James Sykes evaluated his music video production process. He researched different music video genres and conventions on YouTube. Based on his research, he chose a song genre and planned visual elements for his video before filming. During filming, he managed his time well and tried to replicate shots from other videos. In editing, he added some transitions to match the beat. Peer feedback noted the video matched the song well but could have benefited from more lighting variety, locations, and tighter shot lengths. For future videos, Sykes plans to improve lighting, include more locations, and trim unnecessary shots.

1. EVALUATION
James Sykes

2. PRODUCTION
PROCESS EVALUATION

3. Research
• Strengths
• On YouTube there’s so many music videos to look at and analyse, so only
choosing out a few was harder then I thought since there’s loads of different
and unique ones. So I limited down the videos to only one group, that focuses
on one main genre at first, then after I picked out and looked at a few videos
from a group in that genre, I looked at a few videos all from different genres,
just to see what conventions they use.
• Based on all the videos I watched, I came to a decision on what genre to
chose a song from, I factored in what conventions I could use if I could tell a
story, and if I’ll need multiple people or not.
• Weakness
• A lot of the videos I chose didn’t have typical conventions of the genres. Since
all of the artists try and push the boundaries of the genres they’re in, the
videos they produce will obviously be kind of different compared to the more
stream lined and generic ones.
• If I didn’t take some of the more unique ideas from each video then mine
would’ve ended up being a much more generic looking video with no
interesting visuals.

4. Planning
• Strengths
• When I started planning out what I wanted this video to be, I tried coming up
with the visuals first, since I think those are the most important parts to a
video, if it doesn’t look good then there’s no point in watching it. So by the
time I finished all the planning I had a really solid idea of what I wanted the
video look like, beginning to end.
• Weakness
• An issue I ran into was trying to come up with a consistent story, because I
spent so much time thinking of what I wanted the visuals to look like, I had
little to no time to come up with what I wanted the story to be. I came up with
one on the last day of planning, it made sense but it wasn’t as good as I
wanted it to be.
• Next time to avoid that issue, I’ll try and split the planning into two different
parts just so I don’t waste too much time focusing on one thing.

5. Time Management
• Aside from the planning beforehand, I managed the time well. I did
most of the filming in one day take one or two scenes.
• I tried not to film for too long when I filmed most of the scenes since I
would look noticeably tired and less bothered as time went on. So in-
between shots I gave myself short breaks just so I wouldn’t get worn
out.
• With more time I could’ve had more variety in the shots and a few
more locations, probably would’ve had more people in it as well since
peoples schedules made it so I could only really have myself in the
video.
• I had to cut down on how many scenes I had, because a lot of them
would’ve been really time consuming and too complicated to film on
my own.
• Overall it would’ve been a much better product if I had more time, but
with what I had and how well I used that time, it still turned out quite
well.

6. Technical Qualities - camera
• I tried to replicate some of the shots that I saw in the videos, I pulled
some of the ideas from them as well. I tried my best to not just ‘steal’
what over people had done in their own videos, I looked at what they did
and tried to put my own spin on it.
• A lot of what I took inspiration from was the visuals, since I think that’s
the most important thing in a music video I spent a lot of time looking at
the visuals in the videos I chose, and figured out why they worked and
how I could apply it to my own video.
• I think one of the more prominent looking shots is the one of the light
from the sun shining onto the camera and me in the shot looking off in
the distance. There was a shot like that in a few of the videos I watched
during research and I thought that they were some of the best ones, so I
wanted to have at least one shot that had something that replicated
them.
• I think one of the biggest differences with my product compared to some
of the others is the lighting, a lot of videos have darker looking lighting
or switch between light and dark, but I tried to keep a persistent bright
look to the video.

7. Technical Qualities – editing/post
• A lot of music videos try and edit some transitions to go along with the
beat, I found that it’s what videos have most in common. So I did try and
put some of that in my video, but I figured that just did that every time I
have a jump cut or a scene change it would get boring especially since the
song is nearly 4 minutes. So what I did to change it a bit is make it so that
some of the jump cuts were slightly off beat, I figured it would add to the
scattered and messy feel of the music video.
• The videos I looked at during doing research didn’t have too much unique
editing, apart from some light CGI. The most that some will do is change
the filter in some scenes or change the pacing to make the video go
quicker or slower. I didn’t want to add or take away too much while doing
the editing because I feel like it would take away from the emotion I was
trying to capture.
• Some of the more well done music videos have editing that revolves
around the camera work, which I couldn’t really do considering I was
filming on my own with a pretty low budget camera, so I did the best with
what I had.

8. Aesthetic Qualities
• The visuals I like the most are the ones where the sun is in the center
of the frame and everything else in the frame is a silhouette.
• I think the shot that I would change the most is the one of me sat at
my house when I get the phone call, I think the lighting is really bland
and dull, and nothing is really interesting to look at, I tried to make
something good out of the scene with the acting, but if I could change
it I would reshoot the entire thing with better lighting, more camera
angles and maybe more people.
• As for the overall product, if I could change anything it would be the
lighting, I would go back to the same location that I filmed on different
days and hope catch some better shots where the lighting is slightly
duller and darker. I would also try and include more locations since I
can think of a few places that can match the aesthetic of the woods
where I filmed most of the video.

9. Audience Appeal
• The audience I was trying to appeal to was people who look out for
story’s in music videos by looking at the visuals, listening to the
song to see if any of the lyrics match what’s happening in the
video, and seeing the people in the video to see what their
reactions to events happening in the video are.
• The secondary audience was people who are fans of the band in
the video and just people that really like listening to music.
• To appeal to the secondary audience I tried to draw attention to the
song by making the theme of the video connect very heavily to the
song.
• To appeal to the primary audience I tried including as many unique
shots as possible and made sure they fit the themes of the song, I
didn’t want any one shot to look too happy. I tried acting as well as
I could without making it look too comical.
• I also tried making the video connect to the video as well as
possible, not just in the lyrics, but I wanted the shots to reflect what
was going on in the instrumentals as well.

10. PEER
FEEDBAC
K

11. Feedback 1
• What did you like about the product?
• Liked the visuals, the song matched the video well, the acting
could’ve been worse.
• What improvements could have been made to the
product?
• Some of the lighting felt a bit off, especially at the start of the video,
the rest of it was good.
• Could use more of a variety of locations and could try and include
more people next time.

12. Feedback 2
• What did you like about the product?
• Variety of camera angles, the tone of the video mixed well with the
song.
• What improvements could have been made to the
product?
• Could have included more people since it’s hard to carry the weight
of a video all on your own
• It felt like a few scenes dragged on longer then they needed to.

13. Feedback 3
• What did you like about the product?
• The video matched the message of the song and fit the tone.
• The lighting that was included was really good
• What improvements could have been made to the
product?
• Could use more of a variety in the lighting, some of it felt very
familiar.
• Acting could have been better in some cases, was looking at the
camera a few times.

14. Peer Feedback Summary
• What do you agree with from your peer feedback?
• I agree that I could have used more variety in the lighting since
what I did have got boring a few times.
• The acting could’ve been better because I was actually looking at
the camera a few times.
• The video did match the song really well, the song didn’t feel out of
place at all.
• What do you disagree with from your peer feedback?
• I think if I had more people it would’ve taken away from the video,
so I wouldn’t have included anyone even if I had the chance.
• Some of the scenes were meant to drag out because it links to the
main characters mind set, but I will agree that some of them
could’ve been shorter.

15. Peer Feedback Summary
• Based on the feedback I got, I would try and include more
locations since I agree that the one I filmed at got a bit boring to
look at as the video was coming to a close.
• I would try and trim down some of the shots, mainly the ones of me
running since I thought that those shots did linger on for longer
then they needed to and it felt a bit awkward.
• The lighting is something that came up a few times, both good and
bad, said that the lighting I had worked really well and fit with the
song but it got boring because a lot of it all looked the same. I
would change the camera angles that affected the lighting to
hopefully add variety to the video.
• If I could include more locations as well I think it would have made
the video a lot better.