Music Video Imitation

A Very Loose Interpretation

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. That's what they say. So what better way to pay homage to our favorite musicians, than to imitate their music videos. That was the mission, should we choose to accept it, and indeed we did.

First off, when I say "we," I'm usually referring to Miranda and myself due to the fact that she's my best buddy and we make a good team. Our skills and capabilities complement each other's and together we have everything we need, at least most everything. The challenge that came with this project lies not in lack of a certain skill, however, but in the shear abundance of music that we each listen to. We spent a solid day just trying to figure out a video to imitate and we ended up with "Na Na Na" by My Chemical Romance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egG7fiE89IU) and "Stay The Night" by Zedd feat. Hayley Williams (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-gyZ35074k). We also picked a different song to set our imitation to, "Old Scars/ Future Hearts" by All Time Low (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnoJ_0lk_5w). With our resources decided, we could now begin planning.

Step 1: Watch the reference videos. Memorize the song. Choose elements you definitely wish to incorporate into the final product.

Step 2: Plan out the video. Making the shot list fell into Miranda's hands, while editing down the song fell into mine, which I was excited about (music editing is one of my favorite things!).

Step 3: Film the video. This is where we hit a few road blocks. First came the wonderful bipolar weather of Kansas that kept us from checking out equipment on the only day Miranda and I could've both filmed, only to completely stop as soon as we got home. That was fun. So then we ran into the issue of I now had to film everything by myself, and I have little confidence in my camera abilities, at least when there's no one else there to help me figure things out. But I did it anyways and two days of filming later, we had all we needed. 

"Na Na Na" by My Chemical Romance

Step 4: Edit the video. Miranda took on that task, as she usually does, for I am not a video editing person, rather a music editing person, as I've mentioned before (which I did have to employ during editing due to a tight deadline, and a little less footage than we planned for). But editing is where we greatly imitated the video: split screens and quick edits, etc. 

Our Video

Step 5: Share your video. Sharing in terms of this class consist of putting it on a server and then projecting it in the front of the room for everybody to watch, as well as posting it on Youtube (here's the link for that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIEaQGjTiB8). 

Well, there's our process from start to finish. Now onto the part where I say all the things I wish we would've done instead of what we actually did. Initiate new list!

1. Our video increasingly became a looser and looser interpretation of our reference videos, and by the end, if we hadn't stated our inspiration, no one probably would've know we had any. Also, we started off with two reference videos, and in the final product, the second wasn't present at all.

2. Thing two I would change is the fact that we have an actress, emphasis on the tress, singing a song sung by a man. I didn't notice it until the end, but now it's all I notice.

3. If I could film it again, I'd try to get wider angles of the car driving, but that was just a lack of resources on our part. It would've been possible if we had had another car to follow Sarah's with someone else driving so I could move around in the car and film, but since it was just me, I figured it wouldn't be wise for me to try to drive and film at the same time. Safety first!

Well that's about it. It's not a terrible video. I actually quite like how it turned out, especially compared to some of our other projects. So you should check it out and let me know what you think!

Here's the link for our final product again, in case you missed it in Step 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIEaQGjTiB8