Over the course of making this music video we have had to put a lot of time in filming and editing our main task. Our first filming session began when we set a date for our band shots. Firstly we needed to book the room we needed where we wished to film. This room was equipped with dark or light curtains, lights and a sound system. I arrived a couple hours early prior to filming. I had to transport lots of music equipment into the room including guitars, keyboard, drums, microphone etc. I then set it up within the convention of live music with the drummer in the centre at the back, the keyboardist to the front side and the lead singer front centre. I also tested the music and collected the equipment for filming. The characters then arrived and we checked that everyone had the correct image and costume and that everyone was clear on the structure of the song. We then spent about an hour and half - two hours filming. We started with the base shots. These were mainly of the whole group playing over the track repeatedly. We then all had individual shots where the band members focused on stage presence and flair (for e.g. the drummer performed stick tricks). We then spent a lot of time on handheld shots and close-ups. These shots turned out to pinnacle to the editing process. A lot of shots of the lead singer and drummer came from this collection. This gave us more than enough to work with.
After uploading all of our footage we needed a way of managing it. We spent the best part of an hour going through each clip and deciding whether to keep or delete it. Some shots came out very dark and others were purely just bad shots and not needed. I then uploaded the chosen shots to coral editing studio. Once the track was laid I began to slot in shots here and there. I mainly based this on ideas i'd had for example using good drumming shots in certain places. I left gaps for the narrative but also to add flexibility for later changes. The track is long so to get to the end of the song was time consuming. However I now had around 80% of my band shots in place.
I now needed my narrative shots. The first stage of the story was to show a guy as 'cool' and 'fun'. I joined up with my main actor and we started to film various shots including interactions with friends. However these interactions were both positive and negative as I was filming the beginning and end of the film. For example I shot one shot were a group of his friends 'high-five' him and shower him with friendship and in another the group abuse him and beat him up. I also took shots of him interacting with technology using email. Lastly I took a shot of the actor by himself on where he reflects on his journey which I plan to be the last shot. I felt like I had collected lots of shots to use in the video and that they would create the bulk for the narrative.
After collecting the first lot of narrative shots I began to add them to the film. I had to re-jig a few bands shots to fit the narrative in correctly and careful surrounded the story with shots of the band (singing, guitar playing, drumming etc). I was happy with how the shots looked but after placing them in the desired order it became apparent how important it would be to get a successful middle scene. Our next stage.
Filming the middle part of the narrative went extremely well. I actually found that by filming the beginning and end first that you gain the freedom to make a well thought out middle section. The first stage was to follow on from the email from a girl that said 'hey babe, how are you ?'. I first shot the main character and the girl hugging. They then were talking and exchanging things on their mobile phones and also helping eachother with homework. I felt these shots clearly shown the hidden relationship between the two. I then shot the moment when the girls boyfriend realises that the couple are having a 'fling'. This was my favourite shot. It was dramatic and worked well with the levels of acting including the range of emotions. I then finished with filming a few touch up shots and close-ups of the characters to show their emotions.
These were the last shots we needed and I spent some time placing them within the film. I had to delete a few band shots that I was reluctant to let go but had to for the story to be extensive enough to make sense. I'm now working on making everything run smoothly and their after the music video should be complete.
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