On the Friday before our shooting day, (which was on the Monday) our group set up our three sets with the set builders. This involved putting in the flooring and walls and also choosing if we wanted to paint any walls a different colour. We decided that we needed to put framed pictures on the walls of the dressing room and cafe/bar, which I brought in on the Monday. I also emailed our group and all the cast information about the shooting day and the production schedule and contact sheet, which I wrote. On Sunday, I collected things from my house that I was supposed to bring in and also collected things that I thought would be useful. I found a fur rug that me and Chuffy decided to put on the stall in the dressing room Monday morning and also a 'home sweet home' sign that we put in the dressing room. I brought lots of make up and jewellery as well as: picture frames, jewellery stands, shoes for Emma, a fur coat, etc.
On the morning of the shoot I was quite excited about filming as we had been preparing for so long. I was also quite nervous as I knew if we did something wrong than our video wouldn't work. Our group went into the studio about half an hour before our cast were due to turn up and started filling in our sets, which we did quite quickly. The day before the shoot, the helium balloons that Chuffy had bought for our first photoshoot went down to the ground and therefore, our group had to think of a solution that morning. We stuck our flowers and fairylights on our background and decided that we would put white balloons on the ground of the photoshoot with the petals, which meant we shouldn't have too much problem with continuity as they were the same colour. Our cast turned up ontime but as we were running a bit late I thought that Plum could do Emma's makeup, which turned out really well. We began shooting about 10am (hour and a half later than scheduled) and started with Emma's first scene in her dressing room with Plum. Our group decided that Emma would lip sync throughout the music video as this presented her the best (linked more with her audience). A rehearsal that we did with her the week before where she practiced lip syncing had clearly helped as she was more confident, sexier and knew all the lyrics: this meant that we didn't have to waste any time and we could immediately start filming once we were ready. I feel we managed to create our concept very well and was very pleased with our set in the studio once we started filming. The only thing that I thought we could have made better was our first photoshoot but I believe this what partly due to our balloons not turning out the way they should have.
On the day of the shoot, we divided our roles into: photographer, sound, director and cameraman. I believe the main role I played throughout the day was director as I had planned the production schedule, shot list and choreography and therefore, I knew in the most detail about what needed to be filmed, how and when. Although, I also tried other roles in the day, as well as the rest of the group. I personally think my role as a director I did particularly well during the shooting day because I had prepared a lot myself beforehand and consequently, I knew exactly what we needed to shoot. I really enjoyed being the director also and think this role suited me out of all of them.
The first main problem that we had on our shoot was after lunch when we got a text from Jack saying that he had been put in his Math's examination early (this was supposed to be at 4:30, which I was aware of and therefore considered this when writing the production schedule). As director, I decided that we should film the bar scenes after lunch and then we Jack returned we could go back to the silhouette and beach scene and then the superwide of the three sets. This turned out to work really well and actually, I think the most successful part of our shoot was the bar scene that we filmed after lunch. As we decided to film the bar scene after lunch, our group agreed that we would scrap the idea of ending the music video with the set being taken apart and instead finish with a close-up of Emma singing in the bar as this footage was coming out so well. I think this part of the shoot went really well because the bar looked really good, particularly with the lights coming out the bar and all our actors were working hard and looked really good on camera. I believe the whole of our shoot was really successful and therefore, the only thing I would change about it was that we should of found some time to film some tracking shots. As our shoot was so ambitious, it was very hard to find some time to film these tracking shots but I think there was some shots that we could have sacrificed to do the tracking and this should have been organised before we began filming.
I think we managed our actors quite well. Our group were really lucky with Emma as she worked really hard throughout without much rest as our schedule was so demanding. What we could of improved was the fact that at the beginning of our day, Jack had to wait around a bit before we used him but we made sure he wasn't ignored and he seemed to be happy with this. I enjoyed filming the bar scene the most out of our shooting day because as I mentioned before, this turned out really well and I am looking forward to editing this as I think it has a potential of making a really good new ending for our music video. As well as this, I'm actually looking forward to seeing everything in the edit and yesterday (the day after the shoot) I went up to the edit suite and started to organise all our shots.
As a production group, I think we worked really well together as a team. There weren't any arguments and we agreed on most things throughout the day and considered eachothers opinions. If we could have improved on something, I think maybe that if the others had helped more with the production schedule, shot list and choreography, they might have been able to direct a bit more but this wasn't mentioned as a problem by anyone on the day and everyone directed at some point. At the moment, I don't think there is any changes that have to be made to the artwork or website as Emma was sexier on the day of the shoot, liked we asked. Overall, I was very pleased with our set and actors and although we began filming a bit late, as a production group we organised it well and finished on time.
No comments:
Post a Comment