Music video - Going Under

I had been out with some friends one night and I had some really interesting conversations about psychedelic experiences and technology. On a side note: I believe that many great things have been learnt through the use of psychedelics in a nice environment and great ideas and life lessons can be learnt through these experiences. This post will not go any further into details about psychedelics but I wanted to mention that this video was in part inspired by it uses. I do not persuade its use to anyone. It is a choice one must make whether to tap into their minds inaccessible areas and whether they can handle what is felt and seen. I do believe that great ideas and amazing insights into life can be attained through its use.

Moving back to my original point about my conversation and how my ideas formed for this video: It was inspired by some chats I had with some friends about technology and evolution. How these devices we use now e.g. Smart phones and computers become and extension of our organic selves and possibly the eventual integration of man and machine / technology. I wanted to portray this from a perspective that neither denies or glorifies technology as I think these man made creations still originate from organic sources and share a symbiosis of sorts. It is a tribute to how fascinating these new technologies really are when they are created and formed through human intervention.

It happened by chance that Leon, who I make music with, sent me this track in a more unrefined form the day after the idea for the video came, and I knew it was the perfect music to go with the ideas that I had. The track itself has an Electro/Techno sound which works well with the imagery I had in mind. I contacted Leon and we spoke of the idea that I had and we commenced working together to perfect the music and video.

The Concept

. To show evolution right down from singular cell forms to more advanced bacterial growths all the way up to tetrapods.
. To show the growth of human life through aerial footage.
. To show technological advancement in more recent years.
. The dawn of the smart phone and the mass production of it.
. The research and development of robotics

The idea was to show our rapid growth and the technological advancements that are developing. I wanted show how all this man made material (circuitry, computer chips, cameras, phones) all have organic points of origin. To compare and contrast between our organic beginnings to our future which will no doubt rely on technology to aid our survival and growth or our demise.
It was made with the intention to neither glorify nor advocate technology but rather take a fascination and the marvel of how far we have come as a species and the rather incredible position we have reached in our progression with these new technology’s at our helm.

Production Process

As with most of our creations this video was made with a very D.I.Y aesthetic. With the limitations of having our own film gear and access to locations we made it with found footage sourced from the Internet. Found Footage filmmaking is a style of film making that I am interested in, where footage is appropriated from its original purpose to create something new.
Description of Found Footage thanks to wikipedia :)

I have not made many videos before and therefore I only had iMovie Maker available as my main production tool. This was not the best tool to use as I have used Adobe Premier Pro and Final Cut in the past, but the lack of options and finances meant that I had to be resourceful with what was available.

Imovie Process Screeshot

Imovie Process Screenshot 2

With the lack of editing tools being a bit of a drawback I had to ensure that I kept it simple. I wanted to achieve a hi-definition look to the video and keep the editing tight and concise.

I began the process by trawling through Youtube, Vimeo and other online video sources to collect material that suited the theme. The main tool for collecting these videos was “Online Video Converter v3.0”
With this I was able to simply paste the link of the video and download a .MOV file that could then be inserted into iMovie Maker.

Online Video Converter

Keywords for search

Biology, Evolution, Technology, Computer chip, Smartphone manufacturing, Circuitry, Google Data Center

while searching the above-mentioned keywords I was able to go deeper into finding the kind footage I was looking for. I was surprised by the production quality of some of the manufacturing footage that I was able to find. Companies such as Intel, Apple and various other companies. The footage was obviously filmed for the purpose of advertising their product and therefore the quality of the camera work was of cinematic standards, which really gave the video a Sci-Fi touch.

With the found footage being of quite a high standard and quality it was just a matter of creating a story through the editing. The only functions within iMovie maker that I employed were the cutting/slicing tool, Speed functions (Slowing down, Speeding up, Reverse play) and Zoom. I mainly used these functions to trim the clips into chunks of useable content, editing the speed / playback functions and to crop the footage of any watermarks and branding logos. I wanted the found footage to look as if it were made for my video therefore I had to repurpose it for my own use. I spent a few weeks editing the footage, slowly trimming out the extra fat and honing in on the right cuts. After this I colour graded the footage so it all had a clinical blueish tinge to it to suit the overall clinical vibe of the footage.

The most challenging part of this whole process was getting the pacing right for the cuts. I wanted to edit the footage to the beat so it took some tedious editing sessions to get it all in synch. With only iMovie at my disposal this definitely created some limitations.

I was really happy with the end result. I just hope that the themes are clear to the viewer and that the message gets across without being too ambiguous. I really liked the process of doing this video. Found footage videos really puts the content right in the hands of the artist and allows them to stitch together imagery and content to create their own narrative. I see it in the same way that I do sampling in Hip-Hop or more Avant-Garde practices. The track and the video work well together in my opinion. I hope you guys like it too.

The track and video are available to listen and view on all the links provided below. Also check out our label and support if you like the sounds.