Sunday, 13 March 2011

The Recording studio test shots.

Here are our first attempts of filming in the studio, in which I will discuss why we decided not to use this footage and what we will change in future filming sessions.



This is our first beginning and end shoot, in which the buttons on the soundboard are moved up at the start and then back down at the end, establishing the opening and close of the story. We did this all in one shot, as it was a simple case of moving the buttons up and down and was not needed to be done in more than one shot, meaning we would then split this during editing. However, we decided not to use this take of the scene, as the model hand was shown to be moving the buttons too quickly, and we needed to have the timing just right to fit the amount of seconds we planned in our storyboard for the scene.




This was the scene in which I was waiting for my queue to start singing, just before a blackout into the first action scene, establishing that the action in the studio was also about to start before the song began. This shoot went well, as the action in it was simplistic and I simply had to wait for my queue to reply 'Yes' to the question 'Are you ready to start?', signifying that some form of action was about to take place. However, we did not use this as our final shoot, as we were not happy with the lighting in the room as we believed it looked too orange and dull, as this was meant to be bright and contrasting to the sad and isolated action scenes as the character sets off to meet her boyfriend.




This was the shot of the first line of the first verse, as the first real action in the studio is shown to the audience. In this shot, we planned to have a pan accross my face, showing the micrphone and sound sheild at the end of the shot, and have my lips chin and the end of my nose showing only, giving attention to my mouth to bring the lyrics out as the main focus to the audience upon the opening of this scene. However, we decided to use this shot as a test, as the pan was too quick and cut off the lyrics, which meant the audience could not understand the narrative as it was not wholly shown. The camera also missed off the micrphone sheild until the very last few seconds, meaning the camera showed the window behind and the construction outside for too long, which was not meant to be seen, as it was discontinuous to the scene. We were also unhappy with the again orange light and dark background as the camera was closer, therefore we needed to think of a way to get rid of this effect in future shots.





This was the shot of the second line, which was again a sidewards pan of the artist singing, so that her head and shoulders could this time be seen, to show performance and promote the artist. We liked this shot, as we thought it looked professional and was predominantely successful, however the camera was slightly unsteady which we thought looked too informal and unprofessional. For this shot we used John's light over the camrea to see if it would brighten up the studio, however it still looked orange though slightly lighter, so we had to re-think this idea again.




This was the third line of the song which we recorded as another pan, as the half-face shot we planned to do did not fit into the camera enough as the dimensions fitted a landscape view, therefore cutting off most of what we wanted from my face and showed a huge portion of background setting behind, giving the focus to that instead. Therefore, with the pan, this time showing mainly the middle section of my face for a different approach, we tried shooting to see the effect. Again, we used John's light for this, however it created lighter shadows over my eyes and nose which we were not happy with, so had to find a different way to shoot. We moved around the studio, which is unseen in footage of test shots, trying to see where the light would fall naturally onto my face, however as we had this session late at night, the light was only becoming darker by the minute. We therefore planned to film in the daytime early in a morning to see if the lighting would change and become more natural and warm.




This was our first daytime session in the studio, which showed a clear improvement in the lighting, as the quality became much clearer and brighter. For this shot, we had a medium close up of me smiling and moving away from the micrphone and out of the shot, representing that everything was okay at the end of the video as the couple reunited. This shot went well, as it was again very simple to film, so we decided to use this for our final shoot.
Note: For this shot and the past few in the studio, we decided that I should wear red lipstick to give emphasis on my mouth when filming close ups, so that narrative could be seen clearer as well as heard to give the correct delivery to the audience.



This was a test shot for the line 'To make you feel my love' which we had to shoot again, as we had changed the previous shots, and there was not enough time on the end of the shot before to make a transition into this line without a longer unnecessary blackout, which would look discontinuous as there was not a change in the action of the video. We were having problems with cutting our scenes too short frequently in editing, therefore we ensured that from shooting after this point we would leave a lot of time before and after the scene incase we needed it during the editing process. We decided not to use this shot, as the camera was too shakey, meaning the shot looked out of focus and distorted slightly. Therefore, we had to shoot this again to get the still camera that we needed, to give a more serious and professional effect.



This was a test shot of the first line of the 'good street'. We only did this line on its own as we had planned in our storyboards to have alternate scenes for alternate lines (the action and studio). However, due to scenes and angles changing in our development stages we decided this would not work and so decided we would next film the whole verse outside and in the studio so that we could use either of the footage in accordance to what would fit with the other scenes.
When filming this line, we found problems with the lighting as this was earlier on when the orange glow still appeared, therefore we decided to film earlier in the daytime to get a natural light through the whole verse. The shot was also limiting visually, as only a brief section of my face could be seen as it was from a profile view, therefore we decided next time we film we would move the camera around further towards the front of my face for a clearer view as the narrative was portrayed to the audience.




This is our test shot of the 'bad street' first two lines, as we originally planned to alternate between the studio and the action scenes every two lines to pace what was going on so it was not too fast for the audience to engage with and read the narrative successfully. However, after previous shots for other scenes were too long or short and did not fit as we'd planned, we had to extend the lines in this verse so decided to shoot the whole verse in both areas (The studio and outside down the street). For this reason we decided not to use this shot, although it was visually very clear and the camera was very steady, so we will attempt to do the same thing upon filming in our next session.

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