Setting up the day before:
We had to set up our first set and get a load of things in order for our shoot the day before (Tuesday the 9th of November) so that we could maximise the time we had to shoot the next day. So at 3 o'clock, we all met behind the studio and helped Fran (the set designer) with the final bits of our set. The first thing that we did was add some spray paint to some already spray painted flats (walls) so that we could get the right look for our music video. In the end, we didn't actually use these flats, but it was still a part of the setting up for our music video.
Then, Georgie and I helped Fran set up the bed whilst Tegan and Adrianna spray painted the mirrors. The bed was quite tricky to get into place, as we were building it in such a narrow space but we managed to get it built, and Tegan and Adrianna found it fine getting the mirrors painted white, however we did have to spend some time at the end of the day scrubbing off the loose bits of paint that splattered onto the glass.
Then, whilst we were waiting for another group to finish off the final parts of their shoot, we used the nail gun to add some flair pink stuff to the light, and we also set up the Ottoman.
Once the group were done filming their music video, we were able to move some of the stuff we needed for our first set into the studio. The first few thing that we moved was the bed. Fran and I carried that through the door as it was blocking anything else being moved into the studio. Then, we all carried some flats in and helped set them up, and the drum kit. That was all the big items that we carried in, the rest was stuff like bedside tables, the vanity mirror and pillows/bedding. The rest of the set up was all done inside the studio. The first obstacle we had to manage was that we didn't have enough flats with the right colour wallpaper, and so Georgie and I used the past and the wallpaper that Adrianna bought and got to work on that. Meanwhile, the lighting designer, Adrianna and Tegan were working out whether or not the set was going to be too small, as the bed was bigger than we anticipated since Fran couldn't find a single, and so had to get a twin. We ended up extending the width of the entire set by 2 entire flats, which was a huge difference and really let us do more with the space. This did take some team work, as we all had to grab a flat each and push it along to make space for the next flat to come in. Once this was finished, it was a fairly smooth procedure for the rest of the afternoon. We were able to get the whole first set ready for the next day by 6 o'clock and we left that day optimistic for the day ahead.
On Wednesday the 10th of November we shot our music video for our band. This was the day that we were all building up to and we went into it as prepared as we could have been. However, we ran into our first sign of trouble very early on in the day. We found out that one of the camera operator teachers wasn't well at 9 o'clock, and might of even had covid and wasn't going to come in and help with the shoot, which ended up with us shooting our first take almost an hour later than we were meant to. However, whilst this was all going on, I was trying to fix another issue we had. We had organised for a student in our year to lend us her drum sticks for our shoot (since they were pink) but we forgot to take into account that Wednesday is a lie in day for her (as she is a day student), and so we thought that she would arrive in time with the sticks for the first shot, and so I went round the school trying to find drum sticks. We did find some replacement ones, but in the end we got the other student's drum sticks in time for our first shot since we had the delay with the ill teacher. These two issues did happen very early on in the shoot day, but we tried our best not to let it bother us, and we got on with the rest of the day as quickly as we could.
We then got on with filming our first shots of the day. Our first set up wasn't what I was expecting it to be, but I was pleasantly surprised by how good the band looked in the first position. We had Lottie on the end of the bed, Kat and G (the bassist and drummer) off to the right of the bed, and Connie (the guitarist) on the left.
We did loads of different takes of the band in this position, with wide shots, close ups and extreme close ups so that we could get as many shots as possible.
We then got loads of close ups of all the other members of the band. I think that this was one of the things we did really well. Although it was quite tedious repeating the entire song loads of times to get all the shots, we now have so many shots with loads of different angles and perspectives that we aren't going to be running short when it comes to editing.
We then had our first change in the positioning of the band. Instead of having Lottie at the end of the bed, moving about, we had her buried in teddy bears. This was meant to look like the only change in the positioning of the band, but since most of the other members were out of shot, we only needed Lottie and Kat for these shots. Again, we did wides, close ups and extreme close ups for this position.
The next part of the shoot was the start of us moving into the more rebellious side of the band, and we were trying to teas our way into the destroyed set with the next few shots. Whilst the other members of the group were getting some of the stuff ready for the destroyed set (which we would be needing shortly), Mike and I went to rip holes in the teddy bears so the the girls could tear them open easier. I then brought all the teddy bears back to the set, and we started filming with them.
We then did a little photoshoot, and shot a couple of cool shots with mainly just Lottie (because it was hard to fit the drum kit and the rest of the band in there), but also with Connie. This set up didn't last as long as I thought it would, but looking back, there weren't many different shots or positions that we could have done in this set, and so moving on from it wasn't a bad idea, considering we still had 2 more sets to shoot in.
After this, G (our drummer) did some awesome graffiti on the back wall. Although we already had a some pre-made graffiti flats that we were going to use for set 3, we thought that we could tease in the graffiti theme better this way. Also it allowed this part of the set look more destroyed and look more manic when we took away some of the furniture so that we could fit the band in.
After getting some shots in this set, we were ready to move onto the next set. This is where we had some negotiation, and adapted to the circumstances. We all really liked the graffiti that G had done so far, and so we all thought that instead of using the other flats for the graffiti set, we could just get G to do some more graffiti on the flats we had there, whilst the group move other stuff into position. We ended up not changing the back-wall flats for the entire shooting process, and I must say that this made the shoot a lot more efficient, and it also allowed us more time to think about other things, like the positioning of the furniture. We shot some more similar shots to the ones in the destroyed set (only this time with the band and the drum kit), and then we moved on to the final set afterwards.
The final set was the biggest change of set that we had in the entire process by far, although it didn't take that much effort. The biggest part of this change was the difference in lighting. Before that though, Mike and I moved the bed out of the set area and we also moved the drum kit out. After that, we moved the pillows, the teddy bear fluff and the rest of the stuff on the floor out so that the set could be as clean as possible for the performance set (set 4). This whole process only took around 10-15 minutes, which did actually lead to some issues, as we ended up having to wait for the band members to get changed as the costume change ended up taking longer than the set change. However, it was all worth it in the end, and the performance set was probably the coolest looking set we had for our music video.
Again, we did many different shots, with a couple of different positions with this set. We were now coming to the end of our shoot day, and we were all very happy with how it was going so far. Considering the delay at the start of the day (with the missing teacher), we finished only a little bit behind when we were meant to and so we made up for lost time well.
How I thought it went:
I was very pleased with the shoot day, and looking back there is absolutely nothing that I would have done differently. We certainly had our obstacles, especially towards the beginning of the shoot, but I don't think that anyone in the band or in the media team let that effect them, and we moved on as efficiently and as proactively as we could. Tegan was the director of the music video and I thought that she suited that role so well, as she was decisive, clear and knew what was best for the shoot. Adrianna was also very useful on the shoot and I especially thought that her help for the lighting presentation before the shoot, and the lighting that she selected for the performance set was absolutely spot on, and I was so excited when I saw it. Georgie also did an amazing job as the camera person, and she didn't have it easy at all. She had to carry the very heavy camera on her shoulder for very long shots, and she also had to manoeuvre it quickly when we were doing the more chaotic and manic shots in the destroyed set, and she ended up getting some awesome looking footage for the music video. I was a little nervous going in as the Producer and I did make my share of mistakes as this was my first time doing this role. For example, I forgot to use the iPad sync up a couple of times and that cost us a small amount of time. However, I found it a very pleasurable and exciting experience and since my role only occurred around the start of a shot, I was able to get loads of behind the scenes footage whilst also weighing in my opinion on some of the other things, like the lighting or the positioning of the band. Overall, I really liked the shoot day and thought it went smoothly and well.
No comments:
Post a Comment