We had previously been influenced by other music videos (see blog below) for our shot choices. We therefore just listened to the song and wrote a timeline of where it seemed right to change shot and to what we should change the shot to. Along with our timeline, we had a list of the shots we wanted to make and another list of the order in which we would film. For example, we planned to start off by getting a wide shot, then a mid-shot of each of the instruments and close ups of certain things like the bass. We planned to take some different shots after we had got the important shots but as we only had 25 minutes to do so, we did not get a chance but we managed to make do with what we had got.
In the studio, we set up the band how we had previously planned would look the best. So, we had the lead singer at the front with the two BV's behind her on either side. We then had the instruments surrounding them in a kind of semi circle shape on the right hand side so that we could see all the members of the band when taking a wide shot.
Almost all the shots worked well first time round. However, there were a couple which we had to take a second shot just to be sure. For example, when filming the close up of the lead singer we found that there was a symbol from the drums in the shot and so we filmed it again. Likewise, when doing a close up of one of the BV's, her hair had gotten a bit messy on one side of her face and did not look as good as it could have so we sorted out her hair and took the shot again! I think that most of the shots we got were absolutley fine. However, when we shot the close up of the lead singer we told the BV's that they could move out of shot as we did not think it would make a difference. Yet we were wrong as I think the shot would have looked a lot better if they had stood there when we were filming it (even if it was only a top of an ear that entered the shot) as this gave us a couple of difficulties when cutting from all three girls to just the lead singer.
The good thing about using the studio was that we could plan before hand as we know the studio very well. It also meant that we felt comfortable in our surroundings. We were able to position the band exactly as I had in mind. However, there were some floorboards which had been laid down in order to make the scene a bit more 'retro' and these gave us some difficulties when filming as the camera was a little bit shaky but I don't think it was noticeable.
The studio was brightly lit. This was very successful as when it came to editing it seemed as if it was natural light anyway.
We had previously written out a timeline of which shots we were wanting to do on which seconds and therefore when it came to the editing process we had more or less a guideline to edit. However, we did end up changing a lot of things depending on which shots actually looked better on the day and we could have a better idea for what we wanted to video to look like as we knew more about the band's image. The only problem we encountered during the editing process was what I have previously mentioned to do with the shots moving from the 3 vocals together to the lead singer close up. This was because when we shot the close up of the lead singer we told the BV's that they could move out of shot as we did not think it would make a difference. This gave us difficulties when cutting from all three girls to just the lead singer and so we had to avoid all transitions of this type. I think that my editing skills have developed a lot between the thriller shoot and this preliminary task because I found this task a lot easier to do now that I knew which buttons to press and what I was doing. I also completed it a lot quicker and was not so unsure about what looked good and what needed to be taken out.
We all took it in turns to do the different roles in the production and we all put in as much effort as each other which was nice because that is hard to do but we managed to work well as a group. I started off on the camera and did the first few shots and then passed the camera over to another one of my group members and went straight to playback. After he had been on the camera for a while, I took over as director and directed which shots we needed to do and whether they were looking good and what more the cameraman had to do. When we went up to edit, I started off by directing another group member on what would look good as he was editing. Once he had put in the main shots, I went over it repeatedly and made improvements and changed things that did not look right. We all had a good amount of input and I think we worked very effectively and quickly as a team (bearing in mind we had very little time).
I was very happy with the overall result at the end of the day. The footage met the storyboard requirements in some instance but changed significantly once we knew what the band's image was. The change also took place due to the fact that we could not get in all the shots we wanted due to the lack of time and therefore had to make do with simple shots, yet this turned out to be very effective.
