In November I heard a song on the radio (Spanish Radio 3, which plays more indie and unknown and new songs) which I really liked. So I found out what song it was (“Niebla” by Bum Motion Club) and discovered that the band was based in Madrid and that the song was a very recent release (from 2021!).
The song already had a music video, but I didn’t care. I decided I really wanted to make my own music video for this song.
So I found the band’s instagram account and sent them a message. The band liked the idea and gave me permission to film a video! I saw they had a concert the 2nd of December in Madrid, and they invited me to go with a friend so I could film. I planned a basic storyboard (but without drawing images, just with words, because I wasn’t sure what to expect).
I asked my media teacher if I could borrow a camera for the day of the concert, and I got a friend to go with me. We showed up at the place early, so we could see the rehearsals and get some more footage: this was really helpful (even though I barely used any of this footage in the final video) as it allowed me to see my possibilities while filming, and to jump onto the stage to get a shot of the drummer.
The concert started at 21.30 and I took some shots of the audience. When the song “niebla” started playing I walked to the front of the stage with my camera and started filming them. It wasn’t the easiest thing because all the people were crowded at the front, but I got good shots. The stage lighting really helped to make the videos way better (unlike the rehearsal videos). I ended up not following the storyboard too closely (obviously) because the filming was very improvised. I made sure to include all the musicians in the shots (with different closeups during solos) so I could work with a range while editing.
I wanted to film a second part for the video with my friend Marta, with concept shots and playing with lighting and a plain background. I set up a “studio” in my living room (a white bedsheet I bought off amazon and taped onto the door), and I rented some professional lights and a smoke machine for the day because I found this audiovisual renting place really close to where I live. And I wanted a professional look for the video.
I thought I might use this DIY studio for my media coursework so I also filmed some test shots in it (which I’ll show in another blog post).
I wasn’t a great director at all while filming this part. Because I had no idea of what I actually wanted in the video. I was hoping that I would be inspired in the moment of filming and end up with really cool candid shots (which I did, but I didn’t have enough). I wasn’t giving Marta any clear directions for what to do (“just sit down and look around”), which wasted a lot of time in the filming process. From this I’ve learned that I need to visualise exactly WHAT I want my actors to be doing in the shots that I want to film, as it will make the filming a lot easier and less stressful. Some improvisation is good, but not leaving the entire process up to improvisation.
The editing took me an insane amount of time to do (20+ hrs), because I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to do from the beginning. I had to mix and match all the concert footage to the music (because it would look extremely boring if I just let it play completely chronologically), and it was tedious to get the shots to match exactly with the beat of the song.
The entire editing process was experimental, which lost me a lot of time. And it could’ve gone very wrong if I didn't have enough footage (which in some sections I had to slow down short scraps of videos just to fill out space…) From this I’ve learnt that I really REALLY need to plan things in advance, as it will save me a lot of work when it comes to editing, so I will be taking this in account for my Pink + White MV.
This is my final video:
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