We arrived at the German Underground Hospital half an hour prior to the time we arranged, due to buses and making sure both the lead singer and all members of our production group were there. During this time we had we waited outside the entrance and took a few test shots as well as looking round for other potential shots. Whilst I was looking round I saw a long legged spider moving around in a plant and took this opportunity to use my macro 105mm sigma lens to film the spider.

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The time we arrived before also gave us a chance to retrieve and gather the different props we had brought to the shoot including getting and setting up the two DSLR cameras, two tripods,  three torches and the shoulder steadicam. Once the owner of the German Underground Hospital arrived he unlocked the doors and brought us through to the reception room. Once in reception he talked us through different safety precautions and what areas we were and weren’t able to go in. We were not able to go through the rooms containing the old beds and there were certain rooms that were locked and even the owner was not able to get through to without taking things apart. This did not affect our options too much and we were still very happy with the location choice and the permission from the owners.

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Once we were all on the inside of the old hospital we realised how cold it was and we were all very grateful we’d brought jackets and coats with us. The tunnels all looked very similar and there were so many of them leading different ways that we all naturally took a camera and split up looking for different interesting shots, coming across a puddle with water dripping into it I started filming both the water dripping from the top and the water as it splashed into the puddle. We then brought out the narrative shot list and began on the shots we had previously decided to take and started using our lead singer from shots of him just walking down the tunnels to him mouthing the words. We had previously downloaded the song to our phone so that we could play it, making the lead singer feel a bit more comfortable as well as helping him out with the pace of the original download.

In the two hours we had we managed to shoot most of the shots we had planned to get on our shot list as well as a few extras such as an old interesting looking ladder and a wall with what looked like mold dripping down which we felt worked with our genre. Every potentially interesting shot we could get we made sure to attempt to shoot, because we knew this would be our only chance at this location and having more shots was better than having too few.

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Overall the narrative shoot went really well and we achieved a range of shots that we can use in our music video. Things that we would do differently if we had the chance and to remember for another production day include:

  • more takes of each shot to increase the chance of being able to achieve a better final shot
  • Finding out more about what we are or aren’t allowed to do and which rooms we were allowed in
  • Bringing more sources of lighting for areas that did not have lighting. (although we brought a few torches some areas were still very dark)