Filming Progress and Review

Having spent the past 2 days using my time to review all of the footage that I have managed to capture throughout the past 2 filming sessions I feel that I have now got all of the suitable footage and planned shots that will be needed to complete the music video and the editing process that I plan to undertake over the next week.

I now plan to move on to use Adobe Premier Pro CS6 to edit all of my footage, I will be using a number of YouTube tutorials in order to teach myself how to use this new software as the training day that I went through was quite some time ago, so I feel I will be able to get the best quality editing if I refresh my memory on some of the new skills that I was taught back during the training day.

I have managed to make a quick mock up of the shots that I had after the first time filming and have just quickly uploaded it to YouTube. This version has some blackspots due to lack of footage and also some of the lip-syncs were out due to my inexperience in editing the type of material. This was done at home using Sony Vegas editing software, this is shown in the Sony Vegas tag that can be seen during the video, but this won't be a problem on my final edit as it will be completed using the iMac's that my school has to offer.

Now that I have reached this stage I feel that the only direction that this production can take is to move onto the editing phase, with this I hope to implement some of the earlier techniques that I researched and planned for in terms of the widesceen editing and also I hope to implement some adjustments to the brightness, contrast and the saturation of some of the shots to give it a brighter more vibrant feel.

Filming Day #2 Review

Today myself and Dean once again geared up for filming, but today we had the addition of Amber who would play Olly Murs's date during the music video. We selected Amber as our cast due to the fact she is actually Dean's partner outside of the production aswell! With this in mind we felt she would fit perfectly into the role as she would be happy to be around Dean and it would create a natural effect which is exactly what I desired.

We took ourselves down to the location selected in Prezzo, this is a local restaurant that is new to the area. We decided that we would film on the tables located just outside of the restaurant in order to achieve a suitable level of lighting and exposure within the shots as the inside of the building has a dark feel, this would not only make it hard to create good shots but it would also not match the upbeat, bring and vibrant feel that we are trying to achieve within the music video. The area in which we shot the video can be viewed in the picture below.

We decided that we would try and fit the vast majority of the shots to the lyrics, lines such as the following are the shots that we tried to achieve -

• "The salt and pepper pots are getting well into their dance"
• "Laughing like a lunatic at everything she says"
• "Tonight I drink wine with the girl I just met"

As you can see in the screenshots shown below, I feel we have really captured these shots well and incaptulated the lyrics correctly, this will create an interesting watch as it will help to correctly tell a story to the viewer.

Having taken part in the second filming session I feel that I have the all the shots that are required to complete the editing post production stage of my production. I will now begin to review the shots again and get a better feel of the video and shots that I have produced.

Filming Day #1 Review

Today I began filming alongside my cast member Dean Houghton, we began with an early start, we both met at the specified location of The Market Place at 10AM, fully prepared with my equipment and my cast member suitabley dressed for the occassion as you can see below. We began by trying out a number of test shots to ensure that the camera and its equipment was working correctly, as well as to try and get the best feel possible for the lighting and the surrounding environment.

Having tested out everything we began to crack on with the specified shot list, we felt that once we had nailed all of the specified shots that would then be able to free role with the camera and experiment with some other shots that could potentially be used as filler shots. We started to collate the shots and use the good lighting whilst it lasted, I cracked on with trying to get the lip syncs of the main chrous done in order to ensure that I had a large amount of footage to take out of the first day of filming, once all of this was done we began to experiment with some shots.

I used my phone to feed through the music for my cast to lip-sync and act to, we moved locations slightly and took ourselves over to the market street, this location can be viewed in the picture below. This was a suitable setting as it kept with the scene of the market place. It added a vintage feel to it and it had a variety of features that can be used to add a stylish and creative effect to the production. The florists shop adds to the feel of the video and suits the song well as the song is about first dates, romance and love so this really was something I felt worked well.

Filming Preparation

Today I began preparing for my filming, by doing this I began gathering all the different equipment that would be required in order to allow myself to be fully prepared to film and pull everything that was planned and researched into together into one production. I put all our equipment into one big bag that we carried up to the theatre. Amongst the equipment was our camera (Lumix G10K), the laptop to transfer and back up footage immediately and a tri-pod, steadicam and costume for my cast Dean Houghton.

 

 

I have also been practicing with my equipment and have discovered that using the camera with the neck strap can become annoying and it can often get in the way, it can also effect how steady the camera can be held when tracking and panning during shots. This is something that will be taken into account and as a result I have decided to remove the neck strap from the camera during my filming in order to ensure that my shots can be reliable and will be steady and of a suitable standard for my production.

 

Having completed this preperation the only thing that can be done next is to get to filming! We will begin filming tomorrow and this will be taking place at the specified locations, the market place will be the location for the vast majority of the shots and these shots will be used as cut aways from the Date scene which will be filmed on filming day #2. The lip syncs will all be aimed to be completed during tomorrows filming sessions.

 

Filming Schedule

Today I decided that the time had finally come to begin looking at creating a schedule and putting some solid dates in place in which I can begin filming, in order to do this I had to speak to my cast member Dean Houghton and enquire about his availability. In order to do this I messaged him over text asking him if he was free to film on 20/01/2013 at 11AM, his response can be viewed in the screenshot below.

As you can see, Dean is more than happy to begin filming during this date, we also discussed a date for a second set of filming which would involve the discussed shots of him and the female member of cast in Amber Boyle Chong who would feature as the female that 'Olly' is on a date with during the song. He said that himself and Amber would both be free on 25/01/2013 at 4PM and that this would a suitable time period for myself to review the shots taken on the first date, incase any shots need to be reshot during the second window of filming.

Having both agreed to these dates we will now begin to prepare for filming, this will be a hugely important section of the production and it is vital that I nail this section in order to get the highest quality production. I will be preparing my equipment and doing some practice runs of my camera and the other equipment that I will be using such as the steadicam, this will allow me to be fully prepared when the day comes.

Shot Plan IC

Progress Review

Having done the vast majority of my planning and research into a wide variety of topics I now feel it is time to take a moment to review the progress that has been made and look towards the future and finishing off the end of my production. I have done a large amount of research into similar products and I feel that this has given me a much stronger idea of what I am trying to achieve during this music video. Having used artists such as Conor Maynard I have been able to get a feel of the type of look and quality that this type of fan base and genre of music needs in order to be successful.

I feel that now that all of these types of research have been complete I can now really begin to look into filming and moving through the production stage, out of pre-production and into the latter stages of production. From here I need to look into the future and the remaining things that need to be completed and prepared in order to have the highest chance of having a succesful time filming, editing and overall creating the highest quality possible in terms of a production of a music video.

Planning ahead, the next tasks that I aim to complete are as follows -

• Shot Plan
• Filming Schedule
• Filming Preperation
• Filming
• Editing

I feel that by planning in advance like this I allow myself to set clear targets and have a very efficient plan of action for my production. By doing this I can manage my time correctly in a way that will allow myself to get the highest possible grade and not have to be rushing all my work towards the end of the allocated time. I feel that by doing this I am now in a much better situation in terms of moving forward and keeping a high quality of work flow going.

Main Chorus Shots Planning and Research

Having completed some research and done some experimenting with the type of editing and framing that I plan to use I decided to have a look at some similar camera effects and uses for similar shots that have been used in other productions. For some of my main Chorus shots I plan to track back and have my 'Olly Murs' performing a lip sync with some suitable cuts to other shots that are well suited towards the lyrics.

Firstly I began by looking through Olly Murs videos to find something similar, straight away I came across this type of camera use within his videos, most noticeably within his video for Army of Two which was released just last month. The behind the scenes for this video is shown below and you can see just how they achieved this top quality, professional look.

 However as you can see, Olly Murs had a huge production team and some very hi-tech equipment at their disposal. This won't be the case for me and instead I need to make the most out of the little equipment that I have available. I have managed to get hold of a very handy piece of equipment that manages to stabalise some tracking shots and the movement of the camera to some extent, this is called the 'Steady Cam'.

"Steadicam is a brand of camera stabilizing mount for motion picture cameras that mechanically isolates it from the operator's movement. It allows for a smooth shot, even when moving quickly over an uneven surface. The Steadicam was invented by cameraman Garrett Brown and was introduced in 1975.'"

This will now put me into a stronger position to pull of this shot to a higher and more professional look. I am excited to be using this type of equipment and I feel that it will put me in stronger position to really hit this shot perfectly. 

Wide Screen Editing

I thought I would spend some time today editing some footage and making it appear as a widescreen production. In order to do this I required the use of YouTube and the online tutorials produced by other users in order to show me exactly how to perfect this skill. I downloaded a clip of a music video produced by Olly Murs that I planned to use for my testing, this video clip is shown below.

I then began by opening up Adobe Premiere Pro and importing my clip into the clip bucket. I then began editing my clip and going by the YouTube tutorial in order to add titles over my clip and make it appear as a widescreen production.

I simply created a black block for the bottom and the top of my clip, I then adjusted to size and positioning of my clip to fit everything in and make sure that none of my clip was being blocked out by the black blocks that create the widescreen effect. The screenshot included below shows me doing exactly this, the white blocks on the bottom and the top are the sections that are going to be blacked out.

Having done this I feel that I am now in a much stronger position, I now know exactly how to create this effect and exactly the type of feel that this brings to my production. I now plan to use this effect within my production and will take this into mind when filming in terms of the framing that I use for my  recording.