I really enjoyed the main workshop day and my main role consisted of acting as Haley Williams but I also helped out with the more technical side by pushing the dolly and being a cable basher for Jack- our camera man.
Monica pushing me whilst I got an insight into being behind the
camera.
I found this very useful as I learnt a lot about the different types of job within the media industry and the importance of safety when filming as I would not of previously considered tripping over cables an issue. I also learnt about the different effects that can be created by different camera movements such as the contrast between hand-held movement and being on the dolly.
I also did the clapper board for some of the shots and I was particularly aware of our shots in relation to the schedule and I made sure other members of the media department were aware of where we were meant to be on the schedule.
This helped me learn how to manage time more efficiently and meant that I also met one of my targets that I set myself earlier in the week to be more in control of situations and aware of what was going on at what time.
I really enjoyed helping out and learning about the more technical side of our production but my favourite part of the day was performing and having my classmates and the rest of the crew supporting me and cheering me on whenever I got nervous.
I found it really interesting and insightful being infront fo the camera as I think ti helped me direct my peers when they were performing and it also helped to gain confidence and develop my communication skills as I had to work quite closely with our director Dominic and acting coach Jasmine.
Below is a behind the scenes video made by one of the members of our crew.
This task was very beneficial as..
- It helped me come out of my shell which was initially quite difficult as I didn't want Alistair to hear me sing!
- I learnt how to professionally lipsync.
- It helped me examine each of the band members' characters and experiment with the way they act in the music video.
- Editing the audition video allowed me to learn how to layer up the shots and cut between a variety of similar shots.
My annotated lyrics sheet.
Task 2 - Learn & practice your performance
As I already knew the song it was very easy for me to learn the words properly but I found our timetabled performance rehearsals really helpful because..
- I learnt how important it is to put emotion into my performance and we did facial exercises to practise our expressions.
Myself, Monica & Ali performing.
- Our acting coach also helped us to sing from our stomach so as not to damage our throats and to make the lipsync look a lot more realisitc.
- We picked out key movements from the original video to perform in our remake in order to get as close a match as possible.
A short clip of me lip-syncing during rehearsals
infront of an audience.
Task 3 - Help to plan & organise your costume
This task allowed me to develop my organisation skills and teamwork skills as I had to bring in costumes for everyone and not just think of myself, I also had to help my peers decide what to wear and make sure every one had the right attire.
Iggy and I in costumes on the shoot day.
I think that our group managed to match our costumes almost identically to the original band member's attire but this task allowed me to discover the importance of hair and makeup as without this aspect I don't think our final outcome would have looked nearly as good.
Our make-up artists dressing table.
Task 5 - The edit
This was the most challenging bit of the project in my opinion as within my group I found that we all worked at different paces. I also found it quite strenuous to work in a three as not all of us could work at the same time so one of us often ended up not doing anything.
However, I also found this task to be the most beneficial as I learnt..
- How time-consuming editing can be and the amount of effort that needs to be put in.
- How important communication is within my group so that we don't end up doing the same thing twice or ruining someone's work.
Our edit suite.
- How to edit a music video, which happened to be a completely different process to editing our short film opening.
Monica, Gift and I at the edit suite.
- How to create flashes and grade the shots which was quite dramatic as in the official music video they had a large variety of shot types.
I am quite happy with my final edit and I think overall my group worked efficiently with one another.
To grade and add effects to our shots we used;
- ProCamp
- Three way colour corrector
- Luma corrector
These programmes allowed us to create really dramatic shots which perfectly matched Paramore's shots.
However, the only other thing I would have done differently would have been the angling of some of our shots. To the left you can see group one's shots compared to ours and their faces are shown much more clearly.
Our call sheet played a significant
part int he shoot day.
This prelim experience has helped me in a variety of ways, including:
- realising that I will need to be very decisive and communicate well with other members of my group in all stages of our music video for our project to be successful.
- how different shooting a music video would be as opposed to shooting a short film opening so this experience really opened my eyes and helped me understand how to edit a music video.
- this experience has also helped me realise the importance of time and sticking to a schedule.
I am very excited to create my own video as I think I'll be able to be really experimental and creative.
Pre-production:
- We must chose our genre and consequently our intended style of our music video in order to make it suit our music choice.
- Our location must also be practical but suitable.
Our set in the Seward Studio.
- We must think carefully about who we would cast as our main actors and possibly have to have auditions.
- Planning and scheduling is essential and I would have to plan the shoot schedule and create a call sheet.
A list of our set-ups.
Production:
- It is very important to be punctual and arrive on time and I hope that the call sheet will allow our crew and cast to know their times.
- Although I would like to have a very professional atmosphere one thing that I really enjoyed and would like to have on my own shoot day would be a supportive, encouraging crew who will cheer on our actors.
Two members of the crew with me while
I performed.
- For our shoot day we had a variety of crew members who all worked together to help one another and whenever I had some free time I would try to help out by cable-bashing for our camera man or asking our time-keeper about the schedule.
Our director.
Post-production:
- I would dedicate more of my time to editing and follow our edit schedule a lot more strictly.
- I'll also account for different members of my groups strengths and weaknesses so we work together efficiently.
- Allow myself enough time to be really creative with the visual effects, for example the flashes and horizontal flips.
Below is a short time-lapse video of our shoot day.
