Shoot Day - Evaluation Task

What did you do the day before, to set up for your shoot day?

Since our shoot day was on a Monday we couldn't prepare the day before as a group, but their was still things we had to do, individually to prepare. I made myself a checklist of everything I had to do on the Sunday as to prepare for the shoot day which can be seen bellow:

I will now go through the reasoning for the points on my checklist: Firstly I need to charge and bring my speaker, because on the shoot day we needed a speaker to be able to play the song out loud when we were in the hotel, and I needed to charge it so that it didn't run out of battery on the day. I needed to speed the song up by 200 percent so that we could play it on the speaker so that joe could lip sync at that speed and then we would slow it down by 200 percent in editing and we would have a slow motion effect on his performance sections and I needed to import the sped up version of the song onto my phone so that I would be able to play through the speaker on the day. I needed to charge my laptop and phone on the day so that I could access them if I needed them and to be able to play the song which was on my phone, on the speaker. I needed to pack the story board and the shot-list into my bag so that I would have them on the day to be able to look at what exact shots we were going to need to film. I needed to look back through my blog because I wanted to refresh myself of our vision for the music video so that I knew exactly how I wanted everything set up and to look on the day of the shoot. I needed to lay out comfy clothes because I wanted to wear something comfortable and which I could move around easily in on the day, and because I didn't want to waste time on the morning of the shoot picking the outfit. I needed to remind all of my group members and my actors of what they needed to bring to the shoot day so that no one forgot anything, screen shots of the message I sent to my group members and our actors can be seen bellow. Finally my lat point was to go to sleep early so that I would be well rested for our shoot day and would be able to stay concentrated all throughout the day.

How did you feel when you woke up on the morning of the shoot day?

On the morning of the shoot day I woke at a normal time of around 7:40 and felt still a little bit tired from a long weekend because that weekend I had gone back home to Switzerland for thanksgiving and had only arrived back on a plane the night before. Although I was a little tired I was still excited for the day, accompanying the feeling of excitement was a feeling of nervousness. I felt nervous because it had been such a long time that we had been preparing for this shoot and I was worried that it might not come out exactly as I hoped. Instead of becoming anxious I managed to keep calm and I want through my checklist once more to make sure I had everything with me, which I did and I then left to school for a big breakfast.

How well prepared were you when you arrived for the shoot, what did you have to do before you could start shooting?

Transcript: We arrived in the edit suite as a group with all of or equipment at 8:40 in the morning, which was 10 minutes before our set meeting time with the rest of the production assistants because we wanted to have time as a group to make sure we had everything we needed and to assign our selves rolls for the next few hours. When we met with the production assistants we decided we were going to begin by filming the studio shots, then go to the hotel, and we would then see if we had time to film the rest of the Guildford outside shots as well as the Peaselake corridor shots. We now had to prepare our actors and create the set. We decided that Hannah would be in-charge of preparing our actors because she was in-charge of doing Hannah’s makeup and she had Hannah’s costume. That left me, Kai and Gustavo to create the set. Our set was not very complicated but it did take sometime to set up. We first had to put black curtains around the walls of the studio so that it would be completely dark when we filmed. We then had to vertically screw 5 red light polls to a plank of wood as to be able to emit our desired red lighting effect we desperately sought after. Once that was done we had to take out all of our filming equipment as to be able to shoot our video. We needed the camera, a tripod, the speaker with the playback music on a connected iPhone, an iPad which would do as a clapper board and finally a microphone to pick up the sound. Once this was all set up we checked in with our actors to check their costumes and makeup, and once we made sure everything was alright with that, we were ready to film. (Bellow are photo’s of our set in the studio:)

Describe how the studio looked like when you started to shoot, how well do you feel you managed to create the look of your concept?

Our set in the studio looked very minimalistic and very simple, very red and very darker as we wanted it to be. We began to film with our actors behind the red poles, with the red poles in-front of them and in shot, we got all the shot we needed of this, but as a group we were not content with the way this was looking on camera and we agreed that this wasn't what we wanted our video to look like and that we had already had an idea of what we wanted for the studio shots which was simple red lighting with a black background, similar to Vic Mensa’s video for “U Mad”, which can be seen bellow:

This was the look we were trying to achieve and so I tried in several different ways to try and attain this look that we were looking for. I began by trying to put our actors behind the red polls but very close to them and to place the camera between two of the polls so that they couldn't be seen on camera. This did not work, the lighting was to straight on and was to flat on our actors’ faces and was just not that visually interesting. I then decided to try and just find the right look with my eyes, I took my actor, Joe, and placed him inferno of the red polls stop that he would be silhouetted but this did not work. I then tried to put him to the side of the red polls, so that the red lighting would be hitting him from the side without having the polls in shot, i saw how the light hit him with my eyes and I thought it looked really good, so I consulted with my group members and showed them and they agreed and so that it is how we filmed the rest of the studio shots and I think it turned out really good and really true to our vision of simple red lighting on our character with a dark background. Photo’s of the set can be seen bellow:

How did you divide the roles on your shoot day, what role(s) did you play?

Transcript: On the shoot day we split the production roles in accordance to experience and how much someone liked a certain role. Gustavo because of his large interest and skill with music was put in charge of the playback as well as the clapper board and also took a large part in the lighting. Hannah was in-charge of taking care of our actors and doing their make up as well as taking care of their costumes, also because Hannah is a dancer she was in-charge of teaching Hannah the choreography and making sure her dancing looked good. Personally I had the most experience in our group operating a camera, so I was mostly behind the camera on the shoot day filming everything because I as well as the rest of my team felt that I would be able to capture our vision correctly along with this I took a large part in directing our actors on what they should do. Kai was in-charge of the set and making sure everything looked good, she is also a very good communicator and a people person so she was verged at making sure everybody on set was informed about what was going on and what was going to happen.  (Bellow are some photos of me working the camera:)

What do you think that you personally did particularly well?

What problems did you have on the shoot day, how did you solve them?

Our main problem on the shoot day was time, we found out early on that we were not going to have enough time to film everything we wanted. We needed to film the studio shots, we needed to film the Peaselake corridor shots, we needed to film the Hotel shots and finally we needed to film the outdoor shots in Guildford. We had a tough decision to make, weather we were going to film all four locations or maybe just three locations and rush through the process and maybe not have all our footage come out to good, or we could only film in the studio and in the hotel but have really good footage. We ended up following the motto “Quality Over Quantity” and decided to only film in the studio and in the hotel, because we would rather have a limited amount of really good content rather than a lot of average footage. Another problem we encountered on our shot was with Hannah’s costume, everything was going well in the studio, and we finished filming all of our studio shots of Hannah, but then a school official entered the studio and told us that the school would not be happy with Hannah wearing such a revealing costume and that for the Hotel shots we would have to cover up the bottom half of her body more. As a solution to this problem we went up to the dance department in our school because we knew they had dance tights that they might be able to lend us, which they indeed did so we go Hannah to wear tights under the shorts for the hotel scene and everything went well. Bellow are shots of Hannah in her first costume in the studio and in her altered costume in the Hotel room:

Which part of the shoot do you think was most successful and why?

Transcript: In my opinion the most successful part of the shoot was the second half of what was filmed in the studio. By this I mean the part which we filmed with the red light coming in from the side of the shot and lighting up Joe and hannah from the side without seeing the tubes. I believe this to be the most successful part of the shoot because it came after having filmed our characters behind the red tubes which as a group we didn't like and we were afraid our video wasn't going to look good. When we first set up the camera there we fell involve with what we were filming and we all agreed it looked awesome. Another reason I think that it was so successful was because of our decision to use the “Slow Smooth” setting on the camera when filming Hannah, this meant that for three seconds we could film Hannah in super high resolution, and at an extremely high frame rate, which means we get a really good slow motion shot which I think came out incredibly well.

Which part of the shoot do you wish had gone better and why?

Transcript: The part of the shoot which I wish had gone better was the the first few shots we took in the hotel room. The reason I wish this part of the shoot had gone better was because we had hadn't been in the room for very long and we began filming relatively quickly and I believe we hadn't experimented with the lighting in the room enough at this point, which in my opinion lead to some not very good lighting in the first few shots we took, they were to lit up where as I wanted something quite a bit darker with most of the red lighting hitting our actors rather than the white walls, which is eventually what I managed to achieve throughout the day. I wish it had gone better because Im afraid that those first few shots don't look as good as they could have and that the lighting in those shots will be inconsistent to the rest of the lighting in the video.

How well do you think you managed your talent (actors)?

I think that I managed my actors quite well. Starting firstly with Hannah, I feel I did quite a good job at making her feel comfortable, dancing around a bunch of people in a very revealing outfit is not the easiest thing, and it is very easy to feel uncomfortable, but I think through constantly showing Hannah what I had filmed so that she could see for herself that she was looking good and the fact that I was very professional and constantly kept talking to her as she was dancing her telling her what I wanted was very important in making it look good and making sure she didn't feel uncomfortable. Another scene where the directing of my actors was quite difficult but that I think went well was during the kissing scene in the hotel. Once again this can be a quite awkward situation (making out with someone else several times whilst many people are watching and filming), I think it was important that I act completely professional and to show to them that it was a professional and artistic scenario, to be able to do this I made sure I didn't laugh; I told them what I wanted to see, for example what I wanted them to do with their hands, like run them through the other persons hair; and when it came to the actual kissing I didn't talk and simply let them do their thing. 

When it comes to the directing of Joe, I think I did a pretty good Job as well. An example though of a way I think I made mistake whilst directing Joe though was during the studio shots, Joe was just lip-syncing standing their with his hands in his pockets, so I told him to start making gestures with his hands towards the camera, and it looked good, but in moderation; Joe ended up doing these hand movement a little too often and I'm afraid that it might turn out a little comical when put together due to the fact that it was so frequent. An example though of when I was successful in my directing of Joe was during the scene where Hannah dances on him, whilst he is on the chair. I feel I did a good job because at first he wasn't quite sure what emotions he should be feeling as the character, and so I started saying words which I felt would help him understand the character and what he would be feeling in the moment, a few of the words I stated are as follows: Seduction, Magnetism, Desire, Tease etc. Bellow are some photos of me behind the camera directing my actors:

What was the part of the shoot you enjoyed the most?

The part of the shoot which I enjoyed the most was filming the “Slow Smooth” slow-motion footage of Hannah. The reason which I think i enjoyed that part of the shoot so much was primarily due to how good I managed to make it look. It was enjoyable because it was a product of handwork over a few months of planning the music video’s and it was where I was able to see that it was going really well and that it was looking as I wanted it, which I think made the process very enjoyable. Another reason why it was enjoyable was because it was challenging, the slow smooth seeing lets you film in very high quality and at a very high frame rate but the catch is you can only film for 3 seconds, so it was a challenge to try and get the best 3 seconds of footage you could which I found to be quite an interesting process and one which I really enjoyed.

What are you looking forward to seeing the most in the edit?

What I am looking forward to seeing the most in the edit is the studio footage of Joe. The reason for this is because of the way I have filmed it, I took to shots of Joe, one medium close up shot of him lip-syncing and one long shot of him in the same position lip-syncing; Having done this, I will be able to put both pieces of footage on top of each other in the edit, and bellow both shots I will place a “matte layer” which will be black, and then I will be able to change the blending mode of both video layers from “Normal” to “Multiply”, this will allow me to have both the shots to gather next to each other showing the red lit medium close up shot and the long shot side by side in the same shot, with the MCU on the left and the LS on the right, and I believe that this will look very unique and will help make our video stand out from others, but not only that I believe that it will impress people and will be a good opportunity to showcase my post production skills. Bellow is a video of some of the smooth slow footage:

How well do you feel that your production group worked as a team?

Are their any lessons you learned today that could help you make your next shoot even more successful?

I think that the biggest lesson I learned from my shoot which would help me on a future shoot, is about time management and the time expectations you set yourself. Going into the shoot day we expected to film 4 different scenes in 4 different locations, the studio scene, the Peaselake corridor scene, the hotel scene and the Guildford street scene. We had planned to film all 4 in one day, and I realised that we largely over estimated how much we could film in a day and still make it look good. As I have already explained we were left with the decision of choosing between filming 3 or 4 locations but having really average footage or only filming two scenes but having great footage, we decided to only shoot the two scenes. I have learned how long it really takes to film a very good looking scene for a music video and that in the preproduction stage of your shoot you have to plan your video around how much time you have to film it. I think this is a very valuable lesson that will hopefully really help me in my next shoot as well as in the pre-production stages of my next shoot.

Are there any changes you might need to make to your website and artwork, in order for them to fit in with the video that you have shot?

We haven't commenced creating our website so at the moment their is nothing we can change about it in accordance to our music video, but one thing we have done is our album artwork. As can be seen from the comparison of photo’s bellow from our album artwork and photo’s from our shoot day, their is one major difference, the color. Our album artwork is normal coloured, color wise it look pretty much the same as it would look if you saw it with your own eyes besides for the fact that the colors are slightly darkened. Contrary to this our music video is completely red, every shot is lit with red lighting, this is clearly not reflected in our album artwork; So we will probably have to make changes to our album artwork so that it is more red. Though in contradiction to this, I do believe that an album is an entire body of work which most of the time includes about 14 songs, and I do believe that it is slightly weird to think that an actual artist would base his album artwork off the music video which was done for one of the 14 songs in the album; In my opinion the album artwork should reflect the album as a whole body of work and that music video’s are for giving visuals to individual songs and should not have an impact over the look of the entire album.

Album Artwork

Shoot Day Schedule

A Shoot Day Schedule is defined as: “A detailed master schedule prepared by the first AD that gives all necessary information about the actors, locations, technicians, special effects, vehicles, animals etc. The schedule changes as needed in pre-production but once established everyone tries to respect it. No change is made or proposed without regard to this schedule. It follows an established format and is given to the producers and everyone involved in the film.” Since we have split our Call List and our Shoot Day Schedule apart, our shoot day schedule primarily includes, the time each section of our music video is shot at, the description of the section in question, the location of the section being filmed at that time and finally which of our actors is needed for the section in question. A photo of our actual shoot schedule can be seen bellow:

Shot-List

A Shot-List is defined as: “A list given to the film production crew which indicates the sequence of scenes being shot for the day. This list may include the scene number, the location of where the scene is being shot, a description of the scene, the length of a scene (listed by number of pages from the script), a list of actors who will be involved in the scene, and, special notes to all departments of what will be needed or required for a particular scene being shot.” Bellow I have put a photo of a Shot-List template:

For our own Shot-List we have decided to include weather the shot in question is being filmed in the studio or on location, the number of the shot, a description of the shot, the actors which are needed for the shot, the props that are needed for the shot any notes we had about the shot. Bellow are photo’s of all the pages of our Shot-List:

Call List

A “Call List” in film is defined by wisegeek.com as: “A call sheet is chart issued to the cast and crew of a theatrical or film production, listing the production schedule. Typically, in addition to including a schedule, the call sheet also includes a list of contact information for other members of the cast and crew. These sheets are often issued at the beginning of the week, because schedules change frequently, and trying to plan further ahead can become quite complicated. As a general rule, when these documents are assembled, the scheduler assumes that everyone is available at any time, unless specifically informed otherwise.” We have decided to split our Call List and our Shoot Day Schedule into two different documents and I have uploaded another blog post about our Shoot Day Schedule. We have split our call list into two parts, a section with the crew’s contact information and a section for the cast’s contact information. The contact information is as follows: 

Crew:

Hannah Everitt - Phone Number: 07739381611, Email: Hannah.Everitt@hurtwood.net

Kai Gillespie - Phone Number: 07734466427, Email: Kai.Gillespie@hurtwood.net

Lucas Smith - Phone Number: +41799044868, Email: Lucas.Smith@hurtwood.net

Gustavo Mello - Phone Number: 07599854059, Email: Gustavo.Mello@hurtwood.net  

Cast:

Hannah Nanton - Phone Number: 07713328327, Email: Hannah.Nanton@hurtwood.net

Joe Hellman - Phone Number: 07792426690, Email: Joe.Hellman@hurtwood.net

I have distributed the call list to the entire cast and crew, a photo of the actual call list can be seen bellow:

Album Artwork: Final Design

Album Artwork:

Final Design:

As a group we have decided to go with my album artwork concept as the official album artwork for our project. My album Artwork concept can be seen bellow:

Bellow are some images of the type of photo we want to take for our album cover. To be able to do this we are going to have to organise a photoshoot outside, we will have to make sure that our artist is free at the time of the photoshoot as well. We are also going to have to make sure that we have a pair of shoes like the Adidas Shell-toes which I drew in my plan for the album artwork which can be seen above. Ïn the event that we cannot locate an outdoor pool which is open at this time of the year and which we also have permission to take photos at we might have to resort to using a puddle to achieve our reflection as can be seen in the images bellow. In the likely case that we cannot find a puddle in our chosen location we are probably going to have to bring a lot of water with us as to try and create our own puddle. As to make only the shoes visible out of the water and the reflection of our artist visible in the water we are going to have to take two separate photo’s and merge them together with the help of photoshop, we will have to set the camera up on a trie pod and take a photo of the artist standing above the puddle, next we will have to leave the shoes in the same place our artist was standing and later in photoshop have both photo layer onto of each other and use the lasso tool to cut out the artists legs so we are left with just the shoes and the reflection.

Album Artwork: Feedback Of My Design

Album Artwork:

Feedback Of My Design:

Bellow are the photos of the album cover designs and annotations done by each member in my group, firstly my album cover design, secondly Kai’s album cover design, thirdly Gustavo’s and finally Hannah’s:

Bellow is a video of our group giving each other feedback on our album artwork designs, we begin with Kai’s, then we look at Gustavo’s, then we look at Hannah’s and we finally finish by looking at mine. In this video you can observe our thought process when it comes to judging each others artwork and by finally coming up with a final decision on which album artwork we are going to go forward with:

Album Artwork: My Design

Album Artwork:

My Design:

Annotations:

• Shoes: I chose shoes which are popular amongst teenagers as to show that even if you cant see him, you can tell that the artist is young, cool and “hip”, which will attract our target audience.

• Reflection: The reflection in the water is clearly the silhouette of a male, so that a potential buyer knows that it is a male artist even if you cant clearly see his face.

• Edge of Pool: The Edge of the pool is a tiled floor, and is nicely tiled to show that the artist is successful and makes quite a bit of money, because he can afford a really nice pool. This will in a way attract the audience because it will show that the artist is successful and the only way he can be successful is if he is good.

• Water: The water as well as the pool has to be very clean so that the viewer can clearly make out the reflection.

• Font: The font is meant to not look perfect and clean cut, it is meant to look dirty and imperfectioned, this is used to show that the artist him self is not perfect, that he is a real person and that no one is perfect; This will help our target audience relate to the artist.

• Explicit Content Tag: This tag on the bottom corner of the album artwork is necessary because the song itself has a swear-word in it, but at the same time it makes the artist look like a bit rebellious and as a bit of a “bad-boy” which will attract our target audience.

My album artwork design shows shoes on the edge of a pool, and in the water one can see the reflection of our artist as if he was standing in the shoes, but he is not only the reflection is there. This also ties in with the name of our song which is “Without U”, and the fact that he is not there ties in with the title.

We have put our artist in the center of the shot because he is what will sell copies of the album, people will not buy an album from someone they do not know. Even though you cant clearly make out just from the reflection that it is our artist in the photo, the buyer will still know that the album is his because we have clearly put the artists name in the bottom left of the album.

I am going for quite an individual and unique album cover style, the fact that you cannot see the artists face is quite unique and not normally done, when it comes to commercial albums. For example bellow you can see the album covers of artists such as Justin Bieber, Beyoncé, DJ Khaled and Rihanna, all these artist’s face can clearly be seen on their album covers, which is what I was trying to avoid because our artist is quite distinctly unique and avant-garde, and because I wanted to make our artist appear mysterious.

As for the colors which I will be using in this photo, I want it to be very cold, using colors like blues and blacks, with a high level of contrast as to add to the moody and eerie look of the album cover. Bellow is a color chart, the colors which I would use primarily in my artwork would be colors such as the numbers: G-28, I-10, I-30. 

There is not much of a link between my album artwork idea and our music video idea, this is because I believe that an album is about a whole body of work ad not just about one standout track on the album, this point of view is supported by the oxford dictionary definition of an album which is: “A collection of recordings issued as a single item on CD, record, or another medium”. Because of this I wanted the artwork to not be linked to our music video so that his album is more that just a single with a music video. Although there is one connection between the song and the album artwork, the song is entitled “Without U” and in the album artwork it is as if our artist is not there because he is not physically standing by the edge of the pool, only his reflection is there, and this ties in with the title of the song because the song title insinuates that someone is missing.

As for why our target audience would pick our album, well it is because of all the different reasons which I explained in this post, because we make our artist look mysterious by not showing his face, because we make him look like a bad boy with the Explicit Content tag, because our target audience can relate to him because we make our artist seem imperfect with the use of of the font I chose, because our target audience like what he wears because of the shoes we have on the edge of the pool are very trendy amongst teenagers, but primarily because we make our artists album look unique and avant-garde.