1. First I hope to shoot within the exam hall at college- this will be easy and accessible with the permission of head teachers.
2. On a double decker bus- this way we will be able to shot the first couple of rows of seating and not include others who don't want to be in the shoot- In order to shoot here we will have to email the bus company for permission.
For the bus scene we have emailed the bus company for permission to use their bus as a location.
3. A local park- at dusk- as parks are normally used by younger people, by the time we shoot at the turn of getting darker, the park should be empty. If not we will have to wait for the park to be clear.
4. Alley- this will be a local alley within Harlow so it will be accessible to both of us in the group.
5. Estate- this will be either local to myself or Megan's house as it will then be easy to access, this shoot will be dusk time as this way it will be empty on. The road so our characters can run around yet it will still be light enough to film/ pick up in the camera.
One of our ideas will be to include short clips of London streets at night, capturing different people walking past and just the different lights. When Megan went out one night, I asked her to film a short clip whilst in a taxi on the way to her going out. She got around 4 minutes worth, however this is the stripped back version, including short clips, roughly around the size we will use in our actual music video. Yet they will not all be together as we are not doing a continuous narrative/ storyline. Just for the vision concept of a test shoot, I decided to put them all together purely for an example. I then started to play around on the editing treatments as a way to test what I can use when it comes to editing our final music video, below are just two of the examples which I came across, as you can tell in the raw edit, it was hand held, thus making it very shaky when the car moved and also very dark as it was shot at night.
Test Shoot- Speed change and lighting:
A way I decided to try edit the test shoot way by making the clips slower, with it being filmed within a car, the shots were very sensitive to the movement as the taxi was going fast enough to make the clips to quick. Therefore I made each clip around 60% speed instead, which resulted in this effect. As a whole I think when we come to the creation of our final music video project, most of the shots will be slowed down as I believe this would fit better with the speed and style of the music which we will be using. However, as you can tell in this shoot, making it slower, made it much more blurrier. A way we can therefore work around this would be to use a DSLR camera instead or, to film whilst we were on the streets ourselves instead of being in a car- thus steading the frame. Another aspect which I decided to manipulate was the lighting, as shown in the original raw edit, the lighting of the clips were quite dark and you aren't able to see as well what is going on. Therefore I used the lighting effects tool under Video Effect~ Adjust.
When dragging this onto the video clip, I found this created a spotlight effect in the corner of the clip, which isn't what I wanted. So I then double clicked on the clip and the effects I had added to this clip opened up in the top left hand corner, I could then scroll down to the Lighting Effects which I had added and go to "Light 1" and where it originally said spotlight, I changed it to Directional which opened up the lighting across the whole frame and clip.
I found the change in lighting quite successful as it made my frames much more visible, however, when I come to editing the final piece, I will only lightly use the lighting effect, so it makes a difference by doesn't make it as grainy as it does in this test shoot.
Test Shoot- Warp Stabiliser:
Another effect which I decided to experiment with was the "Warp Stabiliser" under Distort.
The effect makes hand held video clips appear to be shot of a tripod, it make it much more still. However, in certain clips shown above, it zooms in the frame to make it appear less shaky, however, I do not think that appears successful as it zooms in, cropping out a lot of the frame. Even though this did result in my clips being much more still, I was unable to adjust the speed alongside with using this effect, which means if I end up using this effect, my clips will have to be the natural speed and because this was filmed inside a car I believe it is too quick and wouldn't fit in with the rest of the clips. Therefore a way to over come this, would be to film outside of the car, whilst walking on the streets, therefore I can use this tool and the speed would fit in normally.
Overall, I believe this test shoot was really useful and helpful in showing me different ways to edit my shoots when it comes to it. Even though I did experiment with other adjustments such as contrast and levels, I decided not to make a whole new video for each because the change was only slight. Another way this shoot was successful was because it showed me way around the problems which was encountered. It was very shaky~ I can use warp Stabiliser/ not film in the car. I could film on a DSLR camera instead, however if I were to do this in the location of London on the streets at night with a tripod, there would be a higher risk of people around me conforming/ knowing they are being filmed and therefore their behaviour would change and my camera being broken or stolen.
Another part of our music video was filmed within a location of Camden and Megan emailed them to get permission to use those clips, this is the email better Megan and the person- thus giving us permission to use these shots
Before shooting our music video, we had to get everyone in our cast's permission in order to film them. As our first shoot included lots of extras, these are the release forms we used of everyone who acted as an extra across the film. When watching the final music video, it is clear that some of our extras do appear more than once. The reason why a talent release form is important is because it shows that they have given us the permission.
We will be using fake exam papers to set the scene of an exam. A way we will be able to get these props will be from my old mocks and work last year. As I dropped one of my subjects I will happily use the work from that subject in order to make the scene appear more realistic. Although there will only be a few close ups of the ones that actually look like an exam booklet, the others would likely be different papers.
One of the most common aspects which reminds me of the tense under-pressure conditions of an exam is the dreaded ticking clock so it would definitely make sense to use a clock in this scene. The camera shots of this prop would include mainly close ups and every so often the sound of the clock would be edited in my work to get my audience to remember the clock and the tense feeling it represents, including close up of peoples hand tapping to the tick. As already mentioned this part of the music video is purely acted out, there isn't any music over the top, thus making the sound of the clock important.
It also wouldn't make sense for us to film a exam scene without the prop of pens. To make this as realistic as possible, we will need to use black pens for each student- one in their hands and one at the top of their desk. This is because, in exam you are unable to write in any other colour than black otherwise you fail. The pens aren't a crucial prop yet I believe without these, the scene will appear too staged. The pens will be included in shots such as nervously tapping on the desk to the clock tick and will always be visual in most close up shots of our acted students.
One of the main factors in this scene is where our main character receives a text about ditching their exam to go "hang out" with their friends. Therefore an important prop for us to use will be a phone. Without the use of a phone, we would have to "pretend" our character is using a phone with a fake phone and this just wouldn't have a professional effect. As there will be a passing of messages, we will do this through having the phone on our character but changing the name of one of the contacts and messaging them through the other phone.
One of the main aspects of this scene which will differ from a real exam hall will be that students have their bags next to their feet. Normally, all bags have to be either left outside the exam hall or left at the front of the hall. However, for our character to be able to see that they have received a text, we will have to place a bag next to their desk, otherwise we would have to have our character holding their phone which I think wouldn't work at all.
Through the rest of the music video...
As our music video is about the negatives of drug use, we will have to use a prop which symbolises drugs, obviously we will not have any drugs on our set at any stage, so we will use small bags with a substance such as flour it imply this prop. Even though the music video is about "getting in with the wrong crowd" and doing all the things which you shouldn't, the drugs prop would mainly only be used at one short clip in the music video in order to make the appearance the shot will only be the passing over of the drugs to our character. Other than that the music video shots will only be a reference of drugs.
Another prop which I think would be important in our scene of a public transport, would be earphones/ headphones, this is because I think it would be able to display the key stereotype of anti-social teens. This wouldn't be a vital prop however I do believe this would help us display this stereotype quite well.
I personally think a good prop to use would be a noticeboard with lots of gig tickets and festival wristbands because I think that would suggest our character likes music and it also shows the always going out aspect, going out on nights out. I think if we were to film this prop and then go on to the night shots of them on the streets, I think it would fit much better than if our shots went straight from daylight to night.
Drinking is also strongly associated with youth so therefore I think if we were to make reference to drinking, it would fit better in their music video. As stated before, there will be no drugs or alcohol on the scenes when we film, therefore, I think if we were to use props of beer bottles, we can add water at different levels, implying they've been drunk. These props would be used in the location of the bedroom scenes with few characters.
Another prop which I think would be important within our music video would be to include shot glasses, even though there isn't going to be any alcohol on set, the main aspect of a teenagers bedroom is that it is messy, we could use shot glasses in the implications that there was a party there the night before. Shots including the shot glasses may be intertwined with the noticeboard.
