account of shoot day

The day before the shoot I checked over using the props list I made that I had all the props I said I would bring and anything extra that I could find that I thought would fit with the video. I packed all these items away in my car ready to leave first thing in the morning so I didn’t have to worry that I had forgotten to put anything in, and so I could be in school promptly before 8 o’clock.

In the morning I did feel excited for it to finally be the day when it all comes to life and felt very real. A lot of that excitement was clouded by worry and stress, but I know I get worked up easily so I tried to stay as calm as I could.

We weren’t quite as prepared first thing as I hoped we would have been. As we were filming on a Monday we had the Friday before to set up, but school finishes at 4.s0 on a Friday and the group filming that day were scheduled to finish at 3 so that didn’t give us much time. On the day the group ended up running over so we helped them clean up as they were very tired and we wanted to get setting up as quick as possible.

this is me and Layla carrying the sunlounger and chairs for the table set down from the drama department.

While we were waiting we went to the drama department to check they had delivered all the props they said they would. all the props they said they would. With help from the set guys we put up all the walls for the whole set, so that’s the three sides to the photo shoot on the left, the three sides to the make up room in the middle, and the large window wall for the café/ bar which we put a long bar in which we had built for us. Sarah and Mina had painted the blue panels for our beach scene, and they had begun painting the yellow sun but it wasn’t coming out quite right but they had to leave it to dry. 

here's Sarah and mina in their painting aprons

Because of school finishing early on Friday Layla and Mina had to leave but Sarah and I stayed on for a bit to bring through all our props and do a bit more setting up.

Over the weekend the set guys did some painting for us so that all our walls were white but that had to dry for a while. So when I arrived at 7.45 I began making the sets. The café was easy as we had the checkered floor, bar and big window, then we added curtains to cover the window which had marks on it, the curtains weren’t ideal but they were all we had and so would do.

For the make up room we had already tried out Sarah’s table, stool and mirror and really liked how that fit in so we put that in and covered the desk with jewelry and make up that everyone had brought. We put the clothes rail in which we borrowed from the drama department and hung different fur jackets and dresses on coat hangers that I brought. We also covered the floor with a fur throw of Sarah’s. I really liked this room, how it all tied together and was so girly. For the first photo shoot I went and got some double sided tape to stick the fake flowers on the wall, because of the issues with the balloons we just put a load on the floor, with them we covered the floor with fake petals, as a finishing touch we stapled onto the wall some fairy lights in the shape of hearts to complete the set. I think this was my favorite set, even though I’m not massively girly I loved the set as a whole. For finishing touches we hung a few things on above the bar on the walls and in the dressing room to make it look more realistic. Once the sets were finally set up we had our cast, Plum (make up artist) did Emma’s make up while we were doing the finishing touches so she was ready when we were. The last thing we did was set up the cameras and lighting, we kept the lighting the same the whole way through and we marked out where we put the cameras so that we could keep them in the same positions.

We were all really happy with how the three sets looked, for me they defiantly looked similar to how I had been imagining. In front of the sets we had the lighting for the sets, we showed these in some of our shots because we want it to look like a shoot they went well with the look. There were a few minor details that weren’t quite what we wanted (the curtains in the café/bar were just plain material so weren’t that realistic but we weren’t going to focus on them, we had hoped for a black table and chairs but got fake wooden which didn’t look too bad and again we never really focus on it in the shots, we had wanted the balloons to be heliumed up but I have already explained the issue with that), but overall I think we created a set that really was our concept.

For the different roles we tried to move around so that we each got a chance to run all the different areas. I don’t think it was quite evenly spread out but every did get to do all the different roles and I think everyone learned from doing this. I learned how to use the sound system, I did the playback role quite a bit, off all the jobs this was probably the easiest, all I had to do was make sure we were on the right track then press play of pause when we were rolling. A job I quite enjoyed was working the lights. For the silhouette scene instead of using a real flash I turned on and off the lights, we did this because we needed it to be a slow flash to properly show each of Emma’s poses. For the shot I had to fade down a light when it started then press a button to turn on a light from the other side which showed her silhouette, she did four different poses and it looked amazing.

I did a lot of back stage filming which we will edit together to make a behind the scenes making of our music video. I think this is a really good thing to do as it just shows a bit more of what was going on, a lot of musicians do this now as a way to reach their fans more as people love to see what their idols are normally like. I did do some camera man work which I did really like and it refreshed my memory of what I did last year so I wasn’t worried about not knowing anything. Layla did most of the directing as she was the best at clearly tell everyone what was going on but she did switch around, Mina also took some good high quality photos of Emma and the sets, she was in charge of taking continuity photos. Everyone worked really hard with what every role they were doing…

It’s always hard to point out what you did well yourself, but I do feel I put a lot of effort into the preparation and work on the day. I brought in the most amount of props as I live closest and had a lot of stuff it was easiest for me to. I tried my best to be really involved the whole time with what was going on but did my best not to get in anyone’s way. I switched around the roles a lot so that everyone got to do everything. Along with working hard I enjoyed the day.

 I don’t think we had any major problems on the day. I think our first main issue was starting so late. I think by the time we took our first shot we were just over an hour late in starting, this did worry me but because we had gone over the production schedule and done the shot lists all in such detail we all knew what we were doing and what we needed to do we just had to make sure we stayed organized and didn’t get any more behind. Everyone worked really hard and we actually managed to catch up on time and finished at 6 which was brilliant. At a few points we had too many people talking or trying to organize at one time which could have become chaotic but we managed to keep it mostly under control. We had a small issue with the yellow from the sun not drying right but Sarah managed to fix this by painting it onto some white car then stapling it onto the blue background. We did have an issue when beginning to film the silhouette scene because although we had thought about this scene a lot we realized we weren’t exactly certain how to go about it, we knew what we wanted but we had to translate that onto the camera. After some fiddling we found an easy way to do it but it would have been better if we had known exactly like we had with the other shots.

My favorite part of the shoot by far was defiantly the extra wide shot that fit in all three sets. When we had talked about this I wasn’t sure if it was going to work with so much going on and it being so wide but the school got in and extra wide lens which was amazing! It looked even better on camera than it did in real life. It looked so good with the transitions; originally we were going to use tracking shots for these but when we started filming it worked better just to have all still shots so we stuck with that. The mise en scene for the sets was also a main part I felt we did successfully.

Maybe a part we could have done was the tracking shots as I do feel they could have looked great but we were pushed for time and because we didn’t do them from the start it would have been strange just picking them up at the end. But I think all the extra shots we got in will make up for those tracking shots we missed.

In the morning we only had Emma, Jack and Plum so it wasn’t that hard to try keep them happy. Unfortunately Jack did have to wait around while we were sorting things out and Plum was getting Emma ready, so when I could I tried to talk to him and make sure he was happy which he did seem to be.  Looking after them in the morning was good and they were all so good and listened to what we wanted and didn’t mess around at all. In the afternoon it was a lot hard with all the boys there as well, but again they were all really well behaved and worked hard. We made sure that every now and then someone went and got drinks for anyone that wanted one, or if we didn’t need some one for a short period of time they could go to the cafeteria for a drink. We weren’t really tough on anyone as we wanted them to have fun as that was a huge part of the video and they all seemed to be having a good time with it. I sent them all a text in the evening thanking everyone for their hard work and for being so good.

Although I was very stressed I did really enjoy the whole day, I think my favorite parts just were the two photo shoots. I was worried they wouldn’t look as good as we had been hoping but they looked better than I thought and was so happy with them. All though it was very full on the atmosphere with the group stayed positive and I think we all worked well together.

We got some very good shots I can’t wait to see edited into the video, one in particular. Very fortunately my dad has a passion for cameras and after begging for a while he allowed me to bring in his haslblack (a rather professional all school camera that you have to wide up) using a stick to hold it still we had the camera above looking down through the box seeing Emma the other side and it looked amazing so I cant wait to see how they look.

I defiantly learnt a lot as whole about the day, it did feel a lot different of course to the thriller I filmed but the same organization and preparation applies. The key to it being successful after having a good solid idea is control, keeping the sets under control, organizing, arranging and informing the actors well and making sure the group stays organized. And I know we aren’t professionals so we weren’t perfect all the time but I felt we did our best.

Because our concept is fair simple, very girly and attractive, so appeals to young girls easily our other products will be easy to stick with the theme so I don’t think there any huge things we need to do for them, we just need to fit in doing a photo shoot to get some studio shots of Emma. With all the stuff we have for it with our ideas I think we will be able to make a good website if we work hard enough on it.