Post-Production Questionnaire Results - Question 8

Our eighth question was 'What is your favourite part of the video?'
This question is basically to highlight where our music video succeeds in relation to the audience. If we have a majority saying one scene/shot then we know that this is the most memorable part and then we play around with that — maybe use it on the website homepage for the band or for the digipak cover.

7 out of 15 answers included the dolls. 'The mix between the dolls being broken apart and him feeling broken', 'dolls corresponding to actor', 'using dolls to resemble a voodoo doll effect and the red lighting gave a sinister feel', 'how the doll broke showing his feelings breaking' and 'the use of dolls which are constantly being used in comparison with the human storyline'. As we thought, whilst filming and editing the music video, the dolls are the most popular aspect of the music video. Even though they are just little snippets throughout the music video, they obviously engage the audience and help them to understand the emotions of that character. I'm very happy that someone picked up on the red lighting because we wanted to show a difference between the shots and also create an atmosphere and tone of sinister and voodoo. These were key ideas when filming the doll shots and I'm very pleased that someone wrote about that in their answer. 

We got a few answers talking about the ending; 'the end provides a cliff-hanger, entertaining', 'the end is very dramatic and effective' and 'the angles at the end'. The end shots were done when we were reshooting and when we were first putting them in in editing we thought that there might be too much going on with the narrative and that this might confuse the audience. However we had nothing to fear as the answers to the previous questions show that the audience follow the narrative and that people liked the ending. In my opinion the ending shows the vulnerability of the character, and with the soft music at the end of the song, it links together and creates empathy towards the character after all the chaos and angriness that he showed before. 

We got answers of particular shots. 'Sitting watching the door' this isn't very clear as this audience member could mean when he is in his house watching the door or when he is in the park watching the door outside. Either way both shots coincide with each other and show the same emotions and meanings of the character; determination, obsession.

Another answer we got was 'the way it cuts on the beat in the room when he's changing'. This sequence was the most fun to film and the most fun to edit. We wanted to show him being happy before all havoc breaks loose and wanted to give an uplifting sequence as the song is pretty happy at this part. I filmed these shots of him changing. He wore a baggy suit, a doctor who mimic outfit, he falls over whilst pulling up his trousers and him buttoning up his shirt as he walks towards the camera/mirror. When editing we cut out parts of the changing process and did little snippets which we cut to in the beat of the song. We slowed down the bit before the last (which we then sped up) so that the last shot (him checking how he looks) would be in time with the music. This sequence can be found from 1:04 - 1:18 in our video.

Another answer of a particular shot was 'when he mushes the cake'. The cake was something we did to show happiness and anger. To show him wanting the date to go perfect, and the cake being the first thing he takes his anger out on. Shooting this part of the music video was difficult, messy and time consuming. We had one cake so essentially one chance to get it perfect. First we did a high angle shot of the character as he smashes the cake. We then quickly moved to behind him and created a point of view shot of him screwing up the cake in his hands. We then moved to either ends of the table to get shots of him throwing the cake to both places and then moved to the floor to get a low angle shot of him throwing cake onto the floor, and accidentally (but creating a good shot) into the camera. When editing this sequence we wanted him to break the cake just when the song reaches its climax. So we sped it up just at the end of the shot that so he breaks the cake right on the beat of the song. This sequence can be found from 2:00 - 2:10 in our video along with cross cuts of close ups of our actor and shots with the dolls.