“Beneath the Waves” Music Video Case Study

Unlike many of my usual blog posts on these releases, I'm wanting to approach King Witch's "BENEATH THE WAVES" a little differently. This project, unlike all of my previous releases in 2017, is a literal behemoth and thus warrants and rightfully deserves an extensive look.

I've found it incredibly helpful, mostly to myself and hopefully to interested parties, that describing and self analyzing the work I do, improves the work I move onto. It's an opportunity to call on what influenced certain decisions and extrapolate how certain decisions were made in the first place. In this case of the creative process, the level of design involved was much greater. I call back videos I've made before, Universal Thee's "SPEAKER" , Echo Arcadia's "HURRICANES" and "CINDERELLA", Black Talon's "LUNATIC FRINGE", Two Flag's "FOREIGN IN MY OWN COUNTRY" and others that required a greater level of understanding and include multiple moving parts that each need attention. Using a greater range of "behind the scenes" images, gifs and my own concept images, drawings and paintings, you'll realise the amount of work needed to produce a video of this size, to this concept and style, as the primary creator and literal producer of the swathe of content. Covered here, as opposed to the expanded Storyboard to Screen Comparison, I'll explain more about the depth of the story, it's relation to more modern society and its homage to silent adventure films of days gone by, when I feel, cinema was at its purest. Expect more of the usual in the next post.

So, where to begin. Initially, the concept of the video was to recreate a silent film style and content, revolved around the primary theme of the song that was inspired by Herman Melville's "MOBY DICK". It was a conscience decision to not replicate that story, feeling that in trying to recreate, to any degree, would not make for the most original of visions seeing as the story had been adapted multiple times already. Honestly, this was an opportunity to produce our own take on the song. The one concern was marrying the slow, meticulous, janky style of the silent film with the Doom Metal genre. The maritime theme remained, as did the period setting as it was instantly interesting and posed the greatest amount of scope but stylistically, allowed us to remain within a time that would be suitable to explore in a silent film made at the turn of the century. So, what was settled on, was the tale of an obsessed Sea Captain with a crew riddled with sickness, looking for a place to call home. Against the backdrop of descension amongst the crew, as they slowly die from illness, all hope is seemingly lost. The Captain, crazed with desire to save his crew and himself, goes to any length towards seeking salvation bracing a fierce storm, only to be swallowed by the vast and tormented seas. The story tried to get across the idea that the banished weak, would eventually be destroyed by the mass of dark forces, helpless as they were pitted against them. Even though sick, broken and in need of help, their cries are unheard and only lead to them being destroyed. In a society that preys on the weak, it seemed fitting that that was a driving force within the tell of this narrative. As the story jumps between characters, young and old, we were able to span this thematic concern. I look at modern times and reflect that in my work sometimes without ever feeling like the original work is stifled as a result. But it adds depth, reference and understanding to a work that could easily just be passed aside as fad. At the very least I wanted to try and say something other than just what was at face value.

Much of the initial research I had already undertaken at some point during my time watching and researching films. Watching obscure, unknown prices of cinema, particularly silent film, was something that interested me. I've always wanted to emulate the style and specifically the feeling of watching a film of this period. The biggest references we're A TRIP TO THE MOON, HÄXAN, NOSFERATU, FAUST, THE PHANTOM, THE GOLEM, DANTE'S INFERNO... to name a few. I love cinema and this was a time where I was able to delve into a historical period I had a great affinity towards. Everything from the frame rate, film quality, editing limitations, the acting style, the quality of design, shot type and set construction. The main concern, was taking away defined evolution of cinema, no camera movements, few close ups and the maximizing of every shot to tell the story.

Now, forgiven for the scale in which this was conceived, was some of the elements not adhering "perfectly". Part of that was the charm that I would hopefully exhibit here. As much as the story itself was played seriously, the general tone was tongue-in-cheek at times, played up due to the very theatrical feel of silent films. Having to take a full rotation in almost 100 years of evolution in film narrative and film aesthetics and limitations to establish this was a exciting, at a time when every film that was made felt new, different and wholly original and sometimes, still never bettered. From the technical perspective, which became the main catalyst for how the entire narrative would be framed from start to finish, meant the story, design and proof of concept had to be water tight before beginning on the design for fear it would all be nought when it was eventually put together. Thus begins, three months of the entire process.

-

It was agreed early on, from the proof of concept, we'd have a day shooting with the band; a clean and well produced band section that would be intercut along with the narrative, that held some visual tie-in to the rest. I'd produce, design and shoot all of the remaining model and miniatures shots we would need. That would be rounded off with a big day with 8+ cast members, make up artists and props using a green screen. I have had experience in these kinds of projects before. Initially, I'd be working from an OK'd treatment, a shot breakdown and storyboards before beginning work on the design. However, in this case, it was important to make sure everyone was on the same page, hence the creation of the mock-up edit and sheets upon sheets of design notes on what would be painted EXACTLY. much of the process of making these videos, from my experience, is in convincing others you're capable of pulling it off. I don't know if that statement comes off as a detriment to myself but in every project I have undertaken, in order to maintain you get what you need and want, you have to explain EVERY SINGLE THING as a "director". But anyway, since making projects like SÖHM and I THINK WE'RE LOSING OUR MINDS, where the majority of the planning was kept internally, here, it was important to refer due to some pressing time constraints.

To begin, below, is the mock-up edit. Basically it's the storyboards in non-broken down form (the list of shot breakdowns I won't be showing here) with each of the designed 50 shots and in what order they would appear and to what timing with the band section added to help with the overall structure.

As a very visual piece, the most amount of visual reference I had, the better. It was hard at times describing "the whore of the boat, already bludgeoned by falling debris, dances on the burning deck of the shop as if in a trance" and expecting people to fully understand the shot type, the speed and effectively what something that sounded super-expensive would ultimately become. The mock-up and eventual mock design sheets, would help the band to visualize the route I was going. Everything else, like how the shots would fit together, how many layers each shot would require, what elements would perform what in each shot, was held exclusively in my brain for the entirety of this development and production of the project.

The main design elements, from the backgrounds to the animation elements etc, would all be watercolor paintings. I spent days hunched over, painting and drawing every specific element and background and I loved every minute of this process. The entire scenario would have the feel of a painted set, but obviously in its own scaled down way. In terms of counting the total number of elements, backgrounds and models made for this, I can leave that to but it was all painted and designed in around 8 days in early September. Below are the two videos, breaking down the A4 and A3 sized elements.

The style had to be incongruous throughout, and I had referred to many images and photos to get the look and feel I wanted. Overall, the design was deliberately simple. On one point, due to the time concerns and another in that it would be transposed to black and white when finally delivered. Any form of detail would eventually be lost when the images and elements were put together. But even by this point, I will be honest, I didn't know 100% that the project would be able to genuinely and honestly exhibit the traits of the silent films I had researched. And on top of that, that the simplistic style would detract of the serious tone of the story, all the while feeling a bit tongue-in-cheek. At this stage the level of speculation on the design was rife but by even hitting this mere early stage, the project felt like a very real thing. With this design completed, the project had grown its spine. The last thing to do was to cut out, reinforce and construct the models so that they could be suitable for being filmed.

Upon finishing the design work, there came the point of beginning to shoot it all. Over the course of two days, mostly at home, I began to shoot each of the elements, all broken up into single moments so that, in post, they would be layered together. From reading and watching about how effects shots were created, from many different making of's, namely Ridley Scott movies ALIEN, BLADE RUNNER etc, I'd picked up how to make certain things work. Broken between A3 backgrounds with lighting concerns and larger elements, filmed on a variety of colored backgrounds; blue with a light mimicking the sun, a black screen for luma-keying and the nighttime storm sequence and a green screen for keying, depending on any clashes with colour. The remaining elements would be scanned separately, all A4 and would be animated in post. An important part of maintaining the style, was going to be the live animated elements. From the boats to the waves they added a charm that immediately dated the piece. It was about hinting at the idea of its realism that trying to fully attain it. Using a hairdryer, a bunch of BBQ skewers, gaffer tape, garden wire, plastic boxes, string and model foam, it was about it utilizing what I had at my disposal to create the deliberate the home-made low-fi feel.

The entire process was time consuming but ultimately enjoyable. There was very few moments during the process of making this video. The main concern during the process was maintaining that the narrative, by the time the titles and shots had been composed that it would still read true. There was a fine balance, even by the time the layers were composed, the shots constructed awaiting the final actor elements and the impending band section, of a piece of visual storytelling.

Much of what identifies the silent film is the use of titles to describe the scene, show character dialogue and exposition but in the case of making a music video, where time is vital to maintain audience attention, the titles had to balance against the shots that are telling as much of the story as they could. As a rule, as much as I can visualize the shots, the ordering and how they will work together, the whole project was an invisible juggling act. A fun invisible juggling act none the less. I would say, for the future of working on projects like this, would be another pair of hand; hold lengths of string, or the other end of a BBQ stick. Through a series of trial and error experiences shooting over the course of the two days, this part of the shooting was completed.

When it came to shooting the band section, it was a case of balancing the rigid set aesthetics of the silent film narrative and playing in and just around the edges of the metal based music video stylings. The slower, less rapid pacing of the song meant the pace of the way the band section could be shot reflected that. It would be a series of very specific, set shots with slow tracking movement and their own stylistic quirk; using shadows, smoke and lights in a dilapidated warehouse. There would be no handheld to accompany the collection to refrain from potential jarring. It was about subverting what would be commonly known as the metal video music section. What became of it was one of the best looking band sections I've shot but one that complimented a clashing narrative section. Use of smoke, banging a strong key light in amongst it and shooting into the light with a subject in front of it has been the basis of shooting any scene in anything I've made. This, doubled with the quality of the space and the subtle camera movement, made for quite an electric band section.

Similarly with when I was shooting the elements for the animations and live models, the last day of the shooting would be a bunch of actors dressed up against a green screen. This would involve the 5 main players in the story and no fewer than 6-8 extras. Dealing with as many characters, including crew members, both male and female, there was specific costume concerns. The difficulty of setting the story to period was obtaining adequate costumes to match and none that would be the colour green (for obvious reasons). Since the end result of the video would be transposing it all to black and white, this was less of a concern, as long as characters has set pieces they needed and everything else could be faked or retro-fitted on the day. This meant that the costumes could be a simple as a shirt, some colored trousers, all ripped up and deliberately aged to produce that effect. And thus in creating a uniformity, it created in the visual sense, an idea of working crew. It stole their individuality and helped in the visual sense to pit them lower than the Captain of the ship. (Images courtesy of Lyle Brown).

As a group of individuals riddled with illness and slowly dying, during the initial period of research, the crew were supposed to be suffering from a form of 'leprosy'. Much of researching this meant how far the effects could go, which by this point we didn't have a make-up artist. Whilst maintaining delicacy of the history, it was never named other than amongst ourselves to make it simpler to describe. Other than not wanting to exhibit the exact symptoms, I had wanted to make it seem as gruesome as possible. Micro-managing the look of the main players, the uniformity of the crew members, each member of the cast and how the make-up would look, at least at the beginning of this shoot day, the rest was taken up to chance and the contributions of everyone else involved.

This was one of my first times working with a make-up artist. The characters were split into main players and sub players when it came to the make-up. This was so the visible portions of the disease would be capitalized on the characters who would get the most screen time. As a result of making sure each of these specifications were met, were the sheets seen above. Part of maintaining the theatrical feel of the tone of the piece was in the overall look of the characters and how they performed. Other than the expected stumbling blocks of using mostly non-actors, faking actions against very fake scenarios like a storm and a towering beast bellowing from the deep dark seas. Other than the difficulty of trying to recreate these scenarios in this one room to the same screen, I myself had to manage a large number of people, all these external forces that would add to the shots in post-production and adequately convey what I was looking for. Using the current cut of the video for sizing and framing reference, there was plenty of distraction to not be able to convey the amount of performance needed for each shot. Upon looking back on the footage of the day, I'd very little to worry about. When it came to editing the footage into the pre-existing shots, there was little to no issues. the main concerns would have been the eye lines, the sizing of the characters in relation to the drawn locations and the way they would marry together as if they were part of a constructed set. This was helped by using light and elemental effects specific to the scenes as well as effecting the sharpness and outlines of the characters to allow them to blend as part of the sets. At this stage in the editing was the finalizing of the level of "silent film jank"; the choppy, untidy and feeling that the film was made back in the 1910's and constructed 50+ years later from found, non-flammable rolls of cellulite.

-

The purpose of the swathe of content was to illustrate the amount of work and effort that is undertaken, even with a project with not as much to consider. It's warranted as it seems like the culmination of a few projects I have made over the year but had not turned half as well. It was a very technically focused video, more so as it needed a technical focus so it could be achieved. The narrative defined the direction it would go from the beginning but slowly developed only as far as it needed to achieve the initially defined concept. Mainly, as my focus is on the quality of the story when producing these projects, the large gap between the focus on story to then the hope that it would all come together in the end, was an uncomfortably long time. The amount of pressure in creating a video with so many moving pieces was as much as any recent project I have undertaken but it's a project I am incredibly proud of and remains an instant favourite amongst the group of videos, not only this year, but since I began this pursuit as a soloist filmmaker.

Storyboard to Screen Comparison

As has seemed to be the case with this project from start to finish, this post will be done a little bit differently. There has been a tonne of accompanying materials that have helped and supported the production. The best and most useful of those was the storyboards and the draft imagery. To accompany the vast blog post that went into great detail the process, here are the main documents that detailed that process. The storyboards were a vital companion to detail what the story was initially going to be and to when it came to being edited.

The importance of the storyboards over the course of the weeks producing this video, it was the one thing prevented me from getting lost. It had more of its use during the editing process, as each shot had been broken down into layers. Acting as a checklist also, it meant that approaching the 50+ shots didn't feel like a daunting task. For the 9 pages of the boards, there was little in the way of change after the process had started. For any changes and additions would have involved a series of paintings, scans, life action model filming and time to edit and composing of the multiple layers.