Media Progress - Editing & Digipak

After working on on the editing of the music video for a few weeks, I can report that it is coming along nicely. We have fully edited just ocver half of the finished product however we only have 5 - 6 hours of editing time left realistically so we are going to have to pick up the pcace somewhat. Early on in the editing phase we desided that we would get more more work done if we split our group into two. Me and Chris would be working on the editing on the the mac, while Lizi would start work on the digipak. We came to the conclusion that this setup would be more beneficial to maximizing effeciency because it appeared that 3 people working on the editing complicated matters whith everyone wanting differant things to put into the video.

In terms of editing, at this point, we have edited up to the point when Kieran enters the pub. Looking back on what we have done we have ended up putting much more performance in to compliment the narrative than we previously concieved. This is a postive change because our original plan possibly did not include enough shots of the band. It does mean, however, that we may in fact run out of time to include everything that we wanted in the finished product. We will just have to wait and see.

The Digipak, being created solely by Lizi at this point, is coming on very well from what I have seen from our quick group meetings at the start of every lesson. It would seem that Lizi, having quite a talent for photography, has been able to create some very interesting takes on the original card digipak we thought up. So far she has photographed and edited quite a few differant shots whith differant filter and colour effects. So, in conclusion, from what we have produced so far, I am very pleased however our editing will have to pick up the pace slightly if we are to finish by the end of next week. The Digipak is coming on brilliantly and I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Filming Account

Monday 8th November

The day started with all of us meting in the common room and then finding a room for 2 hours to wait until the stage was free so we could set up our instruments. We had to wait because an English exam was in progress so there was little we could do apart from practice the scenes without instruments. The following 2 hours were spent practicing the shots for the ‘seduction’ scene so we could get it exactly right when it came down to filming it for real. We also had access to a plain white background (A SMART board) so Lizi was able to get changed in to her costume and we could film the ‘hair swishing’ scene there and then, as opposed to waiting till the end of the school day to film it.

All of this was going perfectly to plan until it we discovered that our bass guitar was broken. One of the strings had snapped on it so it was unusable. Chris and Rob had repeatedly tried to mend it in the last hour before we were due to film however it couldn’t be done so I had to make a directorial decision. I decided to scrap the bass guitar all together and change it to a synth keyboard, in addition to this I swapped Ben’s role of drum player around with Rob’s Bass as Ben had stated he could play a keyboard and Rob was at least mildly proficient with the drums. Once this had been decided we ran into yet another problem, The English exam had started slightly late and we hadn’t anticipated the amount of time it would take for them to collect the papers, I asked around and found out that the exam would be finishing 45minutes after we had hoped to start, this would not have given us enough time to film the whole thing before the end of school and, due to the school play, we would not have been able to continue filming after hours.

The situation was starting to look grim for us. We had one last chance to get filming done on time; the drama studio had been a possibility for us but we knew that it wasn’t finished being renovated. In a last ditch attempt to secure a location we went to the studio and luck would have it we ran in to the Head of Drama who suggested that we could use the studio for approximately 90 minutes before he had a class. This gave us just enough time to film everything we needed if we moved quickly.

We started by rearranging the drama studio to suit our needs while the half the team went to collect all the instruments we had booked previously. Once set up we quickly filmed the seduction scene and moved on to the performance. In all it took about 45 minutes to fully film the performance shots and then an added 10 minutes to get the card shower set up and filmed. We finished with, quite literally, 5 minutes before a class was due.

Overall I would say the day was a success because, for one, the weather was appalling so if we had moved the days around to film the outside scenes on the Monday we would have had a massive problem. In addition we filmed all the scenes we wanted within the time limit. It was, however, much more stressful than the Friday. This would have been due to the breakage of the bass guitar and the circumstances of the location; however we were all a little tired by then, so that may have been a cause as well.

Filming Account

Friday 5th November

The day prior to filming we had made sure all our team had been given their correct brief for the next day, they all knew what they were doing and we were sure that all necessary tasks had been carried out. It turned out that we missed one crucial element; we had forgot to collect the camcorder and tripod from school. Therefore, due to this error I had to change my itinerary slightly to accommodate collecting all the equipment at school before heading off to the bus stop with Lizi to go to Morton to meet Chris, Kieran and Rob. When in Morton we had a stroke of good luck, Rob’s mum who happened to be passing us at the time we all met up offered to give us a lift, which meant we arrived at Ben’s house (one of the filming locations) 20 minutes early.

Once set up we made a group decision to film the outside scenes first so as to avoid any potential rain, being as it was currently good shooting conditions. Our filming took place on a fen road and over a small river. Due to our choice of road, we encounter very few cars and even fewer pedestrians so we could be sure filming would not be delayed. All went to plan for the road scenes and we had approximately 1 hour to film the river scenes. This proved somewhat more difficult as the steep incline on the riverside meant that we had to get down very carefully and, adding the problem of us only having working phones to drop off the side of the river, we had to set up a makeshift net in order to catch Chris’s phone. After the initial setting up we did, however, get all the shots we needed and we were able to move on to the Pub to film.

Chris successfully convinced the owner of the pub to allow us to film inside in a small area around a table. It was here that we filmed the poker game. This all went to plan and we finished slightly ahead of time so we were able to leave and have lunch.

After lunch we filmed the remaining scenes in Ben’s house. This included the man leaving, the woman’s reaction and the ‘cheating’ scene, all of which did not prove too difficult to film, with the possible exception of ‘cheating scene’ taking a little longer than anticipated to film as it demanded a heightened level of maturity… from not just the cast but the ones filming it as well. Either way, we successfully filmed all the scenes we needed, with the one exception of the heart in the cappuccino cup, which could not be filmed as it turned out no-one actually knew how to make a cappuccino so we had to leave that shot out. Other than that one blip the whole day went almost exactly to plan.

Storyboarding

When storyboarding we looked at the basic shots we would be needing from our storyline work and then tried to imagine them as differant shots. The storyboard was far from a conclusive look at all the shots that would be in the production, it also didn't include any of the performance work. We had decided at an earlier date that in order to film a natural looking performance we would not officially designate specific shots to the performance, what we did instead is get the actors to mime to the song while we went about and filmed specific areas. We tried to get as many closeups as possible as we had descovered, by looking at earlier attempts to film music videos, the closeups had provided the best footage.

When it came to film the 'more difficult' scenes that would require some form of special acting talent, for example, the 'seduction' scene at the start, we filmed a practice beforehand so when it came to actually filming it, we could get it over and done with as quickly as possible so we could move on to the other shots.

Itinerary - Friday

9:30 Chris Waiting at North St. for
Bus

9:30 Jack, Lizi, Kieran Waiting at Bus stop bay

9:45 Jack, Lizi, Chris, Rob, Meet Rob at Morton bus
Kieran stop.

10:10 All Meet Ben at his house.

10:20 All Start filming marital
House scenes

12:20 All Have lunch at pub +
Review (Carvery)

1:20 All Film outside street scenes

3:20 All Return to pub to film
Mates house scenes

5:20 Jack, Lizi, Chris, Walk to Morton
Rob, Kieran

5:45 Jack, Lizi, Chris, Get bus back to Bourne
Kieran



Itinerary – Monday

8:50 All Meet in Common Room

9:00 All Meeting in A23

11:15 All Go to the stage and
Collect instruments

11:20 All Film performance shots

1:45 All Lunch in Common Room
+ Review

2:05 All Film on stage if possible

3:15 All Film hair swishing shot

4:15 All Finish