This is the Whitmoore Common. This was our location where we did our performance genre of the music video. It worked superbly as we had a lot of space to work with.
Once me and Tom arrived with the drum kit we unpacked it and carried it over to our filming location. thankfully there was a bridge just across from where it was so we didn't have to carry the equipment for too long. Once we set up the drum kit, we got flyers that had made the day before and posted them through peoples post box. When we went there a few weeks earlier to look at the location, we noticed
that there were houses about quarter of a mile a way from our filming position. So on the actual day of filming the flyers said this: "Dear Resident, As part of our College Media project, we will be filming a musical band playing in the woods today (1st November). We do hope this will not disturb you in any way as the band are miming to a recording and it will be only drums that will be heard. Hopefully this will not interfere with your daily routines as it will be on the other side of the railway bridge. Thank you for understanding and hope you have a good day. Nick and Tom, The filming team."
We then got to work setting up where the camera would be and setting up the drum kit to be in shot.
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| Once Matt and Dan arrived with the rest of the instruments and equipment we set them up while they got changed into their suits. We also positioned the camera to fit in all of the instruments in the camera's frame. |
We set the Electric Guitar and the Bass guitar up one by one...
...and kept them close together to fit in the frame
while Matt and Dan rehearsed the song.
We also positioned the camera to fit in all of the instruments in the camera's frame.
We then started to film our Music Video...
During filming...
What worked?
What I feel helped us keep our lip and instrument syncing well sunk. This was because of the use of playback from our speakers. We didn't just use any old CD player or small speakers but we used a Bose Ipod dock system which was very loud so in terms of playing in time with the music, we had it all planned out.
What Didn't work?
Being next to a train track was very unhelpful at times as when it was going past it would be too loud over our speakers and would distract the band. Whenever this happened we would restart the clip again. Dog walkers were not a problem but actual dogs themselves were more of a dilemma. This was because they would run through our shots (stupid dogs).How was the weather?
The weather was actually useful as it was mostly sunny creating the great colour effect through the trees and the reflection of the sun pushing through the branches and reaching the band. At certain points in the day, there was a slight drizzle of rain which, having a lot of expensive instruments and equipment, was very risky. However having the Toyota Auris near by was a very useful object as we could shove our instruments in there until it stopped raining. It was also helpful having windy weather as it created a nice effect of blowing the leaves off the trees and around the ground.What about the locals?
Tom and I were very worried about what the general public may think about young men with instruments playing too loudly in a forest where they would be walking their dogs. However, many dog walkers and walkers came up to us when we weren't filming and asked us what we were doing. We told them it was for a media project A2's- filming a music video from an unsigned band. They then asked us about the band and who we were. Some even said they liked the music being played from our speakers. One man came over to our camera and started talking to us about the use of different shots and what they would connote for the video. It turned out that he was involved in the media business, especially with using professional cameras and filming local movies- What a really nice guy!Using a storyboard
On the day of filming our performance we used our storyboard to see what shot needed to be used where. This was very helpful but up to a certain extent. For example, when we had to find out what shot went where in the filming, we didn't have some lyrics from the song matching up to our shots. We the realized that we ad just put our animatic up on YouTube. The only problem was- How did we get YouTube working in the middle of the forest? Well... Matt (lead vocals and guitar) had just recently bought the new Iphone 4. One of the best uses for this was using the phone's 4G. This meaning you can connect to the internet pretty much anywhere. So to solve the problem of finding out which clips went where in the song, we watched our recent animatic on YouTube and used it, as well as the storyboard, to piece our performance side of the music video together.
