Progression of the video

Editing Process

On the Monday, after our initial shoot, we started to edit from the material that we had. It consisted of the light corridor and the complex DJ set. Surprisingly, we were able to make a performance cut and it turned out to be fairly successful, also it meant that when we did shoot the rest of our music video, that it would be a lot simpler to insert bits in.

Monday the 21st of November, we shot the last two sets in order to complete the music video. We shot the dancing set and the lip sync of our lead singer in still shots, rather than the handheld that we had in our previous shoot. We had intentionally decided to shoot the artist on a dolly and a tripod in order for the beginning of our music video to have some calm and bright elements to it.

Throughout the week we were given two hours of lesson time to edit and some separately and some in two's went up to edit with the footage that we got on the Monday. In the beginning, Ben took lead and named all of the rushes to the shots and sets, which made it a lot simpler for us then to work with. The way that we edited was by trying to link up a couple of bright lip sync shots to make the beginning more still and then gradually go into the songs pace. At first, Ben had already edited around 15 seconds of the beginning and had shown us. There were a couple of shots that we said that needed to go because they didn't work and the actual cutting time was too quick for me. So, I asked ben to possibly have the first shot for half of the first sentence and it worked perfectly. Of course, there is a possibility that we might not keep it that way, but we had all agreed to keep it that way for now. 

In our song you can hear these sudden glitch-like sound and before we had even shot our music video,  Eloise had the idea using a quick editing technique to have the glitch-like sound match the glitch on the screen. When we had tried this out, it ended up looking better than we could have even imagined and ended up using it in a couple of sections throughout the song. 

Below is our performance cut :

2nd Shoot Day

Monday the 21st of November was our second shoot day, we had planned to film two more sets and we had around four hours to do so. The Friday before, we had a production group meeting, discussing to make sure that we have all of the costumes and that the cast is aware of the shoot on Monday.

In the morning our key goal was to set up the first set and to make sure that the dancers are ready for their performance. Whilst the set was being shuffled around, I was curling one of the Dancers hair and doing her make up. We had a last minute decision of putting the pixel lines as a box in front of the camera, this would create an awesome visual effect and could look good when we film on the dolly. When the dancers were ready, we were all ready to start. During the shoot, I was the floor manager and was playback. However, I also had to make sure that the dancers hair was in shape, as we had to have at least 10 takes of them. Occasionally, the female dancer and I would run back and I would fix up her hair.

Shortly after, we were onto shooting our main Artists Lip Sync. Overall, the day was very productive, as we had learnt from our previous mistakes of taking too much time during takes. Also, at one point we had thought that the power had gone off but it wasn't, it was just a glitch or something.


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Time Lapse of Shoot Day

Shoot Day - 05.11.16

Arriving to school we had a little surprise in the morning, it occurred that in the day of our shoot there was a power cut till around 9.30 am - whereas we were supposed to start filming by 10 am. As soon as we found this out we had a group meeting with our teacher, we came to conclusions that we should just keep on going as planned (set up) just in case the power suddenly goes back on.

In the meantime, our cast was having hair and make up done and the group and I were waiting till the lights go back on so that we can set up in the studio. We couldn't enter without the power being back on because it was pitch black and was too much of a safety hazard. When the lights were back on we were able to set up the DJ decks onto the platform and cut out and stick the matte paper to stick in front of it. The blinders were set up from the previous day, we found we made the right decision of trying to set up as much as we could the night before the shoot. We were a bit worried that with the DJ set it could get a bit boring, but our video in general relies a lot on lighting, so when we had the set with all of the different lights like strobe, pixel line under the DJ booth and other.. it created exactly the look that we were going for.

A couple of days before the shoot day we divided our roles, my first role was keeping track of the shots that we took and making sure that our cast was happy and not dehydrated. Throughout the shoot day I was also the Art Director, making sure that what we had on camera was exactly what we wanted. During the afternoon I swapped roles with Haydon and was in charge of playback. Eloise was the Director throughout the whole day, as we thought that she would be best at making sure that we were on track and got the footage that we needed. Ben was the camera man and everyone helped get the right mood for the actors to feel more comfortable on set, we all did this by dancing with them and shouting over the music for them to hear what we actually wanted from them. For example, when we shot Genny we were telling her throughout the song whether she should move back or forward.


Throughout the day I thought that I was best at making sure that the cast was ready and in place when we needed them, I also always helped when we had small jobs like sweeping the floor or making sure that the Perspex was clean. I kept a list of the types of shots that we did and how many shots that we took in each set.
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Unfortunately, at 15.30 pm the power kept shutting down on and off around ten times in the space of thirty minutes. This was very frustrating because we had just set up our set for the dancers scene, and George our light director kept on starting to program the lights into the system but it all shut down and this meant that we weren't able to start as the lights were vital for our music video and obviously we needed the power for playback, sound and cameras. We had to make a collective decision on what we would do about this and we concluded with the idea that we are going to have to reschedule the second part of our shoot. However, this wasn't as simple as it sounds because we had to have it on a day that no other group is shooting in the studio. We agreed on a date and gave sincere apologies to the dancers as they were with us the whole day and we didn't get to do their scene, but they understood our situation as it was completely out of our control.

The most successful part of the shoot day was probably when we shot Genny in the light corridor, because when all of the lights were turned off it created an infinity effect with the pixel line lights installed into the three sided corridor. The shots that we got of Genny varied from close ups, wide shots, medium close ups and close up body part shots.

I feel as if my production group and I worked really well together on the day, it seemed like everyone knew what they were in charge of and nobody got into fights with anyone. We also were of great support to each other and also made sure that our cast were well taken care of. One thing that I feel that we could improve on is the turnover time between takes because I think that we lost a bit of time by talking over the footage, whereas, if we took less time between each take, we could have finished a bit earlier and possibly could have started the dancers bit before the power cut.

Shoot Day Schedule

Set 1 - DJ Set Up - Dolly - Crane - Long shots - Mid-Shots - Close Ups	Props/Costumes - DJ equipment - Black Jeans - Jumper
Set 2 - Light Corridor - Dolly - Crane - Long shots - Mid-Shots - Close Ups	Props/Costumes - Heels - Make up - Satin see through top - Black lacey bra -Black jeans
Set 3 - Blinders/ Dancers - Dolly - Crane - Long shots - Mid-Shots - Close Ups	Props/Costumes - Make up - Addidas red trackies - Megan's red trackies - Black bando -Black t-shirt
Set 4 - Shadows Genny - Dolly - Crane - Long shots - Mid-Shots - Close Ups	Props/Costumes - Make up - Black Dress - Straightners

Setting up before the shoot

The day before the shoot we started to set up our most complex set for it to be first, as this would save us a lot of time the next day. The first set that we were shooting was the DJ set, this included perspex, painting the scaffolding black, attaching white matte sheet and setting up the DJ decks. We were in contact with our make up artist, as she was in for a different groups music video so I was able to speak to her in order to confirm what look we were going for.

We had collected all of the DJ equipment the day before the shoot in order to make sure that we had it on the day and so that the lenders wouldn't forget to bring it in. We brought the scaffolding which was built to the studio and started to paint it black, so that it wouldn't come up in the camera. After, we let it dry for a bit and then came back to attach the the matte sheets to close the DJ set up, so that hid legs and the lights underneath weren't seen. We also had to put the blinders behind the DJ set to make it stand out more.

Earlier in the day we had the opportunity to go and see how a different groups music video was going. We were able to analyze and see what types of things we would need to think about and it gave us a slight inside into what was expected of each of the roles.

Dance Rehearsal

A week before the shoot, the dancers had sent us a video of their rehearsal process that they had documented. Below is the video.

Animatic for Storyboard

Below is an an animated storyboard for our music video. We cut it by using Adobe Premiere to achieve a finalized version of the animatic. By creating the animatic it allows us to see what we are missing from our video and it clarifies whether the shots that we picked will work. 

Feedback from our teacher 

-- > The cuts need to be more slick and the editing needs to be reworked because there is not enough cuts to different shots.

-- > In our storyboards we have a couple of letterboxes, we were told that if we want to use letter boxing, then we need to have some sort of progression which adds to all the other shoots.

-- > We need a constant element to the video, so that it all doesn't seem different to each other.

Props List

Below is some research into props that we needed for our shoot day, the only thing we needed to acquire for the shoot was DJ decks, they seemed quite pricey so we tried to find a lower price version however, we have DJ students at college and they have agreed to lend us their equipment which is all Pioneer which is the leading DJ equipment company in the world. 

Written by Ben