Write up of shoot day

The day before my shoot day, Vogue, Callum and I spent the afternoon talking over everything and ensuring that we had everything in order. This was mainly focused on the dancers and making sure they knew the choreography. We also spoke to Matt to give him an idea of what it is we want within our video; this was to make sure that he could envision what it is we wanted.

         I felt very prepared before my music video, though of course there’s always more we could have done however, I feel as though we had the perfect amount of planning as it enabled us to get things done quickly and effectively, but there was also enough room for creativity meaning we got some interesting shots after we had filmed the basic shots we felt were necessary. Before we could start shooting we were going over the shot list and waiting for the set to be put up and ready. When we began shooting the studio was actually quite bare, which wasn’t what I was expecting, we had pixel lines circling Jonty and the decks set up in front of him, though the set looked simple from what we could see, it was actually highly impressive when we began filming.

On the shoot day we all had different roles, my role was sound playback and lighting desk as well as being the producer. This meant I was listening to the sound making sure it was okay and checking up on the lighting to ensure everything was how we wanted it. I was also in charge of looking at how to represent the song visually, in the way that we wanted. Callum was the art director and cameraperson, this meant he was in charge of looking at the location, props, costume and make up. Callum was also on the camera which meant he took some really interesting shots and took advice from both Vogue and me, as well as using his own good ideas to come up with innovative shots. Vogue was the director which meant she overlooked everything going on with the video.

I think personally I was good at organising the talent and actors, I watched their rehearsals before the shoot began to ensure everything was in line and gave my opinion to help them along and give them an idea of what we wanted, I also found that when filming Jonty he needed some “hyping up” almost, so that he wouldn’t feel embarrassed, this resulted in Callum and I dancing around him to make him feel better. On the shoot day, we had issues with timing. This is because we were meant to begin shooting the dancers at 10:45, but we ended up running over because the make up took longer than we would have thought, and so we began shooting the dancers when we were done with Jonty and when they were all ready, so it ended up being at around 11:30. We also ran over past 3:00 and ended up finishing at around 3:30, however this wasn’t too much of a problem because our sets were so simplistic, but effective, the cleaning up didn’t take long as all we had to do was get rid of the pixel lines.

I think the most successful aspect of our video were the creative shots we did, such as a bird’s eye view shot using the genie, and the shots we did tracking around with the dancers and Jonty. I think these shots are the ones which will really separate our video from any others that are also being made because they are unique and interesting. However, I feel as though the timing of our shoot could have gone better, as we did run over and that was not what we had planned. In this picture you can see the genie has been put above Jonty and the decks and the filming was done from up there where the genie's height level was being varied.

I think we managed our talent very well as everyone was acting very professionally but we were able to make sure we had a good time too. I enjoyed my shoot greatly and I think my favourite aspect of the video was the close up shots of the dancers as this is where we were able to see the enormous amount of energy within them, and the lights amplified this. I am most looking forward to the editing process so that I can put together all the shots and mix it up between the dancers and Jonty because I think the colours will work so well together and the shoot itself will look very intense and interesting.

         I feel my production group worked well together as we all knew our roles and were able to perform them. I learnt that the best way to work when in a situation like this is simply just to relax and keep the atmosphere chilled despite it potentially being a stressful day, we managed to keep calm and chilled. I think to match the website artwork I will have to incorporate the colour we used for the dancers, and perhaps do something creative with Jonty’s dreadlocks.