Filming Day 2

The second day of filming

Our second shoot was located in the studio of the art department at our school, we only needed our actor, Joe, for this part of the filming. Prior to his arrival, I had to create a powerpoint presentation which included some interesting, edgy images and gifs which we could project onto the white backdrop which he will be sat in front of. We booked a projector and the art room a week in advance so we were not wasting our actors time; the art room was urgently needed on the day which meant that we had to improvise and practise what Joe would have to do so that he is confident.
We met Joe at 9:30 in our school car park, we had to take him to receive a visitors pass so that he was allowed to be in the school premises.

The images and gifs which I included in my powerpoint were full of nature, the sky, nighttime related things such as the dark sky, the moon and stars. We also found some really nice images of oil iridecent which we thought would be really indie to use, the mixing of cool colours symbolised the mixed emotions of the singers as they don't know what they want out of their relationship.

Here are some of the images below:

Filming Day 1

First Day of Filming
27th September 2016

Our first day of filming is done!
Firstly we took some test shots of different locations of Windsor/Eton before filming a few time lapse clips of pedestrians walking across the bridge to show the passing of time. We met Talulah at 4:30 on Eton bridge and talked to her about what we were planning to do in the following hours. The lighting wasn't the best at this time but we decided to proceed with filming rather quickly before the darkness crept up on us. Secondly, we made sure she was familiar with the song and gave her props to put in her pocket, for example, the phone. The first location we decided to film our actress was outside a flower shop just beside the bridge, 'Flowerz' has a beautiful display of roses which is a particularly symbolic within our piece, therefore we thought this worked quite well. Just in front of the shop is a large bench which Talulah sat on as she mimed her lines; in order to make sure the lip syncing looked perfect, we had the music playing out loud so that she could sing along.

After we completed the shots outside Flowerz, we headed towards the river side to get some scenic footage of Talulah. Whilst doing this we made sure that we had the camera strap around our necks at all times and that the lense cap was on at all times when not filming. Cordelia and I managed to get some really good shots by the waters edge which fitted really well with our chosen genre, however we found that passers by were rather distracting as they were so interested in the production of our video. Whilst Talulah was learning some of the lines towards the end of the song we decided to make the most out of this time and catch some interesting footage of the river and more location establishing shots. Luckily we were able to get a nice shot of swans flying above the water which looked amazing and fit into our video nicely as most indie videos include references to nature. 

The Journey of Editing

After Cordelia and I finally completed all of the filming for our music video, we were ready to upload the footage to Adobe Premier Pro on the school Apple Macs. Completing this step was simple as we previously did this last year with our AS work; however this year we are not using Final Cut Pro. Changing which application we are using to produce the music video was nerve racking at first, however we were both excited to learn, adapt and widen our knowledge.

Prior to using the application, I decided to organise our footage so that it is easily accessible when we are composing our video; therefore, I separated the three different video types into three different folders. Joe's Studio Shots, Talulah Shots and Night Time Shots.
In order to import videos to Adobe Premier Pro, you can either press 'File > Import > Choose Footage' or you can use the shortcut 'Command + I" Before importing, Cordelia and I viewed each and every video which we shot to make sure that the footage is clear and well shot, also to check that we have everything we need and do not need to organise a reshoot. We selected the best shots and started to follow our storyboard. A problem which we first encountered was the size of the clips when they are imported onto the application, we had to 'Click clip > Fit to Scale' in order to zoom out of the clip and view the whole screen. We discovered that some of the videos which were shot freehand (without a tripod) came out slightly shaky and needed to be stabilised; you can do this by clicking 'Effects Control > Stabilisation > Smoothness'
An alternate way to adjust the steadiness of the shot is to change the speed of the shot, this is a simple move to make the footage look professional and smooth. You can do this by 'Right click the video > Speed/Duration > Change the speed from 100 to a lower number in order to slow the clip down' A quicker way to do this is to use the short cut and 'Select the clip > Command + R'






A tool which I found particularly useful was the razor tool, commonly known as the 'trim tool' which adjusts the length of the clip in a quick and easy transition. I used this tool a lot as we filmed more footage than we needed and it was easy to cut out the bits which are not suitable for our music video.

Risk Assessment

Delia and I had to investigate the potential risks we could encounter whilst filming and how to prevent this. This is what we found:

Analysis of 'Nighttime', deconstruction of lyrics and exploration of synaesthesia

Chosen song: Nighttime by The xx

1st shot: Establishing shots 

'Twinkling music - up to 0.15 seconds complete a time lapse of multiple locations, i.e bridge, river, street. Time lapse will be filmed using a sturdy tripod. To produce an effective time lapse we aim to film for around 1-2 minutes.

2nd shot: 

'Instrumental continues with the incorporation of different instruments, however still no vocals until 0.30 seconds' - Insert footage of decaying flower in black and white from 0.15-0.23.

3rd shot:

Side medium shot of Tallulah (female actress)  sat on bench alone, looking down at her roses. (0.23-0.26)

4th shot:

Instrumental continues to play without vocals. Wide shot of actor (Joe) in the studio sitting on wooden stool looking at a rose he is holding. (0.23-0.30)

5th shot:

 'Vocals begin' - (female vocals) - 'You mean that much to me and it's hard to show' > Medium side shot of female actress, Tallulah is positioned on a wooden bench in front of flower shop 'FLOWERZ' in Windsor/Eton.

6th shot:

'Vocals continue' - (female vocals) - 'Gets hectic inside of me, when you go' > Panning shot (close-up), from flowers to face - girl is still singing as shot pans to her face. Camera movement = relatively slowly.

7th shot:

'Vocals continue' - (female vocals) - 'When you go' > Medium side shot of actress placing roses beside her and walking out of frame. Camera Movement = remains stationary

8th shot:

'Vocals continue' - (Female vocals) 'Can I confess these things to you' > Panning shot, low to high of male actor 'Joe' either looking sad or adjusting his hair. Camera moves at an average pace, faster than panning shot before.

These are the initial shot ideas we wrote down.


9th shot:

'Vocals continue' - (female vocals) 'Well i don't know...' > low angled shot tilting high - (long shot) - of Tallulah walking down stairs located alongside river river. Camera movement + remains stationary. Camera films un-sharpened and gradually clearer as actress walks closer towards camera.

10th shot:

'Vocals continue' - (female vocals)  'embeded in my chest and it's hard to hold' > close-up shot (medium- waist to just above head) - of Tallulah leaning arm on barrier overlooking bridge/river, on the lyrics 'hurts to hold' > Tallulah turns her body towards view of river and places both arms on barrier, singing out.

Prop List Second Draft

As you can see above, we have removed the last row of props which we were originally going to include. At first we believed that photographs would add a personal feel to our video, however after pitching our ideas to the class, we were informed that this idea could be seen as a bit generic and cliche.

This is the type of chair which Joe shall sit on in the studio.

This is the type of phone we will film her using, an iPhone.

These are the type of flowers we are going to use, Roses.

Digipack Image Ideas

Digipak ideas:

Our initial idea for the digipak image was to incorporate the rose which we used in the music promo for ‘Nighttime.’ We believe that the rose is a symbol for love and romance which are the two of the key themes in the song; therefore, using the recognizable rose as a method of advertising our album has a clear link to the visuals of the video. After researching bands with a similar feel and seeing their simplistic digipaks, we decided that it is best to follow this trend and keep the image slick. As you can see below are several images which I captured of Joe on a Canon 700d, the pictures I took accidently had an effect which meant that there was a light over the top of the image. After looking over the shots in class, we decided they look cool and could be used for the digipak as they represent the indie genre in a way. There has been no editing and alterations made to the images I took them on set and adjusted the exposure: