Music Video First Draft

This is my first draft for my music video. There are a few parts which have a black screen but this is due to me not having the shots for that certain part. I was hoping I'd get all my shots but due to unforeseen circumstances, I was not able to shoot with my actor and actress. I am very happy and feeling positive about this first draft as I think it looks ok for my first try, despite there being some shots missing. I didn't do too much to the draft but I did add some effects as these were what I originally planned to have so the shots wouldn't have worked without the certain effect. I also didn't like the colour of my original footage so I added a filter/effect onto each shot and I think it looks a lot better and matches the mood of the song.

Problems when filming, day 5 (12/12/14)

During my planned shooting on 12/12/14, we encountered a couple of problems. These were:

• They were both uncomfortable at first so it took awhile to get into the process of filming.
• They often started laughing when I started to shoot, so this delayed the filming even more and therefore it took longer to start recording professionally. 
• I wanted to start at 4pm but due to my actress having a lesson beforehand, she got let out late and we had to wait 10 minutes for her to arrive. This made my schedule go off plan.
• Due to me having to get to work for 6 o clock, we had to make sure we got everything done in the short time we had and due to this, I feel like we was a bit rushed.  

How did we get past these problems:

• I managed to calm them both down and told them they did not need to feel uncomfortable. The main reason for them feeling comfortable was the crew who were helping me in the room. I got them to be quiet and turn around when I began filming so they didn't distract the actress and actor.
• Again, as I mentioned above, they were laughing mainly because of the distractions caused in the room by the crew but also because they felt uncomfortable. Over time they did feel better.
• Obviously my actress being let out of lesson late was nothing that I could have prevented so when she arrived we got straight on with filming, making sure we used our time efficiently.
• As I was at work for 6pm, I decided it would benefit me if I went through the shots I needed before shooting so I was able to quickly look at what shots I needed then film them and once filmed, highlight them so I knew I had them done. This saved me a lot of time and I ended up having 45 minutes left before I had to go to work, so this was well planned. 

Day 5 of shooting (12/12/14)

I planned to film on the 8th of December to get the rest of my studio shots as I wanted to film on the 13th at Country Park so I could have everything completed ahead of editing on the 18th.

I messaged my artist to see if she could bring her outfit she wore the previous time of filming but she didn't reply. I then found out from my actor/artist, who is good friends with her, that she would not be coming to college on the Monday as she was too ill. This caused some issues as I had booked the room so had to cancel the booking so someone else could take it, due to this it messed up my shooting schedule for the week. She didn't return on the Tuesday either so I didn't have chance to film then so I messaged her again to see if she would be back by Friday and she said yes so I made arrangements for her and my artist/actor to stay behind on Friday night so I could get them completed.

The shoot on Friday was successful as there were not many issues with there just being them 2 and myself so this made things much easier to do and no one was distracted. Before shooting I wrote down all the shots I needed to re-shoot or finish and got out the certain parts of the storyboard so I could see exactly what I was shooting and didn't do anything wrong. Doing this made the shooting process so much easier as I could cross out any shots I did, therefore making it a lot more organised. Luckily, I finished all of the shots I needed to do so I was happy with this and the only shots I have left is at the Country Park, my house and the bus stop.

I asked my actress and actor/artist if they were available tomorrow (Saturday 13th) but unfortunately my actress already had plans so I will not be able to go ahead with shooting on that day. I was hoping I could get all them shots as well so my draft could be as good as possible but with her being busy and mock week coming up, it was impossible to do and fit around our plans and exam timetables. Despite this, I am planning on filming these final scenes during the Christmas half term as we will all have more free time during the holidays. I will update on this nearer the time. 

Problems when filming, day 4 (5/12/14)

Today I filmed the following shots: 52,53,54,55,60,61,62 and 63. During shooting we encountered a few problems:

• With Lewis being tall it was difficult to get him into the camera frame as I didn't want to see the top of the white background drop as this would ruin the shot. 
• Amber found it difficult to cover Lewis' mouth as she couldn't see properly with her being behind him (this took a few tries to get right)
• There was some issues with lip-syncing as the part was quite fast so Lewis struggled to do it at first.
• Some of our time was lost as we had to re-arrange all the lighting as they were all unplugged and not in the right position. 

How did we get past these problems:

• We re-arranged the white backdrop so that Lewis was able to stand on it without the camera picking up the top of the backdrop. 
• We ran through a couple of practice shots so that Lewis and Amber could get the mouth covering part right as I wanted it to look good and professional. Doing the practice shots worked because they eventually got it right in the end which I am happy with. 
• We also did a couple of practices on the lip-syncing so Lewis knew when he had to begin. We did this by playing the song over and over so he could count the beats before he came in. I found this worked well and he got it right in the end. 
• There was nothing we could do about re-arranging the lighting but I did get all the shots I needed in the time I had so I am not too bothered about the loss of time. 

Day 4 of shooting (5/12/14)

Today, I planned on filming the remaining shots of Amber and Lewis together as these were the most difficult parts and required more time for them to get it perfect. As I wrote previously in my other posts, I had an issue with the footage I took on Monday (1/12/14), therefore this led to me having to re-schedule these as they didn't turn out how I wanted them. I told my artist and actress of the problem and they agreed to do these shots as well as the others that needed doing.

When I finally got them done, I moved onto the shoots I was originally planning to do and they actually learnt the part quite well and understood what I wanted them to do. It took a few tries but we got there in the end which I am happy with as I thought they were going to be the hardest parts to film. The shots I got done were: 52, 53, 54, 55, 60, 61, 62 and 63.

Due to the previous shots going wrong on 1/12/14, I checked the footage straight away so that I could reassure myself, my artist and my actress that the shots were good to use. I checked and they were all fine which is good so I will not need to re-shoot these as far as I am concerned.

Re-shooting schedule

I have come to the decision of re-shooting the footage in the studio of Lewis and Amber as they did not work. I already had the green room booked for lunch time so this will be easy to organise. I have decided I am going to re-shoot the following shots: 11,12,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,50,51 and 56.

*UPDATED 5/12/14, AFTER RE-SHOOTING*

So, I re-shot the scenes I needed to and they have come out much better than the previous which I am happy with. The reason they came out good this time was because I focused it myself so that I knew it would work because the auto focus did not work in the previous shots. I am happy with all these shots but there is one shot which for some reason didn't focus properly but I feel this could have been because prior to recording, my artist kept moving so the focusing I did probably didn't work because he moved position. Also, he smirks a little bit near the end which I don't really like as you can tell he is laughing at something happening in the room, making it look unprofessional.

As it is out of focus, I will have to re-shoot it but this won't be a problem as it is only one shot and I need to shoot some of Amber another day anyway so this will work out how I want it to.

Problems when filming, day 3. (4/12/14)

On day 3 of filming (4/12/14), we encountered some minor problems, these were:

• Lewis felt uncomfortable lip-syncing at first
• We got interrupted by someone coming in at one point
• Getting the right framing for close ups, extreme close ups etc.
• As Lewis is quite tall it was difficult to get him on the white sheet background without seeing the top.

How did we get past these problems:

• When Lewis felt uncomfortable lip-syncing we went through the lyrics to make sure he knew what he was saying and also he asked if I didn't watch him directly when I did it as it put him off acting professionally. 
• The framing was difficult to do because Lewis is quite tall so it was hard to use the tripod to reach his height for the close ups and extreme close ups so I made the decision to use handheld camera as this was easier to do as it allowed me to be more flexible with my framing. 
• With Lewis being tall, we had to adjust the white background roll so it was the highest it could be so that the top wasn't visible in the shot.

Overall, despite these problems, we overcame them and the shots I took were successful and are usable for when I start editing. I am happy with these, but just to be sure, I am going to ask my teachers advice to see if they are suitable to use because obviously I may not notice a fault and they might do or they may also have a suggestion on doing something differently. 

Day 3 of filming. (4/12/14)

Today I booked the green room for 3:00 till 4:00 so that I could get the remaining shots of Lewis on his own in the studio. These parts where very important parts of the video so I wanted to get them done as soon as I could as this involves the performance (lip-syncing).

At first, my artist (Lewis) felt a little bit awkward about having to sing the song because I told him it would look a lot more realistic if he actually sang the parts, but after awhile he got used to it put a lot of effort into it which I am thankful for. He did say it was quite difficult to make it look like he is lip syncing as the artist in the existing song puts emphasis on a lot of the words which Lewis found difficult to do himself. We practiced doing some of the lyrics a few times before he got the hang of it and knew what he was doing, this did take up a bit of time which we could have spent filming but doing this has made it better in the long run as it will look more realistic.

I feel as though the shots I took were successful, even if we had to re-shoot a few times, but overall the results are good and they are a good set of shots which I can work with while editing my video. There are a few shots which I didn't take today as I needed Amber for part of it so I decided to leave it until we were all together, making it easier.

Re-shooting (from 29/11/14 and 1/12/14)

Today I looked at all the footage I took from my past shoots and I have realised a problem with footage. On my camera, the shots I have taken look good but when you look at them on a editing suite, they are very grainy due to the lack of light. As I wanted dark lighting to reflect the mood of the song, I put the lights on a dark setting and didn't realise that it would affect the overall video.

I got them up on the computer and I couldn't understand what was wrong with them so I asked Tim, my teacher, and he said it was due to the focus on the camera because it has auto focused on the lightest part, therefore making the footage grainy which I do not want.

Here are some examples of what it looks like:






Also, on 29/11/14, when I filmed at the Country Park for some of the shots of Lewis running, the camera did the same and auto focused on the lightest part of the video. This happened because I filmed inside of the tunnel so it was quite dark and there was light coming from the other end, therefore making the footage grainy.

This is what happened:



Due to these problems, I have discussed with my teacher what is best to do. For the first shoot, he thought that I could possibly get away with using them if I put a filter on them or he said depending on how long the shots actually last in the video, the grain may go unnoticed. I have took his advice and I am going to see what they look like with a filter and if these aren't successful I have decided I am going to re-shoot on 5/12/14 at lunch as I do not want to risk having them such bad quality. Also, with the second set of shots, I have decided fully to re-shoot as the light is too distracting and it doesn't look good due to it being unfocused because of the light.

Software for editing my video.

Yesterday (1/12/14), I went to see Ben in the media department to set me up on the editing suites. The editing suites I am going to use have the software Adobe Premiere Pro and I have chosen to use this rather than the Mac's because I have access to Premiere Pro on my laptop, therefore allowing me to edit when I am not at college but also if all the editing suites are taken I can bring my own laptop in and edit on that.

I have never used Premiere Pro before so I asked Ben if he could show me through it quickly so that I can understand what I am doing. Initially, he asked what kind of camera I filmed on and as I filmed on a Digital SLR he thought there may be some problem with the footage so we checked the footage and found it actually worked better than he thought. He then got me to set up my own folder on the V drive so that my work does not get lost amongst other students works.

 He then told me to put my SD card with my footage into the computer so that I could import this footage across to the drive, so it is then stored on the computer in case I lose my card or memory stick.

I then created a new project in Premiere Pro so that I could put my work into this project so they were all in the same place. After importing all my files into the project, I was able to start editing but obviously as I hadn't used this before I needed to know some general skills to start editing so I asked Ben to briefly show me.

He showed me how to cut my shoots down so that they fit in with the timing of the music and also if I made any faults in filming I could cut these parts out. When I shot my scenes, I left a few seconds before and a few seconds after so this allowed me to cut it down if I wanted so it doesn't go straight into the shot that I want. Also, as some edits overlap, having this few seconds before and after helps so that it doesn't cut off any important parts in the shot.The areas highlighted in green show the tools I used to mark the part where I want my shot to start and the part where I want it to end. I highlighted the section in red to show the part I cut down to make as the shot I wanted to use.

He also showed me how to drag the music and video into the section for final productions to see if it worked out.

Ben also showed me how to import my music so I could add it while I was editing, therefore this allowed me to edit to the beat of the music as it is shown on my storyboard.

Updated Shooting Schedule

These are the shot numbers that I have filmed so far. I will update in a later post on the rest of my filming. 

Location: Studio (filming 1/12/14, 4/12/14, 5/12/14, completed)
-Shots filmed there: 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 41, 42, 46, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 60, 61, 62, 63, 73, 74, 
-Who did I take? Actor/Artist, Actress and Crew
-Props taken:

• Camera
• Tripod
• Lighting (soft box, flash gel etc)
• White paper/sheet for background
• Clothing (black t-shirt and light jeans for artist/black t-shirt and leggings)

Location: Humber Bridge (filming 29/11/14, completed)
-Shots filmed there: 75, 76, 77, 83
-Who did I take? Actor and Crew
-Props taken:

• Camera
• Tripod
• Clothing (white t-shirt, black jeans, Superdry jumper, Nike Janoskis)

Problems when filming, day 2. (1/12/14)

During this shoot, we encountered some problems which I had to work out so I could shoot my scenes successfully. These were:

• Lewis and Amber are different heights so Lewis' head was not fitting in the frame and kept being cut off so the framing didn't look that good. 
• The tripod was not level, I did not realise this until after shooting the scenes. 
• It was awkward at first because Amber was obviously not used to it so she was quite embarrassed but she composed herself and was able to perform to the standards I wanted.
• The light stopped working and we couldn't understand why.

How we overcame these problems:

• With Lewis being taller than Amber, I had to experiment with the different framing so that it fit with what I needed, this took a bit of time which we could have spent filming but it did get me the shots I needed.
• I was annoyed that I didn't realise the tripod was not straight and I thought my shots would be ruined but when I looked through them they looked ok and are usable. 
• I got my helpers in the room to turn around when Amber was on camera so she wasn't distracted by them, which would cause her to start laughing, this proved successful and I got the shots I needed. 
• When the light stopped working I thought someone may have knocked the plug but when I looked it was perfectly fine, so I switched off all the electricity so there was no risk of being electrocuted and the reason for the light going off was because something was resting on the wire, therefore cutting off the power. I moved this and then turned all the plugs back on and it was working fine. This wasted some time but I am happy I found the problem.

*Updated 4/12/14*

When I looked through all of my clips for this shoot, the quality of the shots were bad and it was all grainy. I could not understand why they were like this as they looked good on the camera and it was all focused. I was annoyed about this so I spoke to my teacher, Tim, and he said this is due to the lack of lighting. As the lighting I want is very subtle, the camera has auto focused on the lightest part of the video which is the white background, therefore making the footage grainy. Also, some of the shots I took were out of focus, which I do not understand as I focused them before filming. Due to this I have decided to see if I can adjust the problem on Premiere Pro and if not, I have decided I am going to re-shoot them completely tomorrow (5/12/14) as I have booked the green room for some other shots and depending on if I have enough time, I may be able to complete filming the shots of them together in the studio, therefore using my time wisely and getting more done than I planned. Today I am shooting the shots of Lewis in the studio on his own so hopefully I will have all the finished studio footage I need and will be able to schedule when I am filming the rest of the shots at Country Park. 

Day 2 of filming. (1/12/14)

Today, I booked out the green room at college for 12:30 until 1:30 as I needed to shoot some of the shots of Lewis and Amber together. They both appear in shots which are taken in the studio and also not in the studio so I decided to shoot the scenes in the studio first as this was easy to do because it was at lunch time so I could get my actress and actor/artist together without any inconveniences.

As I had a lesson with my artist prior to shooting at dinner time, I was able to communicate with him verbally to tell him where we were going at lunch. I did let my artist and actress know before booking the green room to make sure it was ok for them but I wanted to make sure they remembered by letting them know in the morning that we were going to Oak 39 (green room) for shooting at lunch. I allowed them both to eat before filming as otherwise they wouldn't get time to eat so while I was setting up they ate in a classroom. 

I then got them all into the green room when it was all set up and got the following shoots done: 11,12,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,50,51 and 56. These are not all the shots which are taken in the studio but I think this shoot was successful and got what I needed so far. As I didn't get all the shots I am going to book the green room again for Friday lunch time so that I can get the remaining shots of Lewis and Amber together. 

Shooting Organisation (for 1/12/14)

Today I have booked the green room at college so that I can shoot the following scenes: 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 41, 42, 46, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 60, 61, 62, 63, 73 and 74.

As I have limited time with my actress (Amber), I am going to prioritize the shots of her on her own and with Lewis so that I can get these done as soon as possible. I have more free time with Lewis so I am going to book more time in the green room and shoot the scenes I need during the week of him on his own. The reason I have done this is because Amber doesn't have any free periods when Lewis does so we are having to do it over lunch so that I can get these completed. I have booked the room from 12:30-1:30 so I am hoping that I will get all these scenes done by the end of lunch so that I do not need to book it again as Amber has very demanding subjects and I do not want her to lose focus of the work she has to do.

I have asked my artist to wear a black t-shirt for these scenes and my actress to wear a black t-shirt also. The reason I have asked them both to wear these is because I wanted them to stand out on the white background and also them wearing the same colours represents that they are both equal.

Props needed: lighting, white background, clothing (for artist and actress), camera and tripod.

Music Charts (from 30/11/14)

As I have started filming for my music video, I thought it would be a good idea to look at the music that is currently in the charts because realistically, this is who my artist would be competing against. I have looked at The Top 40 Singles Chart UK.