Final Filming: Barn

Filming in the barn was successful and we feel that the performance shots were a lot more enthusiastic and inventive than the previous ones in the draft; we did one shot where we just played the whole song and let the band do whatever they wanted and sing whatever parts they knew to see how relaxed they were when no pressure was applied to do particular things.

The only down side to filming all day yesterday was that Joe was unable to attend as he had work commitments; this meant we had to juggle his role into our own roles between the three of us however it worked well and we feel as though we have enough footage to cover our performance in the barn.

Filming - Barn

On Sunday the 9th of October we began filming our first draft of our performance clips. We used our location of the barn in Wykin, Hinckley; it was successful as we began at 1pm and finished around 6pm. We have a lot of footage to go through and edit but we are determined to get the whole video filmed and then to work out as a group where each of the clips fit in to eachother. We had only decided on our roles the day before filming so when we got to out location after driving in convoy from Lutterworth we set-up as quickly as possible to discuss how we would start filming. As my role was director I had to overlook all of the decisions being made by each member of our group; the band helped to set up the drum kit and lighting as the equpiment is extremely heavy and dangerous to handle alone.

Joe's role was lighting technician and as we had three fog lights this was a very important job; partly to make sure of the risks that could be caused by leaving lights in unsafe places near wires or anything that is flammable, but also because one of the lights was permanently on a motion censor setting so every 30 seconds or so it had to be switched back on again.

Meg did an excellent job of being our sound technician and shot list organiser, we only missed one shot out of a large number but we can either alter the location of the missing shot or revisit the barn to film it. It was very difficult to operate the sound successfully as we only had a laptop to play the music through, so whilst filming for Steve to be able to mime correctly we had to be quiet.

Harry, our cameraman, did a really good job of setting up a permanent long shot tripod for our main performance; because Harry and I have the same HD digital video camera we are very lucky in that the shots all look of the same quality, my camera was used for close ups whereas Harry's focused on long and mid shots.
We worked successfully as a team to get all the performance shots for our draft music video done and I think we are well on our way to making great progress with the rest of our locations when we start filming there. We have scheduled our next filming meet-ups and are looking forward to filming more of the disjuncture clips as it means the band can relax more and show their personality to the audience.

Another Photo Shoot

Yesterday, we planned to meet up at Fosse Park at 5pm. We then commuted together to the Highcross car park in Leicester. We decided this would be a great place to practice stop motion and solve the problem of Georgia standing out so much (being the only girl in the band). We did this by dressing her more similarly to the boys.

Here is a picture of Steve driving us to Leicester:

Here is the group taking pictures of the band on top of the Highcross car park:

Jess then briefed the group on how she wanted them to behave and how to pose:

After a short while we managed to get many shots which were good enough to practice stop motion with. I will post at a later date with my first practices of stop motion.

I learnt that taking pictures for stop motion is not as easy as it looks, it takes time and patience and a band that is compliant. The group took some successful photos and we had a good evening - the band are getting to know each other really well now and they get along well together. they are so comfortable with each other, that Will thought he'd do a little dance:

Stop motion videos will be uploaded soon.

Location #1 - Performance

I have taken and uploaded a range of photos showing the barn and area around it at my Dads house that we are going to use for the performance shots of our band for the music video. The barn is a spacious empty building that will be a barn conversion house in a few years time, so it is not being used for any farming equipment or anything dangerous that could cause injuries. It is located in an area that is easily accessible should we need to return to re-film or any other reasons, such as photography again. This house and the other house we will be filming at are only 15 minutes in distance, and because our video is mainly disjuncture we may well finish early at the barn and move across to the other location to continue filming.

There is a link below where I have the photos uploaded onto a Flickr account, this means they are accessible and easy to view... However I have also put them in a clear Slideshare powerpoint so that they can be viewed right here on our blog. Enjoy!

Flickr - jessspardoe

                              Barn