As previously stated, my music video is going to tackle the sensitive topic of mental health and I have decided that within mental health, the video shall be primarily focused on depression and anxiety. Many do not understand depression or anxiety until they suffer from it, it is a silent illness that can affect day-to-day life. Depression does not have a label although there are limits to the depression one has from mild to severe, this video aims to consider all types of depression including Seasonal Affected Disorder (SAD), Dysthymia (also known as Chronic Depression), Prenatal depression and Postnatal depression.

Many who suffer from depression also battle with anxiety. The video aims to tackle the psychological effects of anxiety with a shot of a wandering eye connoting the idea of the protagonist looking around to see who is looking at her, depicting the fear of being judged in everyday life whilst the fast paced transitions are to connote the notion of panic attacks.

The video shall depict the protagonist’s battle with depression and anxiety through a timeline of her mind. Her walking to the sea is to connote the end, her giving up… The switches between the shots from the beach and the shots in the arcades/fairground are to connote the contrast between her sad and happy days. She wants to get back to those days but in her mind it is impossible; she has nothing to live for and the only thing she can do now is give up. I do not want to romanticise mental health within this music video, my aim is to show the cold, hard truth of the illness and I think it will be achieved.

Now that I am more than in full swing of the development process of the video, I took the opportunity to reflect upon what I had done so far and to consider conceptual elements to the project. Whilst I stated that I wanted the video to be purely experimental, upon reflection I have decided that throughout the music video I would like to tackle the sensitive topic of mental health and in particular depression to acknowledge the Mental Health Awareness Week 2017.

In order to be able to create an accurate representation of mental health within my video, I have decided to research mental health in general before focusing in on the specific elements of mental health that shall be the concept of my music video. The NHS state that “one in four of us will have problems with our mental health at some time in our lives” and this is why I think it is so important to tackle it within my project. Many things can lead to mental health such as bereavement, financial problems, low self-esteem and relationships to name a few and you never know what’s around the corner, so within my video, I would like every element to be unexpected. My aim is to have a fragmented narrative to connote the uncertainty and mind of an individual suffering with mental health problems throughout the video and this shall be done with fast-paced video and shots that depict this uncertainty.

This concept may be confusing however its actually quite simple. The basics are that I would shoot some footage, after having this footage I will then take stills from it and draw over them, then putting them back into the footage. Although this is still a fairly long process I wouldn’t be using this technique for the entire video. I researched into other videos that had used this technique and the best one I could find was Skrillex and Diplo – “Where Are Ü Now” with Justin Bieber. This is a great example of mixing real footage and then putting hand drawn images over it. It will keep with my sketch theme that I have chosen and it also allows me to have some creativity. Using this technique will also allow me to use some stop motion animation within my project, I will be able to draw an asset like a dolphin and put this into either a still frame or moving video. From here I can then move the dolphin and make it look like it is jumping in and out of the footage or video, by having a stop motion aspect to the video just shows off more of the skills that I possess however I can alter it to fit with my chosen theme. I plan on making a test video to give a small glimpse into the kind of stiff that will be within my project.