For my thesis I will be making an album, and some visualizers / videos to go along with each song. I’ve been finding it a bit difficult to plan since both the music and visual components are very important to me and they need to go together, so it almost feels like I need to figure out EVERYTHING before I begin. I currently have a post-it wall which I refer to as “The Wall of Truth” to help me out with brainstorming ideas, and I’ve also been writing in my notebook. I find with songs that it’s easiest to write just when inspiration strikes, but the video component is a bit easier to manage mentally for me right now, so I’ve been trying to dedicate more time to that.
Currently, I want the first video of the album to be a continuation of my film RITUAL. This film ends with two hands coming together, as if my character was going to get taken somewhere. I suppose it was a bit of a cliffhanger, and I was originally intending to leave it that way, but I got an idea over the quarantine to make a bit of a sequel to it. I wasn’t originally planning to use it as a music video, but I think the vibe fits what I wanted to go for with the album, so it’s a nice jumping off point to work with. Essentially this film will start with my character entering a new location (where she would have gone after the end). This will be a forest area, and she will come to a field, with 2nd me holding a mirror. This mirror will again make her travel to a new location, likely my basement. I don’t have a solid narrative for the album yet, but there will be more mirror traveling and mirror tricks, there will be blood, there will be spooky.
Beyond just needing time to further develop my idea and make content, my main issue is that I really do want this to have a consistent vibe and style, and there’s a lot of props and things I need to make that happen, but I don’t want to spend an absurd amount of money on this. I found the perfect mirror a few days ago but apparently someone else beat me to actually buying it so now I don’t know what to do and honestly I’m kind of freaking out. I am a perfectionist and with this being my final college project, I really want it to be perfect. I’ll have to get over that but it’s hard. The mental component of this will be hard. But I’m trying to slowly chip away at it when I can, and slow progress is still progress.
If you’d like more info. on the visual aesthetic I’m going for, feel free to check out my Pinterest board. If you’d like to further explore my video style, check out my YouTube. Or, perhaps you just want to look at everything that I do, in which case, check out my Portfolio.
Hey Amanda! I was super drawn to your thesis project post as it aligns with so many things that I love as well. You seem like a super creative girl, I believe connecting music and visuals is a fantastic idea for a large scale project.
I wanted to address something before giving you insight and critiques, I noticed at the end of your entry you brought up that you are starting to freak out because not everything is lining up perfectly how you planned. Don’t worry! Not only are a ton of other students in the same boat as you feeling overwhelmed and stressed, theres beauty in this unknown. I completely understand that some tasks can seem jarring when they don’t follow according to plan but I believe this thesis is all about embracing that discomfort and conquering it. I think theres beauty in walking through discomfort and you brought up how your best song-writing work is made through spontaneity and random bursts of inspiration! So maybe take some of that energy and apply it towards your thesis project as a whole.
With that being said, as a fellow filmmaker theres a few bits of advice I would like to shed light on. I believe implementing a visionary component to your album is great, but we both know how long it takes just to make ONE video. We don’t have as much time as we think to carry out this project and I would suggest planning on only making 1-3 videos to go along with your album so you can focus on the music and not overwhelm yourself with videos. Maybe you could make some lyrics videos for extra visual effects that don’t take as long, as well as combating your issue with getting props to create the vibe you were looking for!
Hope this helped!
Thank you for your feedback! You’re right, videos do make a long time to make, which is why I’m also making visualizers! For reference, these are kind of like cinemagraphs, where its mostly a still image with a moving part — ex. one of my ideas is just a video of burning candles. I figured this way I can still have a visual that adds to the overall story/aesthetic, but doesn’t take too much time to physically make. I hope that makes sense!
Will there be any sort of vocals on here, or will it be purely instrumental?
There will be vocals!