My progress into this project is thus:
I brainstormed two weeks ago, after having a “discovery” meeting with Matt, the ambassador for the band for whom I am doing the music video for. He emphasized that he wanted a video that he could appreciate and to do that it needed to have a story. “There should be a point,” he said. We showed each other videos that inspired us. Matt had seen my video I made for New Media class last year, Meeting – YouTube, and appreciated the juxtaposition of the cheery music and the dark masked scenes. He said that there are some things that are off limits. He said that I should avoid at all costs the “looking cool while playing guitar” shots. Also, avoid dancing swastikas and circus scenes.

Keywords I thought of when brainstorming for the music video: story, juxtaposition, creepy, whimsy

I made two storyboards. I was planning to do three, but I really fell in love with the first one that I made and the second one was lovely enough to present to Matt.

The first storyboard: “Happiness.” It’s about a character who is bored and miserable and only when he is dreaming does he feel happy. He hatches a plan which is to go make everyone at the party sleep. His facial expression begins to change towards the climax of the song where everyone goes to sleep.

The second storyboard: “Inception.” It’s about dreaming and the idea was that the character takes a nap in the scene and the scene cuts up into the next scene with the character in the same position but things are a little surreal and it gets a little more surreal each time the character takes a nap as if she is getting into dreams within dreams that get farther from reality.

I had another meeting with Matt where I presented “Happiness” and got the go ahead and made this mask.

I presented this to Matt and he said that the charm in the storyboard was missing and it needed to be square-er and the features hand drawn, so we ended up with this.

My next step is shooting the video. I’ve got some people to help me but it feels a little overwhelming putting a video shoot together with my friends and getting the shots that we need while still having a good time. I have to put on my director boots and act as well.  I wish there was a list of outgoing people who are down for anything, available anytime, easy to work with and have a car. This would be a lot easier. I do have pretty good friends, though. I’m looking forward to having a team to work on a video. I love the synergy and suggestions that they contribute.