Friday 22nd October
Monday 25th October
Tuesday 26th October and
Saturday 6th November
When I initially set out to film I really didnt think it would take this long to complete it however I didnt film all day everyday over these four days some was done at night and some in the day. Now I will go on to talk about each day and how that day went.
This was the first day I started to do my filming me and Taylor who appeared in my video went to collect the camera from school at 9am and we actually did some filming that morning after we had walked to her house to get it started and to learn how the camera worked a bit better etc. From around 9.30 am till excactly 11.30am we filmed non stop the scenes that involved her and her boyfriend I was relativley pleased with them however like anything I always feel I can do better but it was obvioulsy not going to be perfect and it was my first time at filming as well as directing.
Overall i got about some good shots of filming and all the scenes that I needed to get that invloved Taylor and her boyfriend. I couldnt film all day as I had to go to work that afternoon however Taylor was very flexible about when I wnated her to film and she or anyone who appeared in my video didnt let me down once which was really good.
Monday 25th October 2010
This was one of the main days of filming, Taylor met me about 11am I had chosen to film in my next door neighbours house as it was a great setting for the theme of the video so from as soon as she met me we went to my neighbours house, it was really cold this day even though the sun was out however we did mangae to get some decent shots, as the day went on we obvioulsy became tired and irritable as you would if you had to constantly be fiming but we both tried to stay upbeat and professional as it was my coursework at stake!
At around 2pm we headed back to my house to do some filming there I wanted to do a shot where Taylor would be standing still then everything around her would be ultra fast, I decided to do this on my road as my road is usually very busy however it had to be this day of all days that it wasnt that busy and not many cars were driving past! I had Taylor facing me with her back to the road in hope of getting the cars in shot, she was stood there overall Id say for 10 minutes so I was sure to have enough 'good' footage I did unfortunately find filming these scenes boring and repettative but it had to get done and thats the way it works sometimes I was to enjoy the filming other times I wasnt.
On this particular day I had work at 5pm so we couldnt film into the late afternoon and Taylor left my house around 3.30 pm that afternoon, the day felt really long however we had only filmed for around 2 and a half hours but you can get a lot done in that time if you put your mind to it although I especially found it quite hard to concentrate for such a long time and when you are filming with a friend its bound to be funny at some points this was both a negative thing for me and Taylor who I assume would have found it even harder not to laugh as she was the one acting!
This was the third day of filming and the day which I thought would be the final day however it unfortunately wasnt and I will go on to explain that later.
Again I was to meet Taylor at around 11 am that morning in her house this time, I still had quite a lot of shots to get and was ready to knuckle down and just get on with it howver on this particualr day for the shots I needed to get I asked my friend Phoebe to come and be a part of the video which was really nice of her to do as it was unfortunately quite last minute but she agreed and she met us about an hour later from when I got to Taylors from here we got stuck in and got quite a few shots done in under 2 hours howver this day compared to the days before weather was horrific it was so cold and raining which was obvioulsy going to put us off but I still had loads of scenes to do outside eventually we braved the cold and headed outside to get the shots I wanted however Taylor being my lead actor had to wear shorts and a tiny top with full makeup on! She was not impressed when I kept saying 'can we do that one again please' but being a good friend she didnt let me down neither did Phoebe for that matter and Phoebe had to be in 2 scenes I think it was overall.
Because the weather was so terrible we did keep stopping for breaks it wasnt just continuous like the days before I had filmed but we are only human and are not professional actors or camera men so we had to take everything in our time as I certainly didnt want any of it rushed. Again due to the weather it got dark quite early on this day Id say it was around 5pm when it got quite dark and the rain seemed to be puring down even more heavily so due to this we did stop the filming and went back to Taylors.
However this day was not over quite yet as we had all been invited round to another friends house for the evening as it was half term, so I thought what a perfect oppurtunity it could be to get some more shots doneas in my posit notes I had wanted to get a 'party scene' in my video as well, and as there was around 7 of us going to this house that night I thought hopefully I could make some sort of a party and when it reached around 9pm I asked Ben (the persons house it was) if I could turn the lights off and asked everyone if they could dance for me! As you can expect a few people did decline and were not impressed that when they thought they were just at a friends for the evening I had brought my massive cmaera with me and was asking people to improvise but it had to be done.
A few of the boys had all ordered takeaways so I thought I would film them all eating that as if you would at the end of a drunken party howver the footage unfortunately didnt look the way I wanted it to! Some of the 'night' scenes looked quite good along with the crazy dancing but I do think overall taking a huge camera to another persons house is not a good idea but I did have to come up with ideas and looking back on my footage I do think I can make some of it work.
Overall this was the longest day of filming as I had been doing it from around 11.30 am that morning till atleast 11 pm that night so as you can imagine I was really relieved when it was all done or when I thought it was all done..
After the October half term we went back to school with the cameras and on our first lesson back we watched over the footage we had created and captured it however my teacher noticed I didnt do my cloning technique correctly and as some people hadnt done any filming over the break we were allowed to take the cameras out again that weekend of the 5th, 6th and 7th to get any more scenes we needed and for the people who didnt have any to also get some. Me and Taylor again shared a camera and we both managed to get some more shots on that Saturday.
Saturday 6th November 2010
So here we were back again at Taylor's to get some last minute shots done and to redo my cloning shots. We began the day around 1pm at her house and again it was just me and Taylor as I only needed her for the shots I wanted to redo.
This particular day was quite cold however it was really sunny and we didn't need to spend all day filming I think from around 1pm till 3pm we filmed non stop and now because it was November it starts to get dark around 4.30pm so obviously we didn't want to be filming into the cold night.
Overall this day was quite quick as we didn't want to be messing about I think we both just wanted to get it done in a reasonable amount of time and I also think that because we had been filming and acting this video for nearly a week we were definitely both quite bored and tired with it so when I had completed this day I was highly relieved!
Throughout all the days that I filmed this video I definitely had an experience with it that I do not think Il forget in a hurry, it was fun, stressful and completely eventful I leant a lot of useful things such as how to operate a camera correctly! How to put up a tripod and something else that I didn't think I would learn was that working with the same people everyday is quite a struggle and that you can annoy each other really easily however we are adults now and this was our coursework at stake so it was very important we got it done to an almost professional standard, now I can't wait to edit my video and see how it turned out!
The final thing I am going to add is that I didn't stick to my production schedule completely, we obviously changed some of the dates that we were due to film and the times as well due to to other commitments and whenever I plan something I always manage to not stick to the exact original plan!
Having captured everything that I had filmed throughout the two week period myself and my teacher agreed that I could have in fact filmed Taylor (the star of the video) lip syncing along to the song to give a better effect to it as just having a narrative style wasn't probably enough for my video. So before we broke up for the Christmas break myself and Taylor decided to stay back after school on Tuesday 14th December 2010 and with our teachers help we thought using a green screen would be perfect for my video, so all three of us spent quite a while setting it up in the room next door to the media classroom, id say that from 3:40 Pm to 6:00 Pm me and Taylor were there trying to put together a reenactment of her lip syncing, however she really couldn't take it seriously which I don't blame especially when she had been so patient acting for my previous footage! In the end it was me who had to lip sync along to the lyrics which didn't go down too well however i knew i definitely needed some sort of lip syncing in my video especially because my teacher had recommended it. So there I was trying my hardest to be professional about it literally singing along to the lyrics in an evening dress that Taylor had brought in to ware, initially i felt stupid but if I didn't do it i wouldn't of had anyone to do it. I think overall it took about 5 or 6 takes to get it done properly all the way through although we did keep stopping and then re starting at different points of the song where the lyrics had changed as i had not learnt the lyrics off by heart.
Whilst doing this i wasn't feeling 100% well and i certainly didn't look well either so i was thankful that we had the green screen there to improve the footage when i came to edit it, i originally came up with the idea of using different background styles that I could put in as the green screen with me in front of the background.
Obviously there were times when we mucked about and there were a lot of times when we laughed! And it was fun to do considering we had never done anything like that before, it was an experience that I probably wont want to repeat in a hurry!
The footage that came out at the end was not the best in the world however it was useful and could be used in the video, to me it was mainly backup footage that could have either looked brilliant or rubbish.
When writing this part of the post I have already completed my music video and in the end I did not use the green screen footage, spending a reasonable amount of time looking over the footage and experimenting with different ways of using the green screen I personally didn't feel it went with my video, I was asking myself so many questions such as 'why would I be lip syncing when its Taylor who's the main star of the film?', small things like this just didn't make sense with the overall effect of the video and therefore to me made the film look silly.
In the end I obviously just had to keep looking over and over my previous footage to find more scenes which resulted in me staying behind practically everyday after school for at least three weeks, however this turned out to be a good thing as i had one on one time with my teacher and mostly the media room all to myself to concentrate properly.
