Filming Problems

Today we were meant to be filming the bass narrative in a building of heritage called Valentines Mansion House situated in Ilford. However there was a problem, that many real production companies have to face, that occurred in the lead up to the filming. The problem was to do with something called liability insurance, initially we just had to give the company that was helping us organise the filming the liability insurance that the school is covered by, however when we managed to get the documentation sent to the company it turned out that it was for the wrong thing. The insurance was covered by the borough and not the school so we wouldn't be able to film unless a woman called Rhian Sharpe, who was helping us sort out our filming at the Mansion, was able to get a hold of the person who issued the insurance to the school. In the end she wasn't able to get a hold of him in time so we weren't able to get a filming license and we weren't able to film at the mansion. She did however state that if we wished to film at the mansion again we would just have to ask her and she would try and sort it out for us. I think our short coming came because we didn't incorporate enough time to clear the legal side of the filming procedure as it was something that we were not used to, that being said I think it was a good experience that all of us can take away and apply to situations in the future and we should attempt to film at the mansion sometime in the new year. Below is the chain of emails that details the situation of our filming troubles:

Filming Day 2

Today we completed what was arguably the biggest section of our filming, the performance aspects of the video. Our original plan was to film in Drama Room 3 as it is a small venue that can be made to look like a small concert venue in very little time. However we incurred many problems throughout the evening that consequently led to us having to change location at the last minute. Earlier in the day I had acquired the permission from the head of the music department to borrow a drum kit, that belongs to me until the end of the year at least, and move it to Drama 3 after school once all the forms had been dismissed. However upon going up to music to collect the drum kit I was then informed that we wouldn't be able to move it, for reasons that are still unclear to me, and we then had to come with an alternative. Luckily one of the members of the group had an old drum kit stored in his loft and his parents were nice enough to bring it down to the school once we had gone back to his house and packed it up. Consequently this postponed filming by roughly two hours and by the time we got back with the drum kit our original venue that we wanted to film in was no longer available and we had to change the location of our shoot to Boothroyd stage which is a much large stage and as a result harder to film on. If we had been able to borrow the drum kit from the school we would have been done filming and packed up with everyone ready to leave at a time no later than half past five, which I found out was the time the last member of the music department was leaving when I went to set the lighting for the hall. As a result we left the school at twenty to eight.

When filming we had two cameras running at once to ensure that we would have more shots to use when editing the video. One of the cameras was stationary for the majority of the filming process whilst the other one was free hand and was used to get more free flowing interesting shots that may fit faster paced sections of the song. We took multiple takes throughout the evening and after a couple of static takes everyone started to perform more to the camera. When everyone started to get into the performance the freehand camera started to follow individual members around every take, so once everyone had a camera focus on them we decided we would do one more take where the band were fooling around on stage to use all the footage for incidental shots. Overall I feel the filming went well even after the problems that we incurred before the filming process went well, it also helped that everyone was willing to stay late to make the complicated situation easier for everyone.

Filming Day 1

Today was our first day of filming as a group, however there were only three of us opposed to four as Kayleigh had prior dedications. We filmed the drum narrative in the green room in a spontaneous fashion as we didn't storyboard any of the narrative and we were going to see how this section of narrative turned out, we used the spontaneous filming technique as a test to see if the results would be good enough to use the technique again for future filming sessions. 

The drum narrative consists of the lead singer walking into the green room, when edited it will look like he has walked straight out of an elevator into the room, and finding the drummer dancing with a mop. We took a single shot, from three different angles which gives us more leeway when it comes to the editing process, where the singer walks into the room and then reacts to the sudden change in his costume as he now fits in with his surrounding area. Another interesting shot we got was an over the shoulder shot, however it wasn't a conventional shot as the figurative shoulder that the camera was looking over was of the broom looking at the drummer, this shot personifies the broom and makes it appear to be a character in its own right that can be used throughout the rest of the video, most likely for some comedic value.

We didn't just film in the two hour period we also had the set up to make the green room look more hectic and also pack it away so that it was in the same state that we found it when we left. This meant we had to manage our time in the most efficient way possible, which I feel we did. Overall I think the first day of filming was a success and we got multiple interesting shots that we will be able to use to great effect in the video. We even managed to get the footage that we captured uploaded to a Mac on the same day, so all in all everything went smoothly.

Digipak practice

Today in lesson we focused on the creation of digipaks, more specifically editing the images for the front and back cover. We had to try and use existing images and edit them in the style of the Indie genre to help us when we actually go to create our digipak.  One of the criteria that we need to meet for the digipak is that a song list needs to be put on the back cover along with a bar code because that is how the digipak would look if it was created in the "real world." 

I originally started with the front cover and decided that the best image I could use was just a flat angle long shot of four men sitting at what appeared to be somewhere underground, most reminiscent of a London underground station which can be seen from the design of the tiles behind the men. When I thought about it I liked the idea of having the front and back cover underground as it adds a sense of recognition that most people living in big cities can relate to. When I have looked at other existing Indie digipaks and videos many of the texts have a modernised retro look so I tried to achieve this as well by adding an effect that makes images appear like they are being viewed in an old photo frame. This effect was applied to both the front and back cover so that synergy is created between the two, in addition I muted the colours on both images so that the images appear older and less vibrant. The last thing I added to the front cover was the name of the band "The Lost Boys" in green font, however I was unsure of where to put the name and in the end I put it in the centre of the cover which doesn't look particularly professional and  also breaks the natural illusion that the rest if the digipak conveys.

When it came to the back cover I thought that a tunnel would work really well as it fits the simplistic nature of the front cover and it also conveys the misé-en-scene very well. I added very few effects to the picture and the only extra effect that I added on top of those that I used on the front cover was burning the shadows cast from the lights to make those areas darker and stand out more. After finishing the way I wanted the back cover to look I then had to add the track list and bar code, I started with the track list so I would know how much space I would have to play with to incorporate the bar code on the cover. I thought that the idea of black and white alternating track names would look interesting on the text and once I done changed the colours of the track names I deduced that it looked better than just one colour all the way through. Originally I had the track names horizontally but it didn't fit the cover that well so I changed the angle that each one was positioned at so that they looked like they were running down the tunnel wall. Once I had finished adding the track names to the back of the cover I added the bar code, where I initially placed it was where it stayed in the bottom left hand corner of the cover.