Music Video Preproduction: Just Half of the Fun!

Music videos are not created simply on a whim. They require careful preparation, creative planning and foresight, and my video is no exception. Taking into consideration my resources and time to produce this, I have come up with a few different ideas for my music video.

My buddy's debut album. Check it out!

1. My first choice would be to use one of the songs a friend of mine has made to use for my video. His band, Asoflate, makes really good indie type music that is very well produced and musically executed and I would love to do a video for him. This wouldn't be the first time I have worked with his material. I made a 30 second kinetic typography video for him last semester so a music video would probably be something he would be excited about. The only problem here is that he lives all the way in Texas and would obviously not be able to appear in the video so it would have to be a story driven video without the musician present.

2. For this idea, I would shoot a music video to one of my sister's original compositions. She plays the acoustic guitar and sings, so getting footage should be quite simple since I wouldn't have to drag a whole band around everywhere. It's also a plus since we live in the same house, so again, I have that convenience of shooting almost anytime I want.

As for as specific ideas go, I really don't have one. I'm a big fan of developing a general story line and story board for a project, but as for as things like camera angles, editing and location of the shoot, I usually figure out as I go and let the ideas just come to me. Sometimes I find trying to sit down and concentrate on all the elements tends to stifle my creativity. I now devote half of of my creative energy to my impulsive intuition and the other half to strategic planning and coordination and we'll see how it goes from there.  

Swiss army syllabus.

So, the last blog I did I wrote about how awesome the COMM 333 syllabus was, aka, the “Music Video Syllabus.” Since the COMM 360 syllabus is similar in it’s content and layout, I will avoid repetition by discussing the different elements the Studio Production has.

This syllabus starts just like most syllabi by talking about all the usual class stuff, like: who, what, when, where and why thing in section 1 of the syllabus. It then moves onto section 2, which like the COMMM 333 syllabus, talks about podcasts, blogging and other communications related topics in an informative fashion, explaining to the reader the basic instructions to these realms.

From here, starting in section 3, the syllabus begins to mention the importance of critical and creative thinking and provides insight on how that relates to new media and the mindsets that governs it. Section 3 also provides some excellent charts that amplify the point like Bloom’s Taxonomy, which explains cognation levels and matches them with certain levels of education as demonstrated below.

E.S.A.A.C.K. = Best acronym ever.

Section 5 briefly goes over some concepts such as: critical and creative thinking, oral and written communication, quantitative and information literacy, collaboration and teamwork, problem solving, multiculturalism, and ethical reasoning and practices.

Ultimately, it feels like even though there is not to much information on the advanced production aspect of this class as I would like, this syllabus still does a great job at giving students a different angle of looking at production and the thought process that goes behind a television show or an advertisement or whatever it is that we are working. It’s one thing to have a good understanding of the technical inner-workings of a field of study, but I feels like it is of equal importance to have a solid understanding of higher thought processes, such as creative and critical thinking, problem solving and learning about how to get your ideas to relate to your audience.  

 

It's not a class syllabus. It's a career syllabus.

It's the first day of class and you have just arrived at your class. You take your seat along side your fellow students and your professor hands out the 8 page syllabus that most of us usually cram into our backpacks after the first week of class, never to be seen again. Normally, a syllabus consists of the same standard information that every student has probably memorized by now at least in terms of layout. It has information on what class you're in, what time its at, who your professor is, a calendar, and what you can and can't do. Thats about it, but not the Music Video syllabus. The COMMM 333 syllabus is not a normal syllabus.

While other syllabi tend to just give you basic info regarding the class, the COMM 333 syllabus not only provides the information a student needs to know about the class, but it looks beyond that and covers information that relates to the student and his or her education in the world of communications that the student can use outside of of class, and that's the best thing about the syllabus. If a student needs advice on a subject relative to the class, they can always refer back to their electronic syllabus and get some quality information on things. For example, starting on page 23: blogging, podcasting, critical thinking and even common sense in the digital world. This is something that I have never seen before in any classroom environment, or at this caliber at least, but as a student, I am really impressed by the amount of effort that my professor went through to ensure that we get, what I am now calling a, "Career Syllabus." I call it that because even though it is still a syllabus for a particular class, it is also a resource that is applicable to the job hunting world.

Page 24 from the syllabus.

This syllabus is a great tool for a students, especially freshmen, who may not be as familiar with the Mass Communications world. They now have the basic information they need to create good quality content for whatever medium they're working in. Even students who do know a lot about the comm field can still benefit from this syllabus, including myself.