Day 1
My shoot day consisted of two half days over two different days of shooting that took place both on location and in the studio at school. The shooting of our music video began on a Tuesday in the morning in the studio. We came into the studio in the morning and began building our set by using the picture I drew as a guide. It ended up being a little bit different because of convenience reasons such as certain placements of furniture. As we began building the set, as a group we really started to get a feel of how the video would look and feel. The set began to come to life and as soon as we finished it, it looked even better! I think that our set design matched our idea and the look we where going for very well. It had the intimate indie enclosed idea that we where going for and we where all very pleased with what it looked like.We got Leo our singer into the studio and talked him through the plan of the day and guided and directed him on how the video would go and how we wanted it to look.
Once Leo was ready and understood how it was going to go we began the shoot. We began with taking a full still shot of the full set with Leo sitting in the arm chair just sitting, playing and singing the whole song, so if in editing we where stuck for shots we would have a back-up of shot of Leo singing the whole song so we could slide it in.
However we found that we had enough shots and this was not needed but it is always good to be extra prepared. We took many close ups of Leo singing, Leo’s hands playing guitar, and his feet ect… By choosing to take shots like this we made the room to look very cluttered, small and intimate, which is how we wanted to portray the room so overall this was a success. We took a close-up tracking shot around Leo’s head of him singing, we placed the camera on a dolly, which was then placed on the tracks and used to film around Leo smoothly. This shot was definitely the most difficult to take because as the camera was moving along the tracks we also had to try and smoothly move the camera so it was still pointing at Leo’s face. We had many tries at this shot and finally got one that would be good enough to put into our video.
The props and costume we used and placed in the set all had an important part of making the scene look right and portray the certain image we wanted. For example, we dressed Leo in very basic clothes, however they where quite country and folk like. He was wearing a pair of jeans with a knitted, zip up jumper. I think that this helped push the folkness of the song. Our props where also important, for example, the vinyl player and the old telephone. We decided to place these in the set because our target audience are the kind of people who like vintage and retro things and may also enjoy listening to vinyl records. By doing this it helped us pull in more of an audience and create a clearer world for the scene.
Our singer Leo was just perfect for the image we wanted to portray and was highly effective in making our music video look right. The song we chose was a very mellow, acoustic, relaxed song that reaches out to people who enjoy the music and not the image of the music. We chose Leo first of all because he actually listens to the band ‘Bon Iver’ and knew the song ‘Flume’ and enjoys it. We thought that it was very important to actually choose someone like this because otherwise it wouldn’t feel right, and a bit too fake and acted, which is what we wanted to avoid. We wanted to create and keep as much freshness and real in the video as possible. Secondly Leo’s image is just perfect because he has that natural, not trying very hard look that we wanted because the band is all about the music and NOT the looks. So I think that in this area we handled it very well and made many right choices for our music video that had a positive effect in making it look right.
Our lighting for the studio shoot we decided to keep very basic and natural, however making it warm so the room again can seem smaller and cluttered. We used a backlight of a warm orange and fill light either side to prevent shadows. We also had a lampshade in the set that was switched on. This helped light the set naturally without looking fake and artificial. And rooms do normally have lights in them so it helped create the world of the video and make it more realistic.
Throughout the day I made sure I did a bit of everything I could, like filming, lighting, set, directing and in charge of sound. However I paid special attention to the set and costume because this is what interested me most on the shoot. I helped mainly with getting the set together and putting everything in the right place and making sure that it looked right and how it should. I also made sure that Leo looked right, not just with what we was wearing but how we he acting, so I helped direct him too.
We all had a fair amount of camera use during that shoot day, making sure we all had a go as some of the more complicated shots so we could a range of shots and built our camera skill.
I think that as a team we worked great together creating a solid structure to the day without any mistakes or problems. Because we are three girls and also good friends I think that this helped us in the creation of our video by all getting on very well without any fights!
Day 2
On the second day we started after lunch for our location shoot. We got our two actors, Lottie and Ed, who we used on the location shoot and look a mini bus to Box hill, Dorking stepping-stones, the location that Lottie from our group found. During the short bus journey to the location we talked the actors through what the day would be like, the story line and what shots we wanted to get. When we got to the location we sorted out costume for Lottie and Ed and got straight into filming. We where very lucky because it was a beautiful sunny autumn day which fits in so well with the ‘Naturesque’ theme of our video.
The first shot we took was of Lottie walking on the stepping-stones over the river and toward the camera. We also had a shot of Ed doing this from the other side of the bank.
We took many shots of them both walking across the stepping stones, one shot we took from further down the river to get a shot of them walking towards each other. We needed this shot for when Ed touches Lottie’s face and she disappears. The most important thing we had to make sure that we shot, where all the transition shots that help match up the location and the studio. For example when Ed throws a stone into the water and the circular ripple of the water turns into the vinyl player. Another transition shot we took was of Lottie, sitting in a tree holding some rather beautifully coloured leaves. She then drops these leaves and the leaves start to fall onto Leo in the studio shot. We took many shots of Lottie dropping these leaves. Some normal shots and some slow motion shots. The slow motion shots seemed to work really well and this was a clear success.Other than costume and the leaves that Lottie drops we did not change or choose anything on location. The leaves we collected before the shoot in order to make sure we had some nice orange coloured autumn leaves. The costume we chose to put Lottie in was a white dress. We chose this because we wanted to represent her as quite virginal, innocent and beautiful. Her red hair was good juxtaposition to the pure white dress. We dressed Ed in rather smart but old fashioned looked clothes. We wanted to keep the vintage dated look and also let viewers be able to connect to him by liking what he was wearing. Ed and Lottie are also rather attractive so this has a major bonus in reeling people into watching our video. If there are attractive people in our video, more people will want to watch it, rather than not very attractive people.
All three of us where very happy at the end of our entire shoot. We felt that we got all the shots we needed and where very well prepared to go into post-production editing.
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