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.

Here is a small test I decided to do just to get to grips with the kind of thing I wanted within my music video, as you can see I stuck with my sketch theme and animated something that was drawn and mixed it with real life footage. It gives a great effect and gives me many possibilities with what can be shown within my work. The method I used to make this however did take quite long. I drew a picture cut it out on photoshop and then took screenshots from the video and added the drawings in photo and finally adding them back to premiere. There is a fast way of me doing this however for this test I didn’t have the tools I needed. I will be using a drawing pad which will allow me to draw straight onto the clips without all the unnecessary messing around moving files and using this very slow process. Overall the test went well and I really like the way it looks and im excited to see how the rest of my work turns out.

After a meeting with my tutor and talking about my proposed idea and due to some time difficulties my original idea would not be able to be created within the given time frame and I was told that even if I started making this project from the first week I wouldn’t have been able to create my work due to rotoscoping being such a long process. After hearing this I would need to alter my idea, to not only still fit with the theme I have chosen and all the research I have done for it but also to create a professional looking finished product. After throwing some ideas around I came up with a few, one being I could find a sketch theme effect, film some footage and put this effect on the footage to make it look like its been drawn. Although this was something to consider I was worried that it wasn’t very technical and I would be losing marks because I’ve just filmed footage and put an effect on it. I then thought of filming some footage and then drawing over some of the still, then putting them into a moving image, this will still consist of me drawing what goes on the footage as well as actually going out and getting footage. This technique also doesn’t restrict me to using just one effect, I can still use the sketch effect within my video but not for every shot, I will be able to play around with different techniques and ideas and make the music video more of an experimental music video. I would need to research into sketch effects for After Effects and also look at other music videos that have shot footage and then drawn over the stills and then bringing it together as a finished product. After having some research to back up my new idea I could then move forward from this slight setback and move forward quickly.