With the footage that we had filmed so far at Candie Gardens, the bonfire night shoot and our studio performance shoot we put together draft 1. Our draft 1 is short as we hadn’t filmed enough footage and only included the better quality shots.

Click below to view our draft 1:

After uploading our narrative rough cut to YouTube, I got feedback on what we could improve, what their likes and dislikes are and any other comments so that when it came to putting together draft 1, we knew what to improve on and what to keep the same or do more of.

Click below to view my narrative rough cut feedback:

From this I learnt that the variety of locations are good, they make the narrative more interesting. It also shows what she has lost from all these different times that they spent together, it shows them at different times of the day and also evening which suggests that they spent a lot of time together, day and night. The mise-en-scene was also good. During our editing, the slow motion shots worked well and looked cool as well as the sunset and tracking shots. The editing to the beat was effective and looked professional.

Our targets we set ourselves were to adjust a few of the shots to make them a bit shorter and put in the performance to separate some of the continuous shots where it starts to get a bit boring but also to make sure we use all of the locations in which we filmed at because our audience seem to like them and that it is effective to the music video and reflects our genre of music.

We created a rough cut for just our narrative footage from all of the different locations in which we had filmed at. Using premier pro we edited together the different clips to make our rough cut.

From the location Candie Gardens, we created a montage of our two performers on the bench together, click to view the screenshots of these below. However, we edited in more footage from other narratives to show the different times in which they spent together and in order to give our music video a better and more interesting narrative, which told the story better.

After editing our footage all together and making sure that the narrative made sense and less confusing, we exported it and uploaded it to YouTube.

Click below to view our narrative rough cut:

For our first mini narrative, we chose to shoot it at Candie Gardens. The location is surrounded by trees, falling leaves, paths, benches and flowers. It’s a pretty place and is calm and relaxing. Therefore this was a good place to film as the genre of music, Indie Folk, which our music video is, includes settings that are not crowded and are often calm, the perfect place.

The story line for this mini narrative is our performers are walking through the park, happily on a autumn’s day. They’re relaxing on the bench in each others company and then the girl, Ellie, is left on her own, not knowing what happened to Jordan, the guy.

Using our shot list and storyboard, we filmed this through a variety of different shots. On filming day, we arrived before our performers so that we could shoot our establishing shots that we didn’t need them for to not waste their time and so that we could jump right into it when they arrived. This also gave us time to set up the camera equipment and decide which part of the park we were going to shoot at and where our performers were going to walk and sit down at.

When they arrived, we filmed the shots we needed using our storyboard and shot list. However, we didn’t stick to these. As we were there, we had new ideas and wanted to try these. We included tracking shots of them walking up some stairs as well as just down a path way and these tracking shots from the front of them and behind them. Having too many shots meant that we can fit them in whilst editing and see which one looks best but by doing this reduces our chances of having to go back and re-shoot anything. If we did have to re-shoot this could cause problems such as not all of the mise-en-scene being the same.

We also recorded shots more than once, even if we thought they looked good and went well. Just in case. This meant that when we come to editing we have more footage to play around with and choose from, picking out what fits best.

During filming we found problems such as using the steadi-cam for our tracking shots. We found the shots weren’t as steady as we would of wanted and it was difficult to walk backwards whilst filming this as we were tracking from both in front of them and behind them. Instead of stopping and restarting the camera everything we slipped up, we recorded a few shots of the tracking but longer shots so that when we edit them we can cut them down and pick out the bits that were better than others. Other problems were our pans were jumpy and too long, again they will be cut down. We tried to use rule of thirds and position Ellie in more interesting and different proxemics.

Having our planning documents on hand were extremely useful. To know exactly what we needed to film sped up the process massively. We were only out filming for around an hour in the end. If we didn’t have these we would of be discussing what we should do and having to plan on the spot which could of been a problem because we’re more likely to miss out shots. So, having these planning documents meant that we got to shoot everything we knew we needed and more!

Because of the dull weather, I made sure to take a big winter coat and a scarf to keep warm and an umbrella because we were adement to get the filming done, luckily I didn’t need it but not even the weather would have put us off!

 

Overall, our filming afternoon was fun and fast! Because we put the time into planning and making sure everyone knew what they were doing and what they needed, this made the afternoon run smoothly and made filming a lot less stressful. The next time we go out filming one of our mini narratives I will make sure to focus of the filming technique and making sure the shots are up to a good quality and there are a variety. What I would of done differently is taken more photos of us using our planning documents for evidence and make sure that everyone arrives on time.

We uploaded the footage to the computer after filming and we’re happy with the outcome of our shots however, there’s some room for improvement. Some of the shots look glitchy however its just because they weren’t as smooth as they could of been. Also in our bench montage we wanted just them to be moving in the shot as it cuts from each different position. However, the camera moves slightly after each shot, this makes it really obviously when we cut.

After we created our rough cut and uploaded it to YouTube, I recorded feedback from another media student to find out what they liked and disliked and from here go onto what we need to improve on and any other ideas when it came to making our draft 1.

Click below to view my performance rough cut feedback:

I learnt from this that the use of close-up’s worked well. They showed our performers emotion which is what we wanted, we want an emotional response from our audience. Our use of locations are good and reflect the genre. Our mise-en-scene is good. The use of make-up is subtle but appropriate.

However, some of our shots are a little too long. They drag on a bit and could be cut down to make it shorter, this is something we can easily improve on and adjust. Also there is a particular shot where our performer smiles which ruins the mood and we should cut out. Some shaky shots could be re filmed for more smooth footage. We could also consider using a wider range of shots for example mid shots and long shots instead of only close ups, even though they reflect the performers emotion.

From the feedback, our targets are to make sure that we replace the shaky shots with better footage if we can instead of re filming and shorten some shots down, possibly filling in with narrative. Also to do another performance shoot however in long shot or a mid shot so that we have a range and can cut between the two different performances.

After filming our performance, we edited the footage that we had together in premier pro using both shoots in the studio and at Fort Richmond and then put up our rough cut to YouTube in order to collect feedback on what we did well and what we could improve.

Here is the link to our performance rough cut. We had to make sure that the lip syncing was correct and to the exact seconds where it was matched up. This was difficult but eventually worked. We had some struggles with the lyrics and our performer wasn’t 100% sure on the words so we read them out to her as the next line was coming up however our lyrics were quite repetitive so it was easy to pick up.

For our performance we chose 4 different locations for Ellie to perform at. They were, For Richmond where the location was enclosed and there was a lot of walls around to reflect on the lyrics ‘Damn these walls’ and we use them as a prop to emphasis on the lyrics. We also did filming a close up shot of Ellie with the sky and sea in the background and also a studio performance in both long shot and close up. We used the a black studio and this was good because it contrasted the white dress and made her outline stand out better, drawing attention to her. For our last shoot we then had her amongst long grass in the wing in the white flowy dress.

When it came to filming our performer didn’t know all of the lyrics. So we had someone to read out the next upcoming line and any others that she didn’t know. Also, if things went wrong then we just refilmed that section because we knew that when it came to editing we could edit it out or crop it.

 

We didn’t film our performance over one day instead we filmed it over time as we edited we decided what extra footage we needed. This wasted a lot of our time that we could of used better however in the end we gathered extra footage that we needed to make the performance make sense. Because our narrative was in many different locations we decided to include a variety of locations for the performance too.

 

We shot our performer in close-up and long shot which the camera positioned at different angles. We used close up so that the audience would feel the emotional response that we were wanting to get across and capturing her reaction and serious facial expressions. We used the long shots in the studio which emphasized her costume, the white flowy dress which connotes her purity. Having this fully in shot showed her body language and gave a better feel to the music video.