Where to even begin with the explanation of my final project? That is most certainly a hard place to start. I have gone through a full range of emotions in my attempt to bring something aesthetically stimulating to the viewer. I must start with the only known truth in regards to this final which is, I, Evan Michael Curby was overly ambitious in my ideas once again. As a result of my unwillingness to change my idea entirely, I have brought forth a project that is not anything I’d consider disappointing, but not wholesome to what I was trying to portray.
When it first came to concepts, the idea came to me rather quickly. I have been producing hip hop instrumentals for a while now under the alias of Alphur1, and have always wanted to make a music video for one of my songs. I knew immediately that the track I was going to make this video for was “What’s with it.”. It has always been one of my favorites and I had this idea for it for a long while now. The original concept was supposed to be an unknown, urban style, ninja humanoid would be fleeing battle with a life threatening wound. In his mind he would have visions of the beach when he was child, and his motivation to live was to return to the beach before his inevitable death from blood loss.
I wanted to shoot the scene in Cape Perpetua on the Oregon coast. In this landscape you can find all sorts of visually stimulating locations which I thought would only improve the viewers visual experience. In my attempt to make this I wanted to steal some of the best ideas I had seen previously from other music videos. In the ones that truly captured my attention, there was heavy focus on the aesthetics. I wanted to replicate that feel in this video in a concept that I would like to consider as “Visual Meditation”. That is why you will not find a lot of movement in my video, because I wanted the viewer to really have time to take in the depth of each scene. Was I able to effectively communicate that? I guess you will be the judge.
On my attempt of filming, I had my concerns due to the forecast. It had rain, but I figured it was going to be a light rain and decided to move on with the shoot. Once arriving on location in turns out that it was quite a bit more than just a light rain. It was absolutely pouring and the wind was hell bent on ruining everything in regards to the shoot. My model for the video was very patient as I tried tirelessly to get the shots I needed, but at a certain point, I had to pull the plug on it. Not only was my Canon T5i getting rained on way too much, but the weather had took a turn for the worse to the point where we were actually jeopardizing our safety being out there. I was very frustrated and had to try and adapt my original idea.
After viewing the footage, I was not entirely upset with the footage I had gotten. Not wanting to ditch my first idea entirely I decided to try to make what I had shot work for me. I had to cut the the original story entirely and sort of adapt this “mysterious protector of the coastland woods sort of vibe. I would have liked to have had about 20 more different shots to work with, especially that of my model, but all things considered I’m not upset with what I was able to produce. In my end goal, I looked to create a visually pleasing video that complimented the audio of my track, and if you can find some enjoyment in this video, than ultimately I will feel successful. In conclusion it was a good test run, and I look forward to producing my next one.