'The London Shoot'

On Thursday 22nd February, all three members of the music video met in london to film what will make up the majority of our narrative based aspect of the video. Our plan for the day was to film in various locations which we had discussed using different camera techniques and angles as well as getting a lot of footage so that we then have all the neccessary shots to cut into the video.
We first made our way to trafalger square in which provided various different effective locations for the shooting.
We were given just 30 minutes in this spot to film so we got straight to it, myself and Tom filmed danny walking around and looking lonely and depressed in a busy area which added to the mise-en-scene which we wanted to achieve. We then used one of the fountains as an eye catching background. The sun shone down to give a good look of natural lighting on Danny's face which we made the most of.
Upon our exit, we stopped to film in a platform of a busy junction. We got danny to stand still for 5 minutes and we just let the camera run with all the traffic including a number of red london buses passing in the background. When coming to edit this, we will create a time lapse to have a blur of the cars speeding by as Danny stays still which is one of the effects we had planned to create.
When walking around, we spotted a side road which led to a small square with nobody there. We thought this looked an ideal location so we filmed here for a while. We got danny to lip sync while in this area which looked good, as well it was covered of all wind which helped to maintain a good look and Danny's hair would stay in place. . .
We crossed the Thames and filmed on the bridge we cross with Danny looking out to the river as if to look for his loved one. The London Eye offered an attractive background in addition to add to the good look of the shot. The weather took a turn for the worst and we were worried about the lighting (as well as getting soaked in order to cover the camera instead!) However, since putting this footage on the computer, the lighting looks better than we expected which we are glad about.
Or final location was on south bank, just down the path from the eye. We ensured this was where we got the majority of our close ups. This worked well with Danny leaning on the wall looking out to the river. Again, he began to lip sync through the track. Taking predominantly side on shots, this enabled him to be able to listen to the track to make the lip syncing an easier task. The heavens then opened and we were being blown away by the wind so we packed up, very pleased with the footage that we had taken.

First Shoot: re-shoot

Having watched back our footage from our first day of shooting (the performance shots in the empty unit) we weren't entirely satisfied with the material produced. Whilst we were fully aware of the lighting being framed in the shot, and wanted to get this "lense glare" effect, the shot was framed so that the the bulb was half visible in the top left corner and so didn't really look as if it belonged in the shot. Also, the close ups we shot were quite grainy as the characters weren't lit well from the front, causing the eyes to look black and the face 'ill'. For this reason, we decided to return the location and re-shoot. This time, we lit the characters well from the front and behind so that both the lense glare/spotlight effect and healthy 'glint in the eye' were present. This was achieved by placing a light very close and directly behind the singers head, and directional lighting directly infront so that no harsh shadows were created. This meant that the shot looked as if the lighting was intentionally placed behind the character, as opposed to accidentally framed.
After this, it was quite late in the evening and raining, so we decided to film traffic over the A21 in Tonbridge which we would later speed up to show time passing. This effect has been used by The Script before and we belive it well suits the song as it shows time passing and ties in well with the lonely, longing nature of the track. Whilst it was very cold and we got extremely wet, our dedication to our music video prevailed and the end result was success. Medium close ups of traffic driving through puddles gave a nice aesthetic as the headlights showed rainfall and the connotations of the rain are sadness/lonlieness, again, suiting the track well.

Our First Shoot... Successful???

The shoot took place in an unused, semi-run down empty unit, the perfect location for conveying the meaning of the song. The sheer size of the unit gave the shots depth and the positioning of the band also helped creating the perfect shot.

The logistics behind the shoot were both stressful and tiresome as we had to organize effectivly the transportation of a whole band, and lighting, and the camera gear, from school to the locatation situated in Tonbridge. Due to rigorous planning and somewhat exceptional organisational skills we were able to complete the shoot by around 9:30pm, and packed up by around 10.

Problems encountered included the lack of mains power outlets, as we needed to run many external devices including lighting, amplifiers, and microphones in order to make the shoot seem as authentic as it could potentially be. Another problem, as silly as it sounds was the temperature, as there was no heating the camera lens had a tendancy to condensate, and the acting started to become sloppier as we were feeling the chill.

To conclude, i believe the shoot went extremly successful due to the hours of effort put in and the dedication by the members of our group, especially danny who managed to lip sync in the freezing cold for hours. If i were to go back and organize the shoot again i would take other things into careful consideration, including the lighting, as i believe it was not placed correctly in many instances; one of these being the illumination of the lead singer, as they are more important, than say for instance, the floor.

Animatic production

First of all, as a group we asigned segmants of the track to draw a storyboard for. This crucial stage of the planning enabled us to get a feel of how the track is going to breakdown and flow with the images over the top. We then listened to the track and put down some ideas in draft, giving a rough outline as where to start. Once the completed 3 part storyboard was complete we then filmed each box of the storyboard for roughly 10 seconds each, this allowing for space and tollerance regarding editing. After all of these shots have been taken they were uploaded to Adobe Premier, thus allowing us to edit the clips in sync to the track. The mp3 track was uploaded also and the clips placed over it. The clips were then cut down in sync to the track, matching the beats, in order for the track to flow accordingly.

Dates of Shoot

• Wednesday 14th January- empty unit - Group band shots
  
  
• for this date we will be getting all of the instruments and other miscellanious props into an empty industrialized unit. The props for this dat include; drum kit, guitar, microphone, clothing, amplifiers, lighting and a few other smaler things. The point of this date will be to capture most of the group band shots, the close ups of instruments, and close up shots of the band members. The approximate duration of the session will be around 2 to 3 hours, which enables us to shoot most of the band footage.
• Lighting needs to be taken into careful consideration when shooting inside. As a group we have decided to use omni and uni-directional lighting as these will create a more performance based feel about the shots. This, along with the natural lighting will create the effect that we want to achieve.

Tuesday 20th January- ASK (Danny and Mark) - Restaurant Romance

• This crucial session will contain intimate shots of the lead singer and the girl, epitomising the name of the song "before the worst". This will include a romantic, candle lit meal for two, red wine etc... These shots will be used for the flashbacks, therefore will be altered slightly post production, to get the required desaturated shot we are looking to achieve.

Saturday 24th January - Camber Sands - Early Morning

• Camber sands is the location we have chosen to use as it is a large, open and iconic place. The reason why we are shooting here is solely that it can have many different readings.
• we will have to shoot this early morning to make the most of the low level natural lighting.
• Also, shooting in the evening has been taken into careful consideration as the ideas of sunsets tie in with the main theme of the song.

Thursday 22nd January - London - desolate, isolated shots

• These shots play a vital role in the music video. They consist of the lead singer, along, but with people around signifying the theme of lonlyness and isolation. The hustle and bustle of the city contrasts with the idea of lonliness.
• Lead singer predominantly just walking around the city looking lost and deep in thought. Few shots of him lip syncing to himself.
• We will film these shots in the various areas around one of the key London stations i.e. London Bridge. These areas are always busy and this will fit well with what we aim to achieve from the shooting.

These are the main dates for filming the predominantly group based shots, as they require all 3 of us. However we may add days onto this schedule if we all agree on a filming date.

Weather is also an important issue when shooting as it can affect many factors. These being both the technical aspects such as the camera etc... But the wrong weather can create the wrong mood which we may potentially want to convey. So this is taken into careful consideration.

Animatic storyboard

As the next stage of our planning, as a group, we storyboarded the video before filming our animatic. The idea of an animatic is to visualise the video with the track playing in the background of our storyboard. We split up the track into three sections as we all wanted an impact on the storyboard. This worked because of our clear understanding of the narrative of the video and we all agreed what we want and when in the song we want it. In addition to the storyboard, it is only filler shots which we will incorporate when it comes to filming the video.

We filmed each shot for roughly the time it was storyboarded as and sometimes longer in order to make sure we had enough film time to last the whole track. Many of our frames were a square shape therefore we made sure we framed the shots with the camera as best as we could.

After putting the film on to Premiere Elements, we firstly watched our shooting through to make sure that we captured all we needed to before beginning to edit it in time with our track. To begin with, we cut the captured video so that we had a cut of each shot. We then had to shorten shots in order for them to be in time with the song, when we got the hang of it, this took little time.

We then put our Animation for The Scripts' 'Before The Worst' on Youtube. We can refer back to this storyboard throughout our filming to double check that we are sticking to the narrative.