Deconstruction & Reconstruction Evaluation

As part of my Advanced Portfolio I completed a deconstruction and reconstruction of a media text. My group chose the music video to the song Make a Beast of Myself by Twin Atlantic. We deconstructed the video by analysing the original music video then created a storyboard of it and thought about how we could recreate the video to make it as similar as possible to the original.

The original video contains slow motion, in order to overcome this problem we sped up the original song to x1.6 the original speed. When we filmed the footage we played back this version of the song, so that when we slowed down the footage in Adobe Premiere Pro the motions of the extras looked exaggerated. We found that when we slowed down the footage using the rate stretch tool in the first half. This part of our final take was then in sync with the original song but the latter half wasn't. To overcome this problem we had to cut the footage up to the point where it stayed in sync with the original. Then we put the whole clip back in and cut off the beginning of the clip and then slowed down the footage to a different speed using the rate stretch tool to make the latter in sync with the original song as well.

The original video is also shot in one take therefore we had to get all aspects of the clip correct in one go; it took about 13 takes to get the final take. The clip contains so many extras so the director and camera operator really have to concentrate on making sure all people involved know what they are doing and at what time. The lead singer who plays the role of the protagonist within the original video also reacts to some of the extras who are walking behind him, so he has to turn his head at the right moment for them to then run away. Also because the video is one continuous shot, it didn't give us the practice of cutting up several shots and then attempting to piece them together.

Another problem was finding the right amount of extras to appear in our music video, a couple of extra people volunteered and members of our group also had to appear within it to make up the numbers. When I make my own music video I will have to find reliable people who are committed to helping me out, because it is an independent project I don’t have any group members to help me out.

Two members of our group were also not able to attend the afternoon when we filmed it, so to even out the workload they took on more of the editing work and put together the storyboard. When I work on my own music video I will not be able to do this, so I will have to be sure that I have enough free time in order to film an acceptable amount.

Also within the original video there were issues such as one of the extras jumping through a window, which we found hard to recreate. Due to the fact that we don’t have our own private street available to us, where we are able to jump through the windows, I think if we did attempt to recreate that moment, it wouldn't look as good. But there were more realistic situations such as a man falling off a ladder and people just walking in the other direction. So for my future video I have to think realistically about how to create a creative music video that still looks professional without it being filmed in a studio location.