Music Promo - Evaluation of shoot day

After months of planning very carefully our music video it came time to shoot it. The weeks running up to the shoot day it was essential that we got all the props sorted; each member of the group taking different responsibilities and taking their share of the weight. The photos were a key part of our shoot so the group and I took hundreds of photos of the guy in which she was stalking and sent these of to get printed.

The day before the actual shoot we began to build the first set up so we could get going as quickly as we could on the day of the shoot. We decided to shoot the bathroom scenes first. We set up the basis of the bathroom set and the bedroom as there was water involved in both of these scenes. We place many sandbags in the shape of the room, piling them up. We then placed a membrane over the sand bags to keep the water in the area. We then placed weights on top of these to ensure that the membrane did not slip and allow the water to escape. We placed down black and white floor pattern to look like bathroom tiles. We wanted this set to look very simple as we did not want to sets to look at all homely or lived in really. We had to think very carefully when it came to putting in the lights. Because we were using water in our shoot and overflowing the back it was essential that we did not use and floor lighting. After some thinking we attracted lights to some fishing line and hung them from over the walls. This meant that they were floating just above floor level and not at risk of touching the water. We also used over head lighting. During the building of the of the set I was not to sure how it was going to look and was slightly worried about the lighting. However, when it was finished we were all very pleased with the set up and felt it was very simple get extremely effective and gave exactly the look in which we wanted - cold and un-homely.

One the day of the shoot we still had some setting up to do. We envisaged the video to mainly be filmed over head. This meant that we had to sent up the crane. We also needed to fill the bath. However, we needed to make the bath water warm for our main girl and there is no hot running water in the studio. This meant that we had to cart buckets of hot water from the kitchen to the studio to fill the bath with warm water. After there was enough hot water we attached the hose to the taps making the water run through them and waited for the bath to over flow... This was a very tense wait... We had scattered many photos round the floor of the set.

We assigned ourselves different roles, these being;
Kitty - Director

 

Olivia - Checking of all the shots and making sure we got all the shots we needed and wanted
Me - Photographer
Beth -
While we all had our individual roles we also all took turns with the camera work and being 'hands on'. In my role I was ensuring that while I was accounting the day of the shoot I was also trying to get some good shots that could potentially be used for our album art work and website. 

Our first set up was generally quite successful and we were all very happy with the shots that we achieved. We removed the water from the bath and took the bath out and removed the flooring. We then placed down some old office carpet for the bed room scene. We warped a single mattress with the membrane so that the water did not sink into the mattress as otherwise it would be extremely heavy after and the room would be hard to flood because the mattress would sink up a huge amount of the water. We then made up the mattress with sheets and made it look 'lived in'. Again with this set up we covered the floor with photographs and began to flood the studio. One problem we had here was that the water was going under the carpet. However we quickly resolved this. Liv made sure that we got all the shots that we wanted. We were very pleased with the shots which we got with this set up to and even got some really effective slow motion shots.




The third and final set up was for the performance element. This consisted of a white backdrop set up and a piece of Perspex plastic in which we were going to drip ink down. We mixed the ink with glycerine to make it thick so it would run like a gel substance down the plastic. We then collected a range of shots for the performance element. These consisting of close up shots of both individual members of the team taking a range of shots as well as both members together. In the performance element is played hugely with the focus. Moving between focusing on the ink running down the glass and the performance element. Creating a range of interesting depth of fields. I feel this was extremely effective and am pleased with out this came out.

All in all I feel that our set design and that way in which we shot the video communicated the concept really well. While it was ambiguous how it was going to go on the day and the members of the team were unsure how it was going to look it went as well as it possibly could have done. We collected a range of interesting shots and looking back on the footage am very pleased with what we have. The slow motion shots I feel as really effective. The crane was definitely used to our advantage and really gave the look in which we wanted to achieve. As a team we all worked really well together. While we all had our individual roles we all looked after each other and helped each other out.

After we had done got everything we needed with the bathroom and bedroom scenes and we had flooded the area we then had to get all the water out of the membrane. This took a very long time as we had not thought about how we were going to get the water out. As a result of this taking so much time it meant that we were in a very tight time strength. We did not get to shoot the ink imagery; however, this was not a huge problem as we are able to do that another time as we have everything we need and it will not take a huge amount of time.

As a result of me taking photographs throughout the day we now have a collection of photographs that we can imbedded into our website; widening the content of our website.

I think I can safely say on behalf of myself and all the group members that we are really pleased with the footage we collected on the day and are very exited to take the next steps towards our final product.