Music Video - Dancing Scenes

As me and Hayley were both at work when we had planned to shoot the dance scenes with Grace, Aaron and Laxmi were still there to film. The big drama hall we had planned to film these scenes in for weeks we found was double booked so they had to relocate and they went to a smaller drama hall. There was downfalls to using this smaller drama room, they was no access spotlights which we had planned to used and a studio lamp was used instead. The footage the pair of them got so really good and well thought out footage we will have to reshoot some of the scenes again because not enough wide shots of her whole body dancing because of the space in the room. However this has given us a brilliant basis to reshot and refine the music video.

Grace's dancing looking at the footage is to a high standard and the costume worked well with he being I all white ballet outfit, and this worked well against the darkness of the room. The camera used for the shoot was a D500 with a 50mm lens however this was not the best one to use because it gave a grainy effect to the footage, next time from the test shoots we did previously we are definitely going to use the D1200 to make it more professional.

Experimenting with Camera Lens

In today's lesson due to both Poppy and Grace being busy we had nothing planned to do, so with this in mind we decided to play around and look at different camera lenses. We did this so we could have ideas for what to use for our music video, more specifically for the dance scenes. The main focus for when using the lenses was using it for the, 'depth of field' (DOF). By using DOF when we are filming we can create a focus on an object and making it the main subject to be looked at because the background would be blurred and the other way around. The lens that works best for the shallow focus was the 50mm lens on the 1200 DSLR Canon camera, as a group we made the decision that for the dance scenes we would going to specifically use the 50mm lens on the camera . We made this choice because the focus would be on movements on whatever parts of her body making it more intense and visual appealing for the viewer.

These 2 videos are of us experimenting with the 50mm lens to see what the footage would look like:

• pull in and out of focus
• movement
• keeping in focus

When looking at focus in cinematography we found inspiration from the newly released film, 'Whiplash' in parts. The focus on the boys hand when he is playing the drums create an intense of close feel to his actions, also it is professional and works well, this has given us something to basis the dance scene around.

New Planner for Shooting

After the screening session in Wednesday's lesson we created a new extended calendar for when to shoot which is a rough plan depending on the flexibility of Poppy and Grace. We have planned so far ahead because the amount of film we need to produce for the next screening before half term.

 

Feedback on Second Screening

In Wednesday's lesson we presented are second screening of our music video so far  to the class and Sean. Before coming into the class we knew we did not have a lot of shots and that some of the artist (poppy) lip syncing was matched up right with the song. In addition the animatics was in the background of the video when it was playing. We also knew a prior the screening that we need to do some serious work on getting the video to best standard we can do, by shooting a lot more and spending my time on the video.

We got some feedback from Sean some of our fellow classmates on the video, here are two examples:

 

Editing the music video

Once we had parts of the narrative and artist shots for the music video, Hayley began to edit them into the animatics She first simple just placed the shots were we had planned to put them from the storyboard we had created, then cuts were made for the pace of the video. However at this point the amount of footage we have is low so to have a more better basis to get to the end of the music video we need to be shooting more and having a better plan for when we shoot.

Narrative Filming - Young Girl

On Tuesday after school we planned to film the some narrative parts of the music video, where the young girl played by, Grace. The footage we got mainly was based around the idea of her  waiting for her dad after her ballet lesson and he has not yet arrived, and this shows the passing of time of her waiting in the cold for him and her emotions towards this. I was directing Grace on certain facial expressions to pull and her body movement so that Aaron could get various different shots of her doing it. Laxmi was making sure the mise en scene and also the  visual look of the footage was what we desired whilst we was filming.

We got shots mostly outdoors but we got few shots indoors of her before she goes to dance lesson for an example: doing up her laces on her trainers. When it came to the end of the shoot we began to film some indoor shots in the young girls bedroom, however this did not fully continue after the battery for the camera died. next time we are going to take batteries to every shoot. Overall I believe Grace worked hard and communicated well with us as a team while acting and we got some good shots because of her and are hard work.

Brand New Footage - Poppy

After the previous feedback from our first shoot of the artist singing parts of the music video not going so well, we started a fresh. We set up in the Gallery in school which is has all white walls compared to before us using a white sheet the image looked more professional already. Poppy was told by me to wear a black top so this would contrast with the white background and make her stand out more, we learnt this from the first shoot were she wore a white lace top and this didn't look right.

Studio lighting was used we set it up with one lamp either to side of her so there was equal lighting and a cover over them to make it as harsh and lose the shadow that was apparent on the wall behind her. In addition we used a DSLR camera and a tripod to film the footage and we all worked as team to support and help with the lyrics. Each line of the song that we needed her to mime was completed in this filming session but Poppy struggled with remembering some lines that were slightly complex. Overall I believe the shoot went well and it visually worked, we looked at the footage after every take to improve and evaluate our work, was a good decision.