Construction Post 1: Week 1 Production

Our first week of production was our shoot week. During this week we used the school studio to film all the shots we neededd for our music video using the professional standard lighitng desk, sound desk, and cyclorama for a high quality shoot.

CHALLENGES:

• Organising an ensemble cast for our first day of filming, which took place on Saturday the 4th of November.We had to make sure they all knew what to do in the video, how to act in the school and how to get to places in the school. In order to keep them in the loop with this sort of information, we gave them all a quick briefing at the beginning of the shoot day, meaning that we would have an easy and efficient shoot day ahead of us. It also meant that the cast were aware of health and safety precautions they needed to take while working in the studio. In order to keep their energy levels high, we provided snacks, music, and frequent breaks, ensuring the best performance we could get out of them.
• Creating an infinity scene using the cyclorama, as there was an obvious dark line where the wall screen met the paper on the floor. We spent Monday morning trying to fix this using sheets of paper to connect the floor and wall screen, but was still obvious on camera, and made the space look more messy. In the end, we decided it would be beneficial for the shoot and the video to leave the cyclorama with the line between the wall and the floor. We felt this was the right thing to do because all the shots we had taken on Saturday were taken in this set up, and we were unable to retake these. Additionally, we felt that as we were creating and indie and home-made-style music video, the line between the wall and the floor would match the aesthetic of our video. This sort of set-up has been used in other indie videos that have a similar aesthetic to our own, such as Vampire Weekend's A-Punk.
• Our worst challenge that we had to face happened on the Thursday of our shoot week. We scheduled in a slot of looking back on our footage and checking if we needed to use our back-up shoot slots to fix anything. Unfortunately, we discovered that the footage from Tuesday, our most productive shoot day, was corrupted, and it hadn't transferred to the iMac properly when dumping it. This meant that we had to re-shoot our shots form the Alice in Wonderland and Singin in the Rain shots. Luckily, we had both Friday and Saturday scheduled for back-up shoots, so we had enough time to re-shoot all the footage that was corrupted, although it was a shame to have to re-shoot it. Additionally, all the footage we took after that realisation, we dumped twice and checked the footage thoroughly after dumping it.

Vampire Weekend - A-Punk. This is an indie music video that has a similar home-made aesthetic as our own, and also has an obvious difference between the wall and the floor.

Our audeince feedback showed that this would not be a problem, and many of our audeince members said they wouldn't noticce this with all the other mise-en-scene going on in the video (such as the hand-made props).

Our teachers also did not think this was a problem, as we showed them many other music videos that also have this, and how they have used that lo-fi setting to appeal to their audience.

MY CONTRIBUTION TO THE SHOOT:

• I played the main character int the video, so did the lip-syncing during band and solo shots, as well as acting as Casey and Casey as Alice.
• I filmed many of the shots in the scenes I was not in, such as Emilio's solo performance shots and Jack's solo performance shots.
• I helped to create some of the set-ups, such as the Mortal Kombat set up and the Singin in the Rain set up. This involved using the light desk in order to change the colour and intensity of some of the studio lights in order to get the right feel of the shot.

Here is a slide show explaining some of the ways I helped on set.