Initial ideas - Mind-map and Moodboard

I am now starting to look at planning my music video, so for this blog post I have decided to produce a mind-map which had all of my ideas on. This includes vast decisions such as song options yet also minor details such as props that I may use. As well as this, I looked at important elements of my music video such as actors, locations, songs, costumes, props, concepts, editing techniques, possible hazards, lighting, inspirational videos, camerawork, composition and makeup, specifying each topic to the rough idea I have of my music video so far.

Having done a mind-map has really helped gather all of my thoughts in one place because over the course of the researching stages, I had ideas yet would sometimes forget to write them down. This way, if I have any more ideas in the near future, I can add them to my mind-map. It has also made me realise how many elements I will have to think about for my video, making sure each one is executed well to create an overall effect and message in which my video will hopefully emit. 

I found that the downside to making a mind-map was that all of my ideas were scattered whereas usually I would prefer them ordered more neatly. However, it does allow all my thoughts to spread across one page instead of several pages. 

As well as a mind-map I thought I would do an 'updated' moodboard, as I felt that when I did my moodboard at the beginning of the project, I didn't have an idea of what direction my music video would go down. This was fine because the point of the post was to see my initial thoughts, and I focused my original moodboard with a vintage style, which remains the same as I still want my video to be like that, however I have now chosen a theme of LGBT+, which I hadn't previously, meaning my updated moodboard will be focused around this concept. 

My moodboard:

In my moodboard I have included images of for example, LGBT+ rights marches and protests because I may feature snippets of this kind of footage in my music video. This would show the history of LGBT+ rights and how much has changed when we look at modern day. For example, I have also included some modern protest imagery to symbolise the difference between the two eras. As well as this, I have used screenshots from a few music videos that inspire me the most such as ‘Same Love’ by Macklemore, featuring Mary Lambert. Also, I like many of Troye Sivan’s videos simply from the aesthetic point of view, so I have included some in my moodboard. Finally, I have included some powerful quotes which may become a part of my video, for example, having a quote appear at the end of the video could be quite powerful. One of my favourite quotes on the moodboard is ‘Everybody is free to love’. This is because it is stating that it shouldn’t matter who we love because love is such a personal thing to an individual. 

I felt that making this moodboard was very helpful in almost starting fresh and laying down my initial ideas for my video. From this information, I could start to plan a storyline, which would be the first steps of making the video.

However simply my moodboard alone doesn’t give me an in-detail plan of how my music video will turn out to be like, yet it is the starting point from which ideas should hopefully flow.