Because we had many more lighting options on the day then we had previously anticipated, we took time to try out new styles. After applying many different settings we felt the slow flickering strobe teamed with dimmed house lights set the mood correctly. For the scene where the space craft experiences turbulence, we sped up the strobe and used dry ice for dramatic effect.
We positioned the camera at about one and a half meters away from the spacecraft set initially and found that the distance was too small to give the effect of a spacious set. So, to correct this we moved the camera another three quarters of a meter away and checked on the monitor that this was at a good distance. The position in relation to the set was altered only slightly once the boys started rapping to ensure all three of the rappers were in focus and could be seen.
The pre-shot preparation of giving the actors costumes make up, giving the three rappers a couple of times to warm up and be given ideas of what to do started at 9:00 AM. Luckily through taking measurements and buying costumes accordingly, the outfits fitted the cast and props of hats and gold chain were available to them. Everyone was dressed and prepped so we started the practise, sadly after the second time one of the rappers who was previously very ill sad he could not continue with the shoot. Alex therefore had to step in and perform he song with the two other rappers, we could not ask anyone else as they would not know the lines and teaching them would take time we felt we did not have at the time. After a quick costume change and a bit of hair gel, Alex was ready to continue the practises. We then felt that it was time to start filming so we arranged the camera at a mid shot distance, directly in the middle of the set. The aim of the first couple of shots was to give the rappers the confidence to come to a very close vicinity of the camera and say the words with expression and their own interpretations.
The confidence of the three rappers reached its peak after a few practises and so they were more comfortable trying out new things like playing tug of war etc. Also, because the studio was not very crowded, unlike some of the other music videos, this made the boys relax even more so which was really important to give a confident vibe to the audience.
When filming the video we adopted the professional lingo of words like “turning over” and “roll camera”. This gave the set a much more professional film and showed me how an actual music video would have been filmed and the language I would have to understand. Other aspects that made the shoot feel professional that we adopted were running to a schedule. In the real music industry, the shoot day would have to run very rigidly and there would be no time allowed for discussing which shot came next and so on.
I felt having Alex in the video at this point was a great asset to the performers as he knew what we wanted them to do and lead the way to getting there. With the initial mid shots done after three takes, the performers were instructed to do a sort of free style take including completely improvised and spontaneous movements. For example, they did the canoe, robot and tug of war all adding to one of the main ideas of joking around in the video. I feel because we included so much of these quirky and individual shots into the whole rough cut it has made promoting the band in a light hearted way.
For the majority of the morning we experimented with new shots of the rappers, for the scene where it looks as if the spaceship is breaking we used a smoke machine tilted the with one side of the ship to the other, in the frame was on of the rapper in the for ground and two in the background running from side to side in complete devastation and worry.
After the lunch break, we came back and started to film the narrative strand, all of this was done in the blue screen with exception to the doors opening and closing with the alien either leaving or entering. The door scene was very hard to get right in the way that the two people pulling the door did not know how fast to go and when to open and shut it. After a few takes with excessive smoke and green flashing lights, we had to dismantle the set and make room in front of the blue screen to film the scene. We needed to gather shots of the alien running away whilst looking backwards, walking around looking very shocked and spinning around very slowly on the chair.Using a blue screen was really exciting for me and Alex as we both hadn’t used one before. The blue screen was simply wheeled along like a curtain and a stage was set up directly in front of it. The camera at this point also had to be readjusted to the new set. We used a variety of shots like extreme close ups, mid shots and close ups to suite the varying backgrounds. The lighting was also altered at this point as the alien was not actually in the spacecraft in the video. The ideas we had of him walking down the street and being in pictures with famous people made us alter the lighting to make it much brighter for the picture shots and not flickering but dim for the walking shots.
The day finished at around 4:30 PM and we were very happy with how the day went, all considered it could have been a disaster with one of the main people dropping out.
Editing
Alex and I have now started the process of editing the rough cut into an actual music video. For our group in some ways this is very easy and other are very difficult. The best thing about the song we choose is that the beat is very defined and easy to spot, therefore giving us more ease when cutting two clips together. However, another area of editing we have not yet started is editing in backgrounds fro the blue screen surrounding our alien, as both neither me or Alex have used a blue screen before, making it very difficult and perhaps more timely to edit this in. Our deadline, the end of the winter term I am confident will be kept to ad hopefully will give us time to truly polish the editing of our music video.
