Construction Post 3: Week 3 Production

This week we were able to make a start editing and looking over our studio shots. Then we began doing our location filming.

Before starting our location shooting, it was important for us to look over the shots we had done from the Seward Studio shooting. Therefore, we could create a stable base for our studio editing that we could then add to with our location shots. This helped greatly, as we could stick to our timeline and make the whole editing process go more quickly, so that when we had our location shots, we could simply put them in and finish the music video.

An example of some of the studio shots we edited together

It was initially a challenge getting my friend Andy to arrive on time. After finally finding a date where everyone would meet at Shoreditch High Street, Andy was not answering his phone and so I was forced to phone his mum, whose number I thankfully had on my phone. Andy did eventually turn up late and was apologetic at this point, however, by this point the group knew we would have to do more shooting on Sunday as well in order to make up for lost time. We, therefore, spent most part of the weekend doing filming in Shoreditch and I made sure Andy would not commit the same crimes against punctuality on two occasions.

One of the running shots we filmed in Shoreditch

We learnt a lot from the test shoot about filming on location. Firstly, we knew we needed a greater variety of running shots, so in the shootboard process, we devised more handheld running shots from different angles. This involved mainly me holding the camera on a tripod and running backwards in front of Andy from multiples with the framing changing to the different shots we devised. The shots above our some of my favourite in the running sequence. We were luckily given the opportunity to film Andy running in front of two policemen in a very vibrant area of graffiti with a train running past. The train and graffiti were two of the visual motifs in the music video that successfully connoted the urban, London aesthetic. It was an example of the more interesting variety of shots we completed in the main location shoot rather than the simple shots we created in the test shooting.

Naturally, I felt guilty for Andy arriving late for the first day of shooting and so took it upon myself to pay for a hot drink for the other two members of my team. Then on Sunday I felt it needed that I should pay for Andy's lunch meal as well as his travelling money, seeing that he was sacrificing his time for my media project. 

Due to the changing winter period, we found that we needed to be as efficient with time as possible in order to not fall into the trap of shooting all our footage in darkness, which began around four. The only shots we knew we could suit in darkness were the last shots in the narrative of Andy being shot by a shadow in the dream sequence and looking behind himself scared that someone was following.

Louis' part in the filming

As well as being lucky with the inclusion of policemen in our footage. A friend of mine and Andy's called Louis said that he would be able to act in part of the filming, knocking into Andy and judging him as he went past. Having Louis on camera, looked far more intimidating than I did in the test shoot, which was what we wanted the character to look like on camera, so as to show more of the terrified mentality of the character Andy was playing in the male narrative.

I feel that this week may perhaps have been the most crucial week of construction in the project, as in this week we started editing together our studio clips into a comprehensive bed for editing and started planning the location filming shots to work chronologically with our studio footage. This ultimately, therefore was where we worked out what was succesful from our studio shooting and then working tirelessly on our location shooting.