In my opinion the reason our shoot day went so smoothly and according to plan was because we were so organised with the time and planning during the pre-production. It was only possible for us to prepare and make sure our set was looking good and the way we wanted it the afternoon before our shoot day, therefore without all the planning before the shoot day would have turned into a huge mess, even though our set was simplistic. The day before we had decided that we would have a white wall behind the DJ because the lights reflected well off it the set also included a large rack of fast flashing lights above the DJ and two moving lights on either side of the DJ and his decks.
On the day we shot all the DJ shots in the studio in the morning from 9:00 am until 13:00, before the actually filming we played the song a few times so that the DJ practice his performance and we could see which camera angles would be there best to shoot from. Once the filming had started we shot him from a number of different angles and also used a number of different movements including tracking left to right and track in and out. We used JVC 500 HD cameras, with tripod and tracking but did not use blondes or redhead on set or on location. Everyone in the group was directing giving there ideas and opinions of how all the characters should be represented, for example we came to agreement that it was best that we could see at little of the DJ face to make him more anonymous, therefore he wore a hat shadowing parts of his face so the viewers would concentrate more on what he was doing on the decks and what music he was producing.
I was directing and controlling the set saying “Rolling camera, playback and action”, and was making sure all the lights were good and rave like, whilst another member of my group was in charge of playback and the other two members were on camera at the time. I was also encouraging the DJ and clapped with him behind the camera so he could imitate me and did the very important pointing scene with him, making sure he did it correctly and boosted his confidence so he could give an even better performance. Then the group swapped around slightly and it was my turn on camera (see picture above to the right, me on camera) mainly doing the tracking shots in and out, left to right and right to left, whilst someone held the wire so it could not ruin the shot, I also filmed from a couple of different angles such as hero shots showing his the DJ’s importance. In the second half of the shoot I filmed a lot outside, which was all hand held. On location we found that the natural light was better from the effect we wanted, we filmed from 2:00pm till around 6:00pm. The directing outside was simpler than the directing in the studio because we did not have to worry about lights and wire and things like that it all became a lot more natural. The cast was very easy to direct all we had to do was point at something tell me to go crazy and smash it, which they did giving us great footage making it not looked staged and practiced which was the look we were going for.
Before the actually shoot day the main problem was to find a location where we would film all the gang shots. We were not aloud to film in our first two locations which we found because we simply did not have the money to rent it out and the health and safety precautions were just too extreme such as having an ambulance and fire truck which were really unnecessary and would put to much pressure on our actors. We also would not be aloud to make noise, break lots of things and burn a car which in our visions just did not work because that is exactly what we wanted to do. For example, the burning car was the “wow” factor to our video which we were not prepared to give that up without a fight.However, on the shoot day the only real problem was the weather after waiting a good hour for the rain to settle, we final went off to our location at 2:00pm (behind schedule) and were able to manage the rain with two umbrellas, one of which I had luckily remember before leaving that morning. It was difficult trying to keep the camera from getting wet when we were following and running after our cast members. This therefore ruined a few of our shots. Finally the rain completely stopped and filming became much easier.
We then came across some other difficulties, such as not white balancing correctly and choosing an appropriate shutter speed on location. This did force us to lose some shots which would have been very good but we corrected the problem once we realised what was happening and the rest of our shots turned out the way we wanted them too. A few other problems happened which was the way we were holding the camera, because it was handheld, the slightest touch would put it out of focus and with the rain we did not really realise because the screen was blurry with the rain drops, however that problem was solved when the weather became good again. We had a minor issue in the studio when the CD with our track on it didn’t work but that was easily solved when a member of my group went to get his laptop which he connected to the sound system.I was especially pleased with various shots that I did .These included close ups with kanted angles on the main characters. I shot these from a low angle which gave me an impression of power and authority and potential violence in the characters.
I was especially pleased with various shots that I did .These included close ups with kanted angles on the main characters. I shot these from a low angle which gave me an impression of power and authority and potential violence in the characters.
I also liked the close ups of the characters smoking. We tried to de focus the smoke and then the face but it did not work to well as I kept getting the timing wrong. I also liked the low angle shot of the smashing of the fridge which I thought we could use in rapid cutting and slow motion. I did not do the burning car shot but the close up and the wide shot were very effective as they filled the screen.
I thought the shots of the DJ from a low angle with him clapping gave a good brand image to him. Since a lot of the shots were handeld several were wobbly alough this gave the film impact I thought several of them were without any real meaning, such as two shots of trees panning to a face had no real message.
In my opinion in shoot day went extremely well, all according to plan and we tackled all the problems that were thrown at us and came up with good effective solutions. Even with all our careful planning in pre-production we still improvised all the gang shots on the day, which we had planned to do only a bit, and we hoped they would turn out the way they did. A lot of the good shots were not even scripted we just did them on the spur of the moment because it felt at the time a good idea to do them, I am pleased we did not follow the script exactly because we now have a wider variations of shots. It really sends a message to our audience members, in a naturalistic way, and shows how not everything has to be superficial and perfect to create a good and meaningful music video. Even though our final production does not follow our storyboards exactly it looks even better than we had versioned it to be in the first place. We managed to get the shot of the burning car, even if it was run down and half of it was missing, which I was extremely pleased about. We even got another “wow” factor which was the final scene when the two gangs meet and one of the gangs threatens the other with flares, the shots are fantastic. These are the shots that made our video what it is today.
