Unit 4: Learning aim A

An evaluation of the effectiveness of pre-production for music videos humble and upside
down & inside out.

In this essay, I will be explaining pre-production processes for digital media products,
specifically music videos. Pre-production is everything that takes place before the filming
day. For example: budget, mise-en-scene, extras, lyrics etc.

Finance is either private, public or joint. Most artists would choose private to make a video
they personally like, whereas public would be something to an audience, normally with a
meaning such as don’t drink and drive.
Logistics is everything that physically needed to sort out, like how people are getting to the
place, the weather, camerawork etc. For example, if you need to sort out how you are
getting to the location you need to be, you should work out what mode of transport to take,
how many people there would be (and if it was by car, how many would you use) and how
long the journey would be.
Adhering to codes of practice would be making sure everything is done legally – such as
health and safety and permission to be on site.
Regulations are rules that all film companies and production houses must abide by, such as:
you can’t work for them without a contract.

Each pre-production task has a purpose, function and a format. The formats of pre-
production is the documentation of planning, e.g. scripts, storyboards, risk assessments,
lyrics. These should be industry standards, so people who don’t know each other on the
team would allow them to work together easily. These formats should be acted on by
everyone. They allow you to be responsible and prove you have done something. The
function of pre-production is to produce the highest quality product you can. Visualising
something can help us to work out if an idea is good and safe, and if it can be done
financially. This is in order for the video to be organised and why we should follow these
rules. It should make sense according to the artist’s ideas, and establish feasibility. The
purpose of a pre-production is whether it is legal or not, if the artist is insured, what
happens if there is a mistake etc.

A risk assessment is the process at which producers and directors can film certain things
that don’t cause harm or could cause harm to people on set.
● Risk Assessments link to logistics because everything that needs to be sorted out
practically could have certain risks to it, like making sure everyone gets to the
location at the right time and the safest route to the location would be sorted out
● Risk Assessments link to adherence to codes of practice because this is making sure
everything is done legally, like making sure there is a health and safety officer,
making sure that the music being made adheres to copyright regulations.

The function of a risk assessment is to have an accountable record of health and safety of
crew members involved in production of a media product and the potential risks they may
face during this process.
The function of a contract is to ensure that everyone involved in a media production is
legally assured of and entitled to pay by the contracting parties.

● The format of a contract is nearly always in the form a of some sort of word
document.
● The contract can be linked to Adherence of codes and practices as both prep
production tasks deal with the safety of crew members and potential dangers that
may be encountered during production of the media product and Finance as both
deal with money management and the wages of cast and crew members.
● Contracts link to Finance, Logistics and Adherence to codes of practice.
● Contracts link to Finance because contracts are made that disclose the amount of
money used for specific things and how much staff members get paid.
● Contracts link to logistics because everything that needs to be sorted out could have
certain risks to it, and a contract should disclose these risks and the company and
staff would have a mutual agreement about what the course of action can be, if a
problem occurs.
● Contracts link to adherence to codes of practice because they are both contracts
that are legally binding, which insure people do a certain thing a certain way.
● If something went wrong, insurance wouldn’t be covered and your reputation can
fall.
Case study 1 – Humble by Kendrick Lamar

In this music video there are multiple people who are used as extras, This would have been
checked in advance so it is definite they would be able to come to the video shoot. There
are also different locations this was shot which would have also been decided in advance.

Some of the problems the music video could have and what to do to prevent it:
 Potentially slipping off the roof of the car injuring the main subject - the mitigation
for this would be to make the subject aware of potential dangers such as untied shoe
laces and slippery surfaces.
 Potentially falling off the bicycle whilst taking the 360 degree angle shot - the
mitigation for this would be blocking roads so cars can’t drive past during the shoot.
 Potentially hitting residents or damaging property of other with a golf ball - the
mitigations to this would be to tell the subject to aim in a different area, or to use
less force when hitting the ball to reduce chances of property damage.

´The pre-production contributed to the success of the music video because if it weren’t pre
planned the video wouldn’t look smooth or organised, without planning it everyone on the
set would be unprepared. If they have a certain location for a limited amount of time and
everything is unplanned the production team could run out of time and be forced to record
somewhere else, that could ruin the video concept. As the pre-production was planned well
it allowed the song to spend 15 weeks at number one in the charts, it was also the first song
in 2017 to sell over 100 million copies digitally which made it the best song of 2017.
It would have cost quite a lot of money as one of the shots (on the bike) cost over $5k alone,
so they would’ve had to manage their money well. They had different costumes, props and
locations so this would all have to fit in the budget along with the cameras and crew, etc.

The purpose of a contract is to legally bind the contracting parties by the creation of laws
which are applicable only to the very individuals of the parties. This sets everything in stone.
People work at the amount of money they are being paid.
People who will have Legal Contracts:
Extras
Artist (Kendrick Lamar)
Director (David Meyers and the little homies)
Record label (Top Dawg Entertainment)
Music producer Michael Len Williams II (Mike will made it)

● The purpose of a contract is to govern the rights and duties of all those involved in
the production of a media product. Contracts are legally binding and enforceable,
they typically involve the exchange of goods, services, terms and money. The
contract is usually written by a production’s legal team.
● People work at the amount of money they are being paid, this helps if things go
wrong or more things are needed for the product. For example, if Kendrick Lamar
wanted more of a product. The team in charge of this product would say, “we have
already agreed on the amount and price but we would be happy to do that as long as
you pay double for double the product”. The contract will cover the health and safety
of the people involved so that no one can sue in the case that something goes
wrong.

For this music video they would have had to use a storyboard to figure out if the
shot/visuals are good or bad to be used in the video.  They must have used a location scout
to decide on the shooting location they chose.  They used a 360 degree angle camera
which must have cost and all the extras in the video and artist. They used fake fire on the
heads because it would have been illegal and dangerous to burn people's heads, so they had
to think of the health and safety of the people in the scene and not get infected financially. 

 There are about 14 different shots/locations in this video. These are:

 Cathedral, here there are multiple other shots here including long shots, a mid
shot and a birds eye view.
 Money shots
 Street view (bike)
 Stood on a car
 Studio shot
 Dining room
 Outside
 Two shot (Kendrick and a women)
 High angle shot
 In the car
 In a house (through the window)
 Wide shot to show all the people there
Case study 2 – Upside down & inside out by OK Go

This video uses just one camera so that would make it slightly cheaper than if they used
multiple. Only a few extras such as the flight attendants were used in this video, however it
was mainly the band in shot. It was also shot in the same place, as it is just on the plane,
however, since it took multiple flights it may have cost quite a lot of money along with the
few extra things like paint etc.

When the budget was put in place, the staff and band would’ve worked out how much each
flight would cost since they had to do it multiple times in order to get it to look consistent.
They would have to calculate it for each person (which was around $4950), so altogether
this would’ve been quite a lot as they had to go on many different zero gravity flights. Also,
it was only shot on one camera continuously so that wouldn’t have been a large part of their
budget.
While preparing the Risk Assessment for the OK Go ‘Upside down & Inside out’ music video,
many things have to be done to ensure the artist’s and the extra’s safety in the music video.
In the music video there were many dangers and risks which had to be mitigated in order to
be properly executed. For example, when the band were popping balloons filled with paint,
risks like paint going in their eyes or mouth could happen. Things like this had to be thought
of before they tried to record the music video.
 Paint in the eyes
 Getting caught in the chain
 People hitting other people
When shooting this music video, the risk assessment is very important before actually
starting it, because if something goes wrong there will be consequences for not having had a
risk assessment beforehand such as, lawsuits due to failure to ensure the safety of crew
members.
The dangers and their mitigations are:
● Plane crashes/engine checks
● Objects hitting people/soft objects
 ● People hitting other people/routine and practising
● They could damage the camera/cover the camera
● People could get a cramp/do a warm up and stretches before getting on the plane
● They might not have made it to their seats in time/ professional pilot
● Paint could get on their eyes, mouth and equipment/ acrylic paint, make sure it is
safe and easy to wash out

Everybody was paid and safe, and the video was highly successful mainly for the
cinematography rather than the song itself. The video got 19,213,395 views as of
11/02/2020, the video was risky but ultimately the filming was successful and there were no
casualties along the way.

CONCLUSION

The OK Go music video has multiple positive and negative aspects to it considering the pre
production of it all. As it was shot in a plane that was freefalling, they had to be very careful
regarding the health and safety of each person involved. They did this by practicing what
they would do, they had a trained pilot that knew exactly what to do and also made sure
they had a risk assessment in order to make the video as safe as possible. However, there
were a few minor injuries (although it didn’t affect the video itself, since no one got really
hurt and it wasn’t seen in the video) which happened mainly because the storyboard wasn’t
efficient enough, meaning it wasn’t all completely planned out. It was also a seamless video
considering they shot this video in multiple flights, it looks as if it was all filmed in one long
shot. However, overall I believe that the ‘humble’ music video was better in terms of the
amount of shots and editing, and the hard work that seemed to go into it. Although the CGI
wasn’t very realistic, the rest of the video was well put together. There were a variety of
shots with different people in, and some of the lyrics went with the shots being shown on
the screen. It was very creative and organised, as even though there were quite a lot of
people, they seem very co-ordinated since they were working together to make it look
good. The OK Go video was a lot more colourful, however there wasn’t much to it as it
seems more like they were just trying to have fun instead of creating a meaning to it like
Kendrick Lamar’s video.