Lighting Experiments

During the making of this video, we experimented a lot with different lighting. The most apparent evidence of this is in the club scene, where we had access to the house lights system in the school drama studio. This meant that over the large reel of footage we shot, we had various light colour schemes to choose from (eg red/blue/green/white strobing). Most importantly, it meant we were able to create a realistic looking setting that the audience could believe.

The other key area we manipulated the lighting was in the 'sex scene', with the deep blue lights reminiscent of the club whilst creating a softer, more sensual texture to the scene. We also used torchlight reflected upwards off tinfoil to compliment skin tones through warm yellow light that didn't overpower the shot.

However, we chose not to experiment with post-production effects (eg exposure/contrast/saturation) for fear it may ruin the independent feel of the video by giving it higher production values and a glossier, more coherent feel, as in many ways the amateurishness of the project is appealing.

Behind the Scenes Interview Footage

We filmed a short 'interview' with our artist as a piece of "behind the scenes" footage for fans to indulge in, uploaded to YouTube and linked to on the artist's Facebook and Twitter accounts.



However, the obviously unprepared nature and low filming quality (was filmed and directly uploaded from an iPhone) of the chat borders of the farcical, but stands to represent what sort or materials we would create for a real promotional campaign.

Filming Schedule and Diary

Tuesday 20th December: Initial planning. Group meeting, where we finalised decisions about costumes and props, and bought/collected any that we would need over the next few weeks. We also filmed a few cutaway shots, but without our artist there was little we could do, and did not want to shoot too much that would then not be usable.-

Firday 30th December: Location research, discussion followed by a scouting adventure. See post for pictures.

Friday 6th January: Filmed the 'sex scene'. Experimented with lighting. Did some photos for artist image. Followed up by shooting the scene outside of the clinic, but due to tiredness/boredom/fatigue, the material we had wasn't as good as we hoped.

Saturday 7th January: Went to London with the camera and cast hoping to capture some of the atmosphere of more claustrophobic city areas (like Brick Lane and South Bank) to contrast the comparatively bland suburban scenes we planned to shoot. However, lack of light became a big issue which ultimately ended our excursion.

Friday 13th January: Due to unavailability of cast members, we were unable to continue shooting, instead deciding to review the material we had already shot to determine any pickup shots we would need to do and the quality and quantity of what we had already shot.

Tuesday 17th January: Re-shot the clinic scene, much better this time. Began shooting the main performance bed of the video, but unfortunately low camera battery cut our day short.

Friday 20th/Saturday 21st: Weather dictated that we couldn't continue filming the performance bed this weekend, so instead we worked on putting the blog together.

Tuesday 24th January: Began uploading the footage we had, and overviewed it to ascertain how our shooting techniques can be improved upon for the next chunk of performance bed filming.

Tuesday 31st January: Shot all the footage required for the party scene, using the school Drama Studio where we had full access to extraordinarily manipulatable lighting equipment. We used readily available friends as extras, which took some time to organise (and we weren't able to get quite as large an enthusiastic group as we hoped) but after weeks of waiting for the Studio to become available, we took the best chance we could, and adapted our filming techniques to fill the frame as often as possible.

Thursday 2nd February:  Uploaded the footage from the party/club scene. Despite first thoughts after rewatching the footage on the small camera screen immediately after shooting, upon full review we found the footage to be entirely suitable and that there would be no need for a re-shoot (with much relief, after how long it had taken to book the studio and organise a reliable 'cast').

Saturday 4th February: Begun the long process of filming the performance section for the music video in Roehampton.



UPDATE: Friday 24th February: Half term holidays, unavailable equipment and unreliable cast members are all attempting to draw the process out, but nevertheless we have been working on completing filming and slowly piecing together short individual sequences on the music video. Only one more section needs to be filmed, as well as one short pickup shoot.

UPDATE: Friday 23rd March: Filming was completed earlier this month, and now the editing process is finally drawing to a close. Meanwhile, we have been working on the ancillary products of album artwork with photoshop, and of course keeping blogs updated.

Tuesday 27th March: Music video and ancillary tasks have been completed!

Prop List

We used many different props to create a realistic diegesis for our music video

• Empty discarded beer cans/bottles- to set the scene of a derelict pub
• Cigarettes - lyrical link, also demonstrating apathetic carpe diem attitude of the youths
• Envelope for the letter - to give the STD results realism 
• Painted backdrop panel - used in the club scene to imply the influence of illegal substances referred to in the lyrics

Creating Artist Image

The alternative genre of music our artist fits into is a defining characteristic of his visual style, and thus informing our decisions towards costume in the film by drawing from research into similar artists. To appeal to our core audience, our star much be dressed in a recognisable and relatable way, promoting normalcy rather than iconic star image (which also endued our decision to not use makeup on our artist):

Costume

Visual style through costuming is key for creating a marketable image to accompany the music. After research into Jamie T's (the original artist) style, and that of other frontmen in similar bands, we took test shots of a number of different outfits for Freddy. Our focus was on the idea of 'the ordinary', as establishing a relatable, down-to-earth artist is much the convention for this genre rather than the idea of a godlike, distanced superstar.

Costumes of other characters in the film (such as the band in the opening shots and the background characters in the club) were decided on through the same process - favouring normalcy over incredulous wardrobing. However, there were some stand out outfits, such as Devil costume (used to provide a humorous counterpoint to an otherwise dreary and pessimistic opening), the police costumes (metaphor of age/maturity/lifestyle), the child's 'normal' wear (to contrast Freddy's clothes), and the girl's leopard print jacket (carrying connotations of seduction as well as animalistic threat - she does give him an STD after all).

Casting

• FREDDY: Our star will be portrayed by Sam Barnham.

• THE LETDOWNS: Tom Roberts, Archie Harris-Eva and group member Harry Moppet will form 'Freddy's' backing band.

• GIRL: The 'love interest' of the video is to be played by Hannah Watson.

• FRIENDS: For the 'background' characters, we will use available friends at school.

• POLICEMEN: We will use two children, David (pictured) and Julek, to play the role of policemen in the film to metaphorically illustrate ideas about maturity, age, and childhood/adolescent/adult lifestyle.