Preparation For Our Final Shoot

Wednesday 19th November
Shot List

We have the studio booked on November 27th from 9:30 to 5:45. This is our final shoot. After this we don't get another opportunity to get new footage so we need to make sure that we are completely ready for it. We have a lot of time in the studio and we are hoping to get quite a lot done. We need to reshoot some shots as well as getting a couple of new shots and taking some publicity photos of the band. Below is a list of shots that we were hoping to get in our previous shoot. The shots in bold are the ones that we didn't manage to get for various reasons.

The document to the right was made before our Thursday shoot. It's a complete list of all the shots that we still needed to film at that point. The ones in bold are the ones that we still need to film. The shots are arranged into sections relating to how we filmed them. We aimed to film all the shots in the first two sections during our shoot on the 20th. The third section consists of shots that we hoped to film during our previous shoot on the 22nd and the final five shots are shots that we would liked to film if we have time but they are not essential. As you can see, we have managed to work our way through most of the list but there are still five shots that we need to shoot as well as four at the bottom that we would like to shoot although they aren't vital and we will only shoot them if we finish everything else.

We would also like to take some more publicity photos to use on our website and in our digipack. We really like the shots that we took before but we don't feel that there is enough variety in them. They all have the same backdrop and we barely used props. As well as this, we didn't experiment with poses or expressions that much and we only had two costumes. On Thursday, we want to take some shots with the instruments to get across the musical aspect of the band more rather than the cool, indie band image we were trying to create last time. We will also take some shots of the band members in different costumes to add variety as well as having some different colour backgrounds and messing around with poses more. One thing that was lacking in our previous shoot was interaction between the band members. We did have a few shots of them interacting but we could definitely do more with this idea.

Sixth Shoot: Saturday 22nd November

bold - not shot

This shoot was the least enjoyable for me out of all our shoots as I was ill throughout the day. Overall I think the shoot went fairly well although it definitely could have gone better. The studio was booked from 1:45 to 9:00 but we were all about an hour late as there was a lot of traffic. I then had to go home to get my guitar amp as the one we had previously been borrowing off our friend was no longer available, meaning I was even later by about 30 minutes. We didn't start shooting properly until about half 3.

Despite all this, the shoot went pretty well once we started. We made a checklist of all the shots that we still need to get which we used consistently throughout the session. We planned to reshoot the long shots of the band from our first studio session as well as some glidecam shots of the band, mid shots of each band member lipsynching, mid shots of each band member posing in their costume and a long shot of the band members messing around in their superhero costumes. By this point we were only sticking very loosely to the shoot schedule as it made more sense to judge what was needed a couple of days in advance as opposed to weeks before. We had also hoped to reshoot the Nintendo 64 shots as the performances in our original footage could have been stronger. However, the Nintendo was not available and we wouldn't have had time to get these shots anyway.


Mahalia motivating Alice to be more energetic during her solo mid shot

This video compares some of our early footage to the retakes that we did in this shoot. There isn't too much difference in how Kayvon acts although he is a bit more mobile in the reshot footage. He looks confident and uses his space, looking into the camera a lot and lipsynching convincingly. Alice and I improved quite a lot from the first shoot. Alice moves around more and plays the bass more convincingly, as well as looking more excited and happy. Her lipsynching is much better and she looks like she is enjoying the performance which is what was lacking from the original clips. I looked into the camera a lot more during this shoot which makes my character appear more confident. I, like Alice, improved my lipshynching since the first shoot and my performance is more convincing. 

Getting into costume for the superhero mid shots

While my cold and headache made the shoot a bit of a struggle, we managed to get some really good footage. The shots that we redid look much better with more convincing performances and the glidecam footage is really smooth and looks great. We have definitely managed to get a lot of personality across with the fun shots which is the main thing that we were lacking before. We haven't left ourselves too much to do in our final shoot and we're confident that we'll be able to get everything else that we need.

Fifth Shoot: Thursday 20th November

This was probably our most productive shoot to date. We had the studio from 1:30 until 9:30, meaning we had hours to get plenty of shots done. We aimed to finish all of the prop shots in this time. We made a shot list with a list of all the props we would need as well as a list of other shots that we could film if we had time. We put the shots in order of their lighting setups to save time as we realised it is much quicker to move the camera and rearrange the set than to reposition the lights and we wanted to use our slot as efficiently as possible. This system worked well, especially as most of the shots simply required an empty set, meaning it took very little time to prepare for each shot. We also left plenty of time to finish making the popcorn box and to eat as we felt we needed a proper break since 8 hours is a very long time to be working in the studio. 

 

Overall I think we were very efficient and productive during this shoot. Despite the long hours, it wasn't too tiring and we got some really good footage that looks great and works well with the rest of the video. It was also very fun as we got to destroy some VHS tapes and mess around with skateboards and a pogo stick. In general, everyone was relaxed and happy and we all worked together well with everyone contributing and enjoying the shoot.

 

Kayvon creating the design for the popcorn box

Fourth Shoot: Tuesday 18th November

The studio was booked from 7:00 to 12:30. Since none of us had any lessons or other commitments during this time, we got there for 7:30, since we had plenty of uninterrupted time to get a lot done. We were only filming prop shots, meaning we were working with an empty set for the entire day and had very few lighting changes. This saved us a lot of time. We filmed the hula hoop, twister, jenga, slinky, nintendo, monopoly and money shots. We changed the colour of the background for each different shot as planned to make the music video more interesting and help give each one a sense of individuality.

Filming the jenga shots

We are pleased with most of the shots that we got. We may reshoot one or two but we will definitely be able to use a lot of the footage and even the shots that we don't like are useful because we can include them in our edit until we get better clips to help us see how the video is looking overeall.

Third Shoot: Friday 14th November

Mahalia filming Alice and Kayvon

We were in the studio from 1:45 until 5:45. We asked some of our friends to come at 4 so that we could film our confetti shots. They weren't available before this time so we used the the first part of our shoot to film some prop shots. We filmed our silly string and party popper shots and we are happy with how they look.

When everybody came at 4, we had prepared the set with the instruments and the amps and had laid chairs just out of the frame for people to stand on when throwing confetti. Our first take looked good but we did a couple more. For these next takes, we put fans just out of the shot to help make the confetti in the air and make it spread out more. We were really pleased with how these shots looked and think they will work well in the video. The picture on the left shows how the shot looked without the fans. The middle looks pretty empty as the confetti couldn't reach it. The left picture shows the difference that the fans made, with confetti filling the screen.

Me, Alice and Kayvon after the first confetti take

This was also the first shoot in which we had the band's name on the bass drum. We thought it would really help to anchor the band's image and makes the set look more interesting. This didn't affect the continuity of our video since we were going to reshoot all of the shots from our first session in the studio. This is because we felt that Alice and I lacked personality a bit and the performance could have been stronger. The glidecam shots that we had filmed in the previous shots also did not need to be redone since the bass drum is not visible in the clips that we are using.

We didn't get much done because we wanted to make sure we did the confetti shots really well. It also took a long time to tidy up all the confetti after each take. We planned for this though and we are happy that we have good footage and won't need to reshoot. I'm very pleased with how colourful the shots look and the performances were very strong as we all looked happy and interacted with each other.

 

Band Member Profiles

Kayvon (lead singer, guitarist): Scott

Scott is charismatic, confident, inspirational character. He has a lot of screen presence, moving to the music and using all of the space on the set. We looked at George Ezra and Robert Milton (Dog Is Dead) for inspiration and observed how they performed. They both look very comfortable in front of the camera and are relaxed but confident. He also looks into the lens a lot so that the audience is directly addressed and feel more connected to his character.


Alice (bassist): Ash

Ash is a cool character. She doesn't move as much as Scott does on the stage and doesn't look into the lens as much. She moves around on the spot and looks relaxed playing the bass, mainly looking down or at Scott. We looked at Hayley Williams (Paramore) for inspiration for her character. Hayley Williams is the lead singer of Paramore and is the main focus in Paramore's videos. We liked her confidence but felt Ash needed to be a slightly more reserved as she is not the lead. She does still look confident though and is an aspirational character.


Gavin (drummer): Michael

I am a laid back character. As I am the drummer, I am not able to move around during the performance shots but I do make use of my space, moving my arms quite a lot and interacting with Ash and Scott. We looked at Chris Tomson (Vampire Weekend) and Suren de Saram (Bombay Bicycle Club) for inspiration. These drummers are reserved but confident like Michael. Michael is the joker of the group, as shown in the prop shots where he makes the other band members laugh and messes around with them.

Publicity Shots

 

 

 

These shots were taken during our second shoot (Wednesday 12th November). Our friend, Alex Reid, is an experienced photographer so we asked her to help us during the shoot. She and Mahalia worked together taking photos and directing me, Kayvon and Alice. We want to use these photos on our website and possibly in our digipack. We were also thinking about our album cover and hoped to use one of the shots in the artwork. This meant we had a rough idea about what band image we wanted to create. We experimented with serious photos as well as fun poses and expressions to reflect the themes behind our music video. This is just a small selection of the many photos that we took. They are my personal favourites and show all of the different ideas that we were going for. Overall, I am very happy with how the shoot went. We got some really nice shots that, with some editing, could be used for our album cover, in our digipack or on the website. As a group, we will decide which ones we like best and how we will use them. 

Meetings Summary: November 10-14

We didn't meet as frequently as most of our free time was taken up by shoots. In the meetings that we did have, we mostly worked on planning ahead for future shoots to make sure that we were fully prepared, as well as working on some album cover designs, (separate post), and starting to edit our video. We also started to think more about our band members' personalities and thought more about their on-screen presence and how we could bring out their personalities more (separate post).

We did not stick strictly to our original schedule for our first two shoots due partly to a lack of time and partly because it was more convenient to shoot things in a different order to what we originally planned. Below is a revised shoot schedule that Mahalia created. Some of the shots that we didn't manage to get have been moved to later dates and some things have been rearranged for convenience.

To reduce our workload later, we have started dragging clips onto our timeline in Premiere. We synced up some of the shots that we have to the song so that we can later cut them up and decide which takes go best with the song. This will save us a lot of time later when we are done shooting. 

Alice editing the video

Album Cover Designs - Progress

Alice created these designs using shots from our photo shoot on Wednesday 12th November. We looked through all the photos and decided that these were the best. We then used them in the photoshop file that we already had from our previous designs and replaced the pictures of other bands that we had been working with up to this point.

I personally prefer the first picture as I think the composition is more interesting as there is more depth and each of the band members appear to have a distinct personality. The second picture lacks depth and our poses aren't as interesting. I do like the outfits as we have managed to make Kayvon stand out without making me and Alice look boring.

We can still improve on these but they are close to what we want. Mahalia pointed out that she didn't like the colour scheme and Kayvon agreed. He also said that he liked the left picture more but he thought that Alice's top blended into the background a bit and he thought there was too much space above her head. As well as this, I thought that she was too far to the left. We will try to fix this in Photoshop by scaling her up a bit and moving her closer to me and Kayvon but, if this does not work, we may need to reshoot. Ideally we won't need to do this as it is very time consuming and it is much easier to fix the problem in Photoshop, providing it can be done.

Our Publicity Shots - Progress

We had done a lot of research into publicity shots already so when we started planning our ones, we had some ideas about what would look good and what we wanted as we were aware of the conventions of publicity shots of indie bands.

We talked in a group about any ideas that we had and made a rough list of possibilities for things like costumes and framing. We all agreed that we wanted the shots to be taken in the studio with high-key lighting. We also wanted Kayvon to stand out from Alice and me as he is the frontman of the band.

We then thought about poses and made the list below. Again, we were trying to think of ways to make Kayvon the focus of the image without making me and Alice look insignificant as this would contradict the themes of friendship in our video.

Second Shoot: Wednesday 12th November

This shoot was quite productive. We finished all of the shots with the balloons and then spent about an hour taking publicity shots with help from our friend, Alex Reid. (See her work here). She and Mahalia worked with us in the studio, telling us how to pose and where to look. We got some really good shots that I am very happy with. We will probably use one of them in our album cover design and may have more in the digipack. Some could also be used on our website.

We didn't have as much time as we had on our first shoot and Mahalia and Alice were absent for the first hour or so. Ideally we would have had more time as we were quite rushed throughout the shoot but overall I'm happy with how it went as we got some good footage for our video and some really good publicity shots. The shot to the left is one of my favourites.

First Shoot: Saturday 8th November

This was our first shoot. Our plan was to finish all of the performance shots including the balloon performance shots. However, we fell behind a little and only managed the wide shots, with and without balloons, and the glidecam shots. We also managed to squeeze in one take of an MCU of Kayvon at the end of the shoot with the balloons in the background. We thought we did very well for a first shoot and got lots of footage that we will be able to use. We worked on our band performance a lot. In our first take of the day, we all looked quite stiff and reserved but Mahalia was able to motivate us and get us into character.
There is a huge contrast between the footage that we filmed at the start and at the end of the shoot. Despite not getting all of the shots that we wanted, we're very happy with the shoot overall as we made a lot of progress in terms of performance and did get some really good shots, with some nice glidecam footage and some really good takes of the whole-band performance.

This footage shows how our performance improved over the duration of our shoot. In the first clip, Kayvon looks quite uncomfortable, smiling awkwardly and not moving. Alice is not moving at all and looking down at her bass. I'm focussing on drumming instead of performing and, most importantly, we aren't interacting at all with each other. In the second clip, Alice and Kayvon are much more dynamic and I am looking up more and look more comfortable. Kayvon and Alice turn to each other more and their interaction is much more clear and natural.