Week 9: Evaluation of Shoot Day

On the 3rd of November, my group and I shot our Music Video. I woke up with mixed emotions. I was nervous because it was the first shoot of its kind that I would direct and I wanted the shoot to go well. I was excited because we finally had the chance to put all the ideas and planning together and begin the creation of our own product. As well as this, I felt well prepared and was pretty certain that everything would go to plan thanks to all the preparation we had carried out.

When we arrived for the shoot at 8:45am, I gathered together all the cast and ran through the events of the day, giving them a rough outline of when they will be needed and what they have to do before then. For example, I made sure they all had their costumes ready to get into and explained the makeup that they would need. We then checked over the set that we setup with the teachers the night before, and added in the drum pad, keyboard, microphone and their respective stands. 

(no lights)

(with lights)

The makeup artist was late, so we called her to find out where she was. She was stuck in traffic but was only going to be 20 minutes late. When she arrived we got the first three members of cast (including myself) into makeup straight away, ready to shoot our first performance scene.

Once adding some haze to the set, I feel it had a great atmosphere and look when seen through the lens. The pixel-line lighting fit well with the electronic style, paired with the instruments we used and the minimalistic and modern costume. It was clean, simple and modern, and that was exactly what we were going for. 

Looking back, especially during the dance scenes, I do feel that we could have added more props or set design to make a slightly more interesting backdrop, but the professional lighting made up for this.

During the performance section, I was involved on stage (performing on the drum pad), so Ed took control of the camera while David did various task including playback (holding the clapper and playing the backing track through the studio PA), checking for continuity errors and looking after the performers, getting them water etc. We made sure the makeup artist was always on standby to keep the performers looking top-notch in between takes. 

During the dance scenes, I had the opportunity to master the shooting. I made a lot of effort to make sure each shot was perfectly in focus (using the Black Magic "Peak" mode) and as aesthetically pleasing as possible. I often asked to add more haze (fog) to add to the atmosphere, while making any changes to the lighting we wanted. Once all the basic wide/mid/close shots were completed for each subject, I then got creative and searched for the special extreme closeups and slow motion shots of the dancers and the splashing water. I think I did a good job of keeping the shoot day moving while behind the camera, always trying to reduce the reset time in between each take, as well as making the calls "stand by" / "rolling" / "playback".

We purposely saved money by only purchasing 2 x 2 pairs of dungarees even though we had 6 dancers performing individually. This turned out to be a slight problem, but we realised we could circulate the dungarees so that when some dancers were on camera, the others could swap dungarees, and vice versa. This made the transition process between take much swifter as we got into a rhythm of circulating the dancers on camera one by one. 

I feel that as time passed during the shoot we got more efficient at doing what we wanted to do. So, the last section, of shooting the girls dancing and splashing water, was the most successful. We got these beautiful slow motion shots with great lighting reflecting off a shiny floor. The extreme close-ups of the water splashing were my favourite shots of the day.

In my opinion, the whole day was a complete success and I don't feel like any part could have gone better. On the other hand, I wish we had got some better quality shots using the track and dolly. We were very lucky to use this great bit of equipment when shooting the performance section, but I think the shots we got were the weakest of the day. 

As well as this, looking back at when the dancers were performing, there wasn't enough light to emphasise their moves.

I think I made a special effort to make sure Gareth (lead singer) and Victoria (keyboard) were happy and enjoying themselves. I tried to loosen them up as much as possible so that they were comfortable and confident in front of the camera. I hope that I got the best performance out of them - from what I saw, there was a lot of positive energy being given off, but I do feel like Gareth looked a little nervous and struggled to stay focused on the camera throughout takes. David and Ed looked after the dancers who always seemed happy and ready to perform which was exactly what we wanted. There were various times when some of the talent was not able to be there. For example, Matty (the back-flipper) had a Music Tech session at 3pm. So after lunch we made sure that we shot his flips before any of the dancers so that he could go to his session. As a group, we did well in keeping tabs on where the talent was at different times and if they were ready to hop in front of the camera.

I really enjoyed being in control of the camera. I finally had the opportunity to let my creative juices flow and it was an honour to be able to do this with the amazing equipment we had available. I'm especially proud of the shots that I produced. It was a great experience to be able to produce something like a pop video - a text that I regularly consume via YouTube as Music is a great passion of mine.

I'm really looking forward to seeing all the shots in the edit, but I am most excited to see the closeups of Gareth lip-syncing because I was performing while these were being taken and the lighting and haze was looking amazing.

I think our group worked well together because we were all happy to get involved and help out as much as possible, even if we weren't always in charge when we wanted to be. We gave each other the opportunity to put as much creative input into the process of shooting, throughout the day, and that was really nice for me to equally spread out the time to be in the spotlight (behind the camera). Not only this, we functioned well together, because we were very efficient at what we individually did which meant there were very few arguments (none that I can remember).

If there was anything I could take forward from this experience to the next time, it's that the process is easier than I thought it would be, so I feel I should definitely push myself to create something far more complex and unique next time.

As far as the website and artwork is concerned, the only thing that I think should link between all three products is the bright colourful lighting against black. Neon lighting was one of the main conventions of promo products for this type of music. As well as this, the lip-syncer wore a gold and red crown during some of the shots and I think we should definitely use the crown as a logo or motif in our other products.