Filming day 1

From producing our filming time schedule sheet, we began to film our music video on Saturday the 29th of November. We had decided that it would be best to focus on just the narrative element of the music video on this day in order so that we could focus on each element separately to ensure we produced the best possible shots. The other reason for doing this was to make sure that our actors and helpers were not wasting their kindly donated time by standing around aimlessly, and becoming de-motivated.

On the first day (Saturday 29th) we focused heavily on the narrative element ‘ a day in the life of an average superhero. In this section it is pure acting and no singing of miming. We had checked the weather prior to filming and were happy to see good weather all day in London, specifically the South Bank area. We met at my house at 10am as I live the closest to a train station that has direct routes into London. Before we left we all checked the shooting schedule one last time to ensure we all knew where we needed to be at what times. As part of our video features the tube, our protagonist had to get into costume and be in character for the whole journey.  

We started filming in Bakers Street station before moving on towards Waterloo station. From here we went straight to the London eye and the surrounding Jubilee gardens where we filmed a variety of shots whilst intermingling with the general public. From here we began our walk down the south bank climaxing at the millennium bridge. All the way down we were filming our character and how he interacted with the people around him. We filmed in some very cool locations such as the skate park and outside the BFI.

 

In order to get enough footage, we filmed Harry (our male lead),throughout the whole day, from many different angles: straight on (mid, close ups and extreme close up), from above and below, over the shoulder etc). By doing this it gave us a wide range of footage to play around with and use when we came to edit our project. As well as giving us a variety of creative shots to consider, it also meant that if any shots were not suitable (out of time lip syncing, objects in shots, marks on the camera lens) we had enough footage of each shot so we could ensure that at least one of the shots was usable when editing.

 

We shared duties throughout the day and tried to rotate and be fair when allocating. The main jobs we divided out where of course filming, along with lighting, lighting aids (reflectors, filters) and 'water control', which meant keeping equipment dry, as well as the actor and lens of the camera so that the footage was not ruined with unwanted rain marks on the lens.

On the day we decided to shoot at Waterloo bridge instead of the Millenium bridge due to time constraints and the crew feeling tired from a long day of walking around London. Using a wide angle lens on our GoPro we were able to capture the full bridge to the same standard if not better than we would at Millenium bridge. This enabled to achieve a higher clarity of shot and a wider vista of London.

Furthermore, we had to use a lot of  close-ups especially while tracking our hero as he navigated the streets of London. We had to do this because if we were stationary and far away from the action, the crowd tended to swallow him up and he disappeared from many of the shots. The close-ups allowed us to be up close and personal with the character . This element of the narrative has parallels with the genre we are trying to recreate. In the pop-punk/pop-rock genre the narrative is often about telling a story and bonding with characters, I believe through using  our camera shots  it has allowed us to portray this to an industry standard level.