is the hints to the illuminati within several LGBT videos. With this in mind I felt the video needed to not only entertain but also leave the viewer with a sense of empowerment. Using the general branding image that I felt best fitted what the audience wanted to see. “Seductress, desirable, sexy, confident.”
“I plan to distribute it via social media and YouTube” - IV
Whilst the initial buzz of making the video died some time ago it will when appropriate be posted onto the above platforms. I think a little more hype will be created first with some teaser clips and stills to gain interest again. Aiming at a both PC and Mobile audience, to my knowledge it will not be distributed by an agent and so will mostly be done through word of mouth, being played at parties with people dancing to it and such.


As IV was more aware of her audience than myself we were in constant communications over a facebook group set up to discuss and give feedback on the video edits as I progressed through the shots, making sure that the main message was apparent throughout.


3 - Concept


A little about Intra Venus taken from her Facebook Page:
  • “Intra Venus is conservative in both speech and appearance. Small town girl with big town ... dreams. Large bitch with a large mouth. Occasionally BritneyS
  • Intra Venus or auntie Venus to the kids, was born in a small town gutter in the early hours of cold winter morning many moons ago. She now travels the country with the dream of becoming an internationally recognized, plus size supermodel bitch, with enough cash to feed her insatiable appetites!”

“My concept is a drag queen at the club with her girls showing off who she is and representing how to be fierce, with lots of triangles “ - IV
I had little to no control over the actual shots when filming save some directions on lighting and if a take came out okay or not as all of the initial props and outfits were chosen. When it came to editing there was also a simple narrative in place of entering the club (blonde), dance (purple) and then have a drink (blue). I later asked for further close up footage focusing on eyes and the mouth as I found this to be consistent in the music videos I was looking at in imply a seductress image.


I also focused on the props that were provided namely the light, ring, lip gloss and drink to add diversity to the shots but also to show. This was for more of a vanity image and also confidence. I also planned to add very faint text, reinforcing the lyrics and other words associated with drag culture e.g “no tea, no shade.” but felt they did not fit the final edit.
Colour wise a main reference was the film blue velvet. I wanted to show high contrasting colours not only to simulate club lighting but also an unreal feeling to the images, I wanted to show exaggerated, over exposed but vivid lighting to reflect that of the footage and also by having high contrasting colours at times (gold and blue) to keep viewer attention.


Throughout the piece I maintained that IV was central, and almost used the other girls and background dancing props to highlight her more. I focussed on her with a lot of triangular masks and cut outs to help push the illuminati symbolism and keep her as the focal point.


4  - Video timeline


  1. Intial guys video Matthew Boswood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0h-L8oeRg0 you can see the annotations we made together (The edited footage to “the edge” sign was done by him and stayed like this)  
  2. IV and I went through all of the footage and named it appropriately marking a lot of the worse shots as “filler” and rating which of the takes worked best. We later found out that the camera man was blind in one eye when filming which could explain the numerous poor shots.   
  3. Isaac then took this footage and worked on adding the annotations
  4. https://drive.google.com/a/myport.ac.uk/file/d/0BwYyuYvyzuxATEJsRjA1eEY4MU0/view My inital edits of the first scene after re making the intial footage using Isaacs as a base,  I found the quality loss from premier to after effects quite high and ended up copying it all out from scartch again.
  5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbf1nfoCdds&feature=youtu.be Further effects studies, I also found that I had been working from an earlier edit that Isaac had done and so had missed several really good edits which I later put back in and worked on top of
  6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ4HbM3ObGs&feature=youtu.be Another effects test,0:39-0:40 blonde wig quick edits, 1:30 - 1:39 the blue dance quick edits without effects were done by isaac, and at 2:06 the divide overlay was also created by him, these are the shots that I added in later, the last shot was also added by Isaac which I kept as I felt it was a very strong and humours last shot.
  7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMbzi53mScU&feature=youtu.be The final editted sequence without the text and glitch effects
  8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nx0XCsnw7M The final video. In the end I did not add text as I felt it did not work mainly because the words detracted from the focal points of the scene and gave it an even more amateurish look.
5 - Effects
  • Varied the length of shots getting faster and faster and more distorted towards the end to suggest intensity and excitement.
  • Initial shots for each outfit change would last a little longer to give viewers time to take in the new scene, though were often hinted about prior to being shown.
  • Because of limited footage I reused a lot of shots, to hide this I tried to vary the colour, length of time on screen and also opacity of the clips.
  • I used a lot of straight cuts to induce a feeling of movement and intimacy with jump cuts to draw attention.
  • Often using jump cuts between similar shots with different effects to try and keep the continuity but focuses the attention on the new effect each time.
  • I also left sections effectless to give the viewer a slight visual break and pause, also adding contrast to the effect heavy shots that often followed.
  • Whilst I did have a rough plan of which shot I wanted to use and the general colours for the scenes I found a lot of the effects came from early experimentation and then further repetition of the templates I had made used in different ways.
  • I tried to hid the discrepancy from phone footage and other sections with lighting overlays and distracting effects but sadly feel this didn’t work out that well. Ideally I would like to reshoot several shots, from several different angles and edit that back in, but for now this is the footage I have available.
  • Another thing that will be re done in the future is the audio, IV has done and american accent that she is now unhappy with and also (although intended for clubs/dancing) several sections of audio are a little too abrasive. As found after listening to the track more than once….
  • At the start of the video I was trying to do the basics of editing and then as I progressed through the shots I also progressed in my techniques, I feel this inconsistency is rather obvious, and whilst I did go back and try to edit this, and also feel the beginning should be slower this is something I want to go back and re do. Especially as the first several seconds are the most important and right now I feel they do not grab attention easily enough.


6 - Effects Videos
Free effects I found online:

Below are the individual building block elements I used throught the scenes:  
7 - Video Research
I looked at a series of pop videos that I felt were aimed at a similar target audience and also some other drag videos currently out there. I have mostly made notes on the effects as that was one of my primary focuses in this project and used these as references.  

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