When discussing the ideas in the pre-production, there wasn't really a team leader as we all thought that we all had an equal role in the decision making. We thought that we needed to involve everyone's ideas to make a good video. We also thought this would help because the video will contain more than one idea and make it more interesting. During the filming process, I took on the role of 'Camera Operator', working alongside Ollie. For this role, I had to be able to undertake all the responsibilities as well. These included knowing all of the shots that can be used to portray an emotion, knowing how to use the camera and also knowing where the actor should be at all times in all shots. Even though Georgia was an actor throughout the video, she was still involved when it came to deciding what shots to use when filming most of her scenes.
The post-production process was potentially the hardest part of the whole task. When shooting, our biggest worry was that we wouldn't have enough footage to edit into the final video. Even though we shot extra footage on some shots, we only shot certain shots once as we only had a limited amount of time. Personally, I enjoyed this part of the project the most as editing is a big interest of mine. I took on the role of main editor as I had the software downloaded on my laptop. I had many responsibilities to be able to fulfil this role including knowing how to work the editing software, inputing everyones ideas into the editing process and being able to link the visuals to the music.
I thought that we had a lot of strengths throughout the whole process. When filming, it was agreed that it would be a good idea to do a few shots of different parts of the outside location. This would establish the location but also show how vast and empty the environment is. We used this to portray the feeling of loneliness and emptiness of the girl and also her surroundings. I think we used a good variety of different shots and they all portray the emotions needed and also show our camera skills. By changing the exposure in these particular shots, it added the sense of mystery and tension to the scene.
Another thing that worked really well was that we used all the available space in the shot meaning there were no empty space for a long amount of time. Throughout the dancing scene, Georgia seems to move around the space a lot. We chose to use a lock down camera in this scene because we thought it would be the best way to show the different dance moves and her passion for dancing but when watching it back, I personally wouldn't have chose the lockdown camera for these particular shots. As the camera stays in one place, we noticed that it looks more like a documentary and can potentially get boring to watch. If we added different closeup shots on the actors arms and maybe their feet, it would become more interesting and even more personal to the audience.
Personally, I think that our idea was one of the strongest things about our music video. After evaluating the audio and the lyrics, we got the idea of a girl using something she loves to overcome a fear or addiction. This is when we came up with the idea of a girl who is using the nature of dance to get over her violent past and to get over her addiction of drugs. Working as a group, we came up with this idea and incorpated most of eachothers ideas together to come up with one big idea.
As we have used a Sony Z5 in previous sessions, we knew how to operate them and how to perform different techniques with them. When messing around with the camera, we noticed that we could change the exposure to create a sense of mystery and tension. This was one of our strengths because it gave us an advantage when it came to timing as we didn't have to learn how to use the camera and waste time.
Timing was one of the biggest issues we had to face when filming. When we first hired out a camera, we took it to the location and realised that we hadn't yet planned any of the shots. We didn't know what we were doing and wasted time as we didn't film any footage. When it came to thinking of another time to hire a camera, it was hard to find a time that we were all free due to work commitments. When we finally worked out a time that we were free for filming, there wasn't any available. When we finally got a camera, Ollie picked it up from South Essex College and brought to the Shenfield where I picked him up and drove to the location to meet Georgia. At this point, the shots had been planned and we has a rough idea to what we were doing. As the date we filmed only 3 days before the deadline, we had a really short amount of time to edit. As i had the newer version of Final Cut Pro on my Apple laptop, we had an advantage as we could edit it for longer and didn't have to make the journey to Southend to do it in college.
One of the main worries we all had was the amount of footage we had. When converting the footage off of the tape onto the iMac computers, we couldn't find all of the shots we took. This increased the amount of worry we had about the footage we had. During editing, we had to repeat some of the shots throughout the video. This was noticed in certain parts so we had to change them around so they weren't as close together.
Although I personally think that this task went really well, there were obviously some elements that could have been improved. During the dancing scenes, as Georgia was just improvising and didn't really know what she was doing and you can notice that is some of the shots. In one particular shot, you can tell that she doesn't really know what she is doing because she looks out of shot and it breaks the continuity of the scene. For the future, I think that we need to either devise a routine or at least listen to the song and think of a basic idea of what to do. This wouldn't have made the scene look so staged and would have been more naturalistic. Another thing that I would have changed was the location we used for the dance scenes. We originally planned to film in a local dance studio where Georgia trains but as that location wasn't available, we had to find a location that was suitable and would be available when we needed it. The only empty location we found was Georgia's new extension in her house. As there was no furniture in there and there was an empty wall we chose to film there. As it was a last minute resort, we didn't have time to perfect it like moving items out the way and we also weren't allowed to unplug a wire connecting to the wall behind the actor. This was in the shot for most of the video but fortunately we were able to trim it out of the shots using a tool on Final Cut Pro.
Overall, I really enjoyed this experience because I am really interesting in the post-production stage of a filming process. This is something that I would like to take up as a career and this experience is a good way of getting to know the pressures of the industry and what sort of things I will have to face. Also, it showed me that there will also be a lot of problems that i will have to consider and maybe overcome to produce a popular product. It taught me that I may have to take on more than one role so everything can get finished on time and time is key when it comes to filming. Planning is a top priority and i learnt during this task that if you don't plan and prepare yourself for the following weeks of filming, time will be wasted and the pressure will build and make everything a hundred times more stressful for everyone involved.
Timing was one of the biggest issues we had to face when filming. When we first hired out a camera, we took it to the location and realised that we hadn't yet planned any of the shots. We didn't know what we were doing and wasted time as we didn't film any footage. When it came to thinking of another time to hire a camera, it was hard to find a time that we were all free due to work commitments. When we finally worked out a time that we were free for filming, there wasn't any available. When we finally got a camera, Ollie picked it up from South Essex College and brought to the Shenfield where I picked him up and drove to the location to meet Georgia. At this point, the shots had been planned and we has a rough idea to what we were doing. As the date we filmed only 3 days before the deadline, we had a really short amount of time to edit. As i had the newer version of Final Cut Pro on my Apple laptop, we had an advantage as we could edit it for longer and didn't have to make the journey to Southend to do it in college.
One of the main worries we all had was the amount of footage we had. When converting the footage off of the tape onto the iMac computers, we couldn't find all of the shots we took. This increased the amount of worry we had about the footage we had. During editing, we had to repeat some of the shots throughout the video. This was noticed in certain parts so we had to change them around so they weren't as close together.
Although I personally think that this task went really well, there were obviously some elements that could have been improved. During the dancing scenes, as Georgia was just improvising and didn't really know what she was doing and you can notice that is some of the shots. In one particular shot, you can tell that she doesn't really know what she is doing because she looks out of shot and it breaks the continuity of the scene. For the future, I think that we need to either devise a routine or at least listen to the song and think of a basic idea of what to do. This wouldn't have made the scene look so staged and would have been more naturalistic. Another thing that I would have changed was the location we used for the dance scenes. We originally planned to film in a local dance studio where Georgia trains but as that location wasn't available, we had to find a location that was suitable and would be available when we needed it. The only empty location we found was Georgia's new extension in her house. As there was no furniture in there and there was an empty wall we chose to film there. As it was a last minute resort, we didn't have time to perfect it like moving items out the way and we also weren't allowed to unplug a wire connecting to the wall behind the actor. This was in the shot for most of the video but fortunately we were able to trim it out of the shots using a tool on Final Cut Pro.
Overall, I really enjoyed this experience because I am really interesting in the post-production stage of a filming process. This is something that I would like to take up as a career and this experience is a good way of getting to know the pressures of the industry and what sort of things I will have to face. Also, it showed me that there will also be a lot of problems that i will have to consider and maybe overcome to produce a popular product. It taught me that I may have to take on more than one role so everything can get finished on time and time is key when it comes to filming. Planning is a top priority and i learnt during this task that if you don't plan and prepare yourself for the following weeks of filming, time will be wasted and the pressure will build and make everything a hundred times more stressful for everyone involved.
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