Filming Diaries - Recording Studio

We booked out the recording studio to film me doing the lip-syncing because we wanted to keep the video interesting by having multiple locations. We also thought the recording studio would give the video a professional touch. 

We decided we wanted to film in black and white for this section, again because all of the other footage is in colour and we want to keep it varied, but also because it's one of the conventions we saw in a couple of pop punk music videos. 

Careful by Paramore has a mix of colour and black and white and the video is dominated by live footage. This is similar with The Consequence by You Me At Six, they have mostly footage fro their live shows, but also behind the scenes clips of the band members, but with this video it is all filmed in black and white. 

By having a dark black background, when the white lights on the stage flash, they really stand out and shine on the musicians faces - almost giving a strobe lighting effect. 

As usual, we had some issues when filming:

The camera hadn't been charged since the last shoot so we had to battle getting all the footage needed before the battery died. Luckily, we did get enough before it did, but it would have been nice to get the lip sync from a few different angles. Having said this, this location will only be seen in short clips so we don't really need a lot of footage. 

Also, at one point, the memory card was full and the spare we had wouldn't work in the camera. We had to delete all of the old footage that was on the camera, but fortunately it was already on the computer, so not too much of a problem. In order to get the shots we wanted, we had to set up the equipment (the mic stand and leads, also the headphones) and position them in the right place so we had the drum kit in the background. 

Overall I think the filming went well. 

Filming Diaries - Apley Wood

To film the parts in the wood, we needed a few hours to film in the day and because we're at college throughout the week and then working etc at the weekend, it was difficult to find the time. We got up early on Sunday morning and filmed in the cold for nearly four hours.
It was sometimes challenging because quite often there would be people walking past us, with their dogs or families so occasionally the filming was disrupted.

Instead of using the colleges' video cameras, we used Steph's SLR camera that you can film on. We thought this way, we'd be able to get much better effects and the quality of the footage would be much higher. Because we had better equipment, we tried to use better effects. For example, in one close up of my face (for the performance footage) I looked up to the camera and Steph used a shallow depth of field then focused the lens so the foreground stayed clear (me) and the background went blurry. This effect looked really good and I hope to use it in the actual video.

We took more shots than we needed so we had a choice of the best and even after three and a half hours, there are still parts we need to film.

Filming Diaries - The Summer House (again)

We went back to the summer house to film for the last part of the music video where the main plot of the revealed. Again, we faced some problems:
 - We reached the end of the tape so had to rewind to the start of the footage and film over it, although most of it had already been put on the computer so it wasn't really a big deal.
 - The battery on our camera was quite low when we rented it from college, so when we turned it on and went to film we only had a few minutes of filming time. This meant we had to try and get the shots as quickly as we could, and only really film the parts we needed. Also, while we were preparing for the shots we had to keep turning the camera off to try and save the battery life.
 - Steph forgot to bring the red lipstick which was really important to for evil side of the girl in the narrative; because we wanted her to have a lot more make up on, I did it and as we didn't have the any lipstick, I put purple eye shadow on her lips covered with lip gloss so the lips still had some colour.

We tried to overcome all the problems we faced with the most logical solution and in the end we did manage to get all the shots we wanted before the camera died. So when we get chance to put the footage on the computer, we can look through the footage and hopefully won't need to reshoot anything.

Filming Diaries - Using the Green Screen

We wanted to have two versions of the same person in one shot, but knew it would be difficult so we tried to experiment with the green screen because we thought it would be a really good thing to use if it worked. We brought in everything that we needed such as make up and clothes and set up the equipment for the green screen.
Again, there were some issues we had to deal with:
 - After we had set up the green screen in one of the empty classrooms, a teacher came in and  had booked out the room so we had to get all our stuff, including the green screen and find another available room.
 - Once we had another room and set up the green screen again, Steph got changed and as we were about to film the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the building. This took out a lot of the time out of the lesson so we had to eventually film through our lunch time.

We got the shots we needed, but were a bit apprehensive as to whether it would work with the angles of the wall and the floor. We'll get the other shots we need actually at the summer house and then see which ones look best.

Even if we don't use the footage of the green screen in the actual music video, it was still useful to have experienced using it.

Filming Diaries - The Summer House

Steph's Grandparents have a small shed-like summer house by where they live which hasn't been used for years so there were cobwebs everywhere and it had the derelict vibe we wanted. When we first went to film we had real problems; we went to the location as soon as we finished college but because of how dark it gets really early, we struggled to actually get any filming done because it was too dark. We did get some footage but because it was really hard to see anything, we aren't able to use any of it.

We'll have to go back to film one day when we're not both at college til 4pm because that's when it's difficult to film with the lighting. Although we did face problems, we got an idea of the location (I'd never seen it so it was difficult to visualise) and also what sort of shots we wanted to get because it helped seeing the place beforehand.

Filming Diaries - The Music Room

We wanted to have performance footage because all of the Paramore music videos we looked at had a lot of performance, so this was a big convention that we needed to take into account. We booked out the rehearsal rooms at college, and I have a lesson in there so I already knew the layout and how to set up the equipment.

A huge problem we faced, was that we didn't have a band to play the song for us. We wanted to have footage of the instruments as well as just a singer but it was difficult when we didn't have a band to use. One of my friends plays guitar and agreed to help us out by learning Monster and playing it for us, he also tried to do something similar to the drum beat - even though he didn't play drums.
To make it look like there were two different people playing the instruments, we had a shot on the drums with Jamie wearing a jumper and on the guitar he had a black hoodie.

We only needed simple shots for the drums - such as the crash cymbals and the kicking of the bass drum. another problem was that my friend didn't actually want to be seen in the video, so it's going to be difficult to make sure he's not in any of the footage.

Filming Diaries - Dance Studio

We tried to book out the Dance Studio to film Stephs dance part because we thought it would look professional with the matted floors and wall of mirrors. However, the date we wanted to get it booked for had already been taken, but the sports hall was free.
Although this wasn't our first choice, it still was appropriate for what we needed it for. The only downside was that because it was a sports hall, there were the lines on the floor signalling different sports, which we didn't really want but it was only a small negative and didn't affect our filming in any way.

We tried to get a lot of different shots and so I filmed from different points of the hall trying to achieve different angles. I also had varying closeness between the camera and Steph. I think the filming went well, it would have been better if we had the room with the proper flooring but the sports hall was fine to use, and it was bigger.

The Narrative section of the video (ideas)

We decided that we wanted to have performance footage as this fits the criteria of all of Paramore's music videos, but we also wanted to tell a story like in such video's as Playing God and Misery Business. We wanted the story we tell to fit to the song. This is the story that we have in our heads without actually having filmed yet, and hopefully everything will work out exactly as we plan it to.

The song starts and we see a girl (played by Steph) sitting by a lake, she is seen writing a letter and the paper she's writing on has lyrics of the song, as though she's writing her thoughts to someone but don't know who. She screws up the letter, throws it in the water and runs away. We next see her running through the forest, looking as though she is trying to find her way out. Throughout all of this part we see Steph in a dance studio dancing.

Throughout the actual narrative described, we want to have Me lip syncing in the woods and singing into an expensive Mic in the recording studio at college. We want to make the video as varied as we can, so we also plan to have close up of the guitars playing and the drum kit because we really feel that with a song like Monster, it really requires instruments being played.

We want the story to have a twist at the end, so towards to end of the song we see Steph running up to a summer house that looks old and derelict. She bursts through the door and halts immediately because she sees an alternate version of her sat on the chair, dressed in black and red, looking like a more evil version - showing both sides of a person. When the evil Steph smirks, the shot flicks back to were good Steph was standing but no one is there. Then right at the end of the song we go back to the start with the letter being written at the lake but it's the alternate Steph dressed in black sitting there writing the letter.

Hopefully this will leave the audience wondering if the nice version of the girl in the video was even there at all and whether the dark side had completely taken over.

Production Schedule

October
7th
8th
9th
10th
11th
12th	in the morning, go to Apley wood to take photos for story board, and get an idea about the location
13th
14th
15th
16th
17th
18th
19th
20th
21st
22nd
23rd
24th
25th
26th
27th
28th
29th
30th
31st	Start Filming
November
1st
2nd
3rd	book rehearsal rooms / think of more shots
4th
5th
6th
7th	filming dance choreography in hall after college
8th	filming drums and guitars in practise room
9th
10th	uploading footage
11th
12th
13th
14th	green screen filming during lesson / filming in summerhouse after college
15th	upload footage / update blog
16th
17th
18th	filming in summerhouse after college
19th
20th
21st	editing
22nd	editing
23rd
24th	editing
25th
26th
27th
28th
29th	editing
30th
December
1st	editing
2nd
3rd
4th
5th	editing
6th	editing
7th
8th	editing
9th
10th
11th
12th	editing
13th	editing
14th
15th	editing and converting video file; deadline date for submitting video