Lighting ideas for performance scene

After looking at the locations, we decided to use lights for the performance section to create a better atmosphere. Therefore, we need to buy these props:

-fairy lights

-tealights

We think this is important as we want the mise en scene to be a key part of the performance, and lighting is a big part of that.

In preparation for the filming at Matt's house, we are also going to get spare orange juice.

15/10/11

On Saturday we went to Dartford skate park to film the skate scene of our music video. We all went and initially thought it would be packed and slightly awkward as other people would be there and may not participate, however as soon as we got the masks out a lot of people come over and got involved and we found that people were more then happy to help. A lot of the time we just filmed anything we felt would be good and not shots that were necessarily on the storyboard. In particular we thought of a shot where Matt would hold the tripod around him and it would film his face as he ran down the hill, this was not an original shot however we felt that it would really work.
We hope that we have got the right shots that we need however we as we have started early we are able to re shot anything, we are going to film the Oxleas wood and fridge seen on saturday.

8/10/2011

Today me, Alex and Zara went to Matt's house to do some filming.
We each took an instrument -with Zara filming- and played 'My Little Haunting' on repeat in order to get a wide variation of shots, doing it with the masks on and off, doing close-ups of band members and instruments and we think that we have got all of the performance shots that we need.
We weren't able to make a back drop for the performance area to cover Matt's "inappropriate curtains" but instead took them off to reveal some velvet curtains and hung some fairy lights from the curtain pole which we think looked nice and matched the light-hearted mood whilst also adding to the 'low-budget- indie music video effect.
We also lit lots of tea candles and positioned them around the performance area and though they weren't really seen in the wide shots of the performance, they were clearly visible in the low angle close ups and also when we filmed Matt getting up from the floor (a shot we plan to use at the beginning of the music video) and they also added a really nice light to the shots.
Another thing we managed to film was the last shot when me and Alex have our masks on and throw the sheet over Matt in order to turn him into a ghost. We experiemented with these shots, doing handheld shots, ones from behind, infront and also from the side so that when we edit, we have a lot to work from.
When we do the four way split screen we plan on having one of the quarters of the screen to be a shot of Matt walking down the stairs with the others being close ups of instruments but we managed to get shots of Matt on the stairs from lots of different and interesting angles and thought that maybe we could have alternate angles of Matt walking down the stairs appearing in time with the beat to the song and following the close ups of the instruments could replace these shots.
We were going to do the fridge shots today, with the head inside the cardboard box but we painted it and left it for a few hours to dry but unfortunately it didn't dry in time so we're going to do that another time.

Costume

We are all going to wear the same costume throughout shooting as we want continuity. Also, Alex and Annaliese and Matt will wear the same costume as we want the audience to be able to connect our masked characters to the band members at the end of the video.

As the band, we will wear clothes that are similar to that of the target audience which can be categorised as 'indie'.

These are the possible costume choices for Alex:

 

This is the possible costume for Annaliese: a plain white shirt with an indie bow-tie, a moleskin skirt along with black brogues.

Matt will wear a checked shirt with the top button done up and some rolled up skinny jeans.

Running Shot Idea

When he is running and the camera is always on his face, it shows the running motion and the facial expressions. This camera angle and shot we feel would make our music video more exciting when the lead character is running away from the "hauntings". We have tested this out and we found a way that we can achieve this shot. I will have to hold the tripod close to my waist with the camera on the tripod focused on my face, and i have to run away steadily looking scared. We are going to try and put this in our video after the skatepark shots. It is very effective as it gives the audience a claustrophobic out of control feel. The audience are confused and slightly disorientated as all you can see is the face and movement.

Fish and chips and vinegar!

At the beginning of our music video we plan to have a 4 way split screen of the instruments building up during the introduction to the song. We decided to attempt something similar by recreating a 'Fish and Chips and Vinegar' song that we found on YouTube. We decided to try this out as it's something we definitely want to do but we think it could also be the most challenging part of the music video. As you can see it isn't perfect, the lip synching isn't great and there are lots of timing issues with parts of the split screen disappearing at times but we think with a bit more time with the editing, we could tighten it up and make it perfect.

Fridge idea

We decided that instead of green screening which can look amateur and is quite time-consuming and complex, we would re-create the inside of a fridge for the 'masked head in fridge' scene. We researched how we could achieve this and found this link:

http://www.coolest-homemade-costumes.com/coolest-frozen-head-in-fridge-costume-1.html

Taking reference from this, we plan on getting a cardboard box and spray painting it. To look as realistic as possible, we researched fridges to make sure that ours looked as real as possible:

In this case, we will need to make sure we have:

-a cardboard box

-an orange juice carton

-empty egg carton

-empty butter container

-white paint/spray paint

-a lamp