Initial Brainstorm and Moodboard
My group consists of myself and my partner, Ben and together we chose to do a music video, and have come to the conclusion to create a music video surrounding the 2018 Kanye West and PartyNextDoor song: Ghost Town. We produced a mood board and in-depth brainstorm looking at all sorts of aspects we want to include/ elements of inspiration. These included: general ideas, Possible songs, conventions, target audience, themes/genres, locations, General storyline and some specific scene ideas.
For our proper initial brainstorm we began by watching a selection of different music videos to get a general idea of the genre and visuals we want to include in our own music video. Visually, we have taken a lot of inspiration from the music video Pompeii by Bastille for its brutalist architecture and feelings of emptiness. We also looked to issues that we may be able to relate to/ people our age in the sense of the mental health issues stemming from parents pressure and societal online pressure. We have tried to embody these feelings by reflecting it heavily in the settings and surrounding environment.
In our moodboard, we heavily wanted to focus on warm lighting – inspired by the old street lights seen prior to the installation of LED lights, this can be seen in the yellow hues and lights. We also wanted to focus on a sense of emptiness – to embody the feelings of the main character. Because of these we googled liminal spaces we wanted to include such as carparks, alleys, empty parks etc.
Production Pitch to the Class
Using the above images, we pitched our idea for the music video to our class. We particularly focused on our inspiration, locations choices and the song itself. We used the session to gain proper feedback and input from our teacher and the class with some key focus points being to do with implied ideas/ easter eggs. One of these was our idea to include a reference to the eternal snail reddit question that was initially released through a 2014 Rooster Teeth Podcast episode, and we got the feedback of keeping an easter egg so “if you know you know” but to others it is merely just the inclusion of a snail. Another main takeaway of feedback was the idea that at the beginning when we want to show our main character in their room (after being yelled at by their parents) to keep the anonymous for mystery and effect. Lastly we got feedback on we should analysis the lyrics to Ghost Town and see if we can incorporate it somehow into the music video, with our teacher suggesting to do something similar to that of the intro scene of the film Baby Driver.
Health and Safety, Storyboard, Clothing and Accessories
Health and Safety (Ben)
When we divided up our tasks, Ben got allocated to do health and safety, and so he brainstormed all types of risks that would be associated with our filming. One thing we forgot to add but is being taken into consideration, is bike safety. In order to follow the vibe of our music video, our main actor won’t wear a helmet and will be riding fairly slowly and will only ride for very short bursts at a time.
Story Board (Sean)
As a pair we decided that instead of a shotlist we would do a storyboard to focus more on the shot itself rather than the performance of the video. This helps to go in line with our style of music video being more narrative and focused on the scene itself rather than to much of a performative element. We will draw up a sequence of shots where generally we want each to go.
Clothing and Accessories (Sean and Ben)
List of all mis-en-scene and props needed for our music video
Saturday June 13th 2026
Benjamin Trealor, Sean PurdyFilming Day 1
Crown Hill, Milford, Auckland CBD
Reflection of Filming Day 1:
Reflection
Overall I believe our filming day went very well. We were productive from the get go with figuring out if we wanted to film using our lent camera or Bens Phone; we decided to use Ben’s phone for ease of filming and also due to safety precautions due to not wanting to be fiddling with an expensive camera in the CBD at night. Once we began filming we ensured for every take we took a practice take and looked at it to decide if we wanted to go ahead with using it before taking the final take (or takes). I wish we had used this logic on one of our latter takes – the shot of me leaving the carpark which is disturbed by a man running – where I thought the man would look natural however looking back it is definitely more of a disturbance rather than a natural add in. In total the filming took about 3.5 hours, and we made sure to check back to the story board for locations, as well as getting in shots from random backdrops we liked the look of. One other thing I think we should have done was get more of these random shots as in my first draft of the final outcome I have used them a lot and I think it would be better with more included. Because of this, I am suggesting to Ben we do another short day of filming some extra content to ensure our final outcome is as professional as possible.
What I am going to change after the first draft
- Editing on the Last two clips
- Do an extra day of filming to swap the singular location clips with more content on the bike – Take another clip of the leaving carpark without man interruption.
- Insert Youtube embed of first draft here