Filming At Location 2

Set Designers

We filmed at our second location (Daniel's House) for 5.30PM, one the same day... little did we know we had a long night ahead as we didn’t stop filming until 10PM! Firstly we filmed the scenes with the boy admiring and looking at his 'shrine' of the girl. Originally we were going to have the shrine on a wall however on the day we decided it would be more effective to have the shrine hidden and therefore we reached the conclusion of setting up the shrine in a cupboard. We organised the image of the girl in the centre with post-it notes , that the boy has found out about her around it. A great bonus that came out of filming in a more closed area with the red head shining on our actor with the shadow of our actor! This was a great discovery that we found in demonstrating the duplicity of his character!

Trying To Create The Perfect
Point Of View shot

Next we filmed the shots of the boy baking the cake. We wanted to use apoint of view shot of the boy preparing the ingredients with only his hands in the frame. In order to this our actor had to stand around the dolly so that only his hands would be in the composition. Despite this being rather uncomfortable for our actor it appears that we got the shots that we wanted! For this shot we only needed the brightness from the kitchen lights and therefore it was not necessary for the use of the red head light.

Me Filming The Shots With The Table

I was in charge of filming some of the table shots. This part of the filming took a while as the precision of each of the boy’s actions were vital in emphasising the awkwardness to his character. We therefore wanted him to place the crockery with precision so that when it came to editing we could jump cut between these shots. Furthermore, we filmed the boy lighting a candle and placing the candle on to the table in order to set the mood. The next shots that involved the table needed the cakes and therefore we decided we would come back to these shots later once the cake had been cooked.

We then went into Daniel’s parent’s bedroom where we filmed shots of the boy shaving and also trying on different outfit options. In the room we positioned the camera away from the actor so that we could have him walking up to the camera, making it appear as a mirror as he checks out his outfit choice and decides that each one is not suitable until he reaches the suit choice. Our actor studies drama and therefore he was extremely cooperative with our directions which made the process quicker and easier as he knew exactly what we expected from him.

After filming these shots, the cake was ready and we filmed the boy back in the kitchen. Firstly we filmed the boy taking out the cake, in casual wear and placing the cake onto the table. We then asked him to change back into his suit so that we could film the shoots for the change of his progression in the music video. In order to show the boys anger we experimented with different angles in order to share in insight into the characters state. We filmed a low angle shotfrom sitting on the floor to capture the boy’s jacket falling onto the floor. Furthermore we then shot the shots of the boy looking at the clock. We knew that we wanted a shot reverse shot of the boy looking at the clock during editing so we filmed the clock filling the composition and therefore we were quite zoomed in and then we filmed the emotion of the boys face. Next was the hardest part as each shot couldonly be filmed once as once the cake was destroyed that was our last chance. It was therefore vital that we directed our actor clearly before so that he knew exactly what he was doing in each shot. A shot which proved difficult was the boy destroying the cake in his hands. We had to direct our actor to keep his hands on the cake in the exact same position as we moved the camera behind him for a point of view shot. It was vital that our actor kept his hands in the same place as we moved the camera to ensure the continuity of our music video.

Next we filmed the boy waiting anxiously in his suit for the date to arrive. We have filmed him sitting on a chair by the front door. In order to capture an eerie effect I had to stand  outside with the red hed light shining in through the closed doors. We used a blue filter over the red head light in order to create this specific mood.

We then filmed from a low angle shot of the boy throwing the cake onto the floor. This was very messy as we ended up with cake all over the floor and in the camera lens too! Finally we filmed different clock shots of the time at different times and therefore we had to change all the timings of clocks in the house so that when we come to editing we can have different shots of clocks to show the time getting later and later and his date still having not arrived. We tried a digital clock, an ove clock, an Iphone and a watch so that we will have a choice when we edited of what we think would work best. 

Conclusion Of Filming:

What went well?

We knew what we wanted to film at each location as we had storyboarded everything beforehand and therefore the day ran smoothly

Our Actor studies drama and therefore he was extremely cooperative and knew exactly what we expected him to do and took little briefing. Furthermore he was able to easily revert into his role to appear authentic.

We made preferences on the day of different angles and shot types varying slightly from what we had originally agreed on. We also experimented with the same shot from different angles so that when we come to edit our footage we will have a variety of one type of shot to choose from.

The Cake shots could only be filmed once and we achieved exactly what we wanted!

We made new discoveries on the day for example a great bonus that came out of filming the boys shrine in a cupboard was that the red head shining on our actor created a shadow. This was a great discovery that we found in demonstrating the duplicity of his character!

What could we improve on?

Experimenting with some new ideas on the day, to see if we could possibly use in editing and make sure we have a lot to work with

Underestimated the time it would take to film, the shots we wanted to film require alot of precision for example shooting the boy destroying the cake we had to shot him destroying the cake We had to direct our actor to keep his hands on the cake in the exact same position as we moved the camera behind him for a point of view shot.

Ensuring the set is exactly how we wanted it before beginning to film each shot. Once we left the camera case in the shot and therefore had to film the shot again and therefore had to re-position everything back to exactly how we wanted it.