This is the email my team member Laura Pinkney wrote to send to our media studies teacher Mrs Allison to ask for a deadline on our first cut:
She hasn't replied yet as she is on holiday.
Plans for upcoming week (Monday 1st November)
Today didn't go as planned and we didn't manage to fully edit our first cut together as we thought we would have more time but it turned out we had to leave at 2.30 therefore we have been left with more things to do and finish then originally planned.
Here is a list of things we need to get completed for our rough cut:
- Complete the bridge section of the song, we also need to get feedback from others to figure out how to overcome the problems we had and the shots we didn't think worked. (This may mean we could have to re-shoot which we really don't want to so late in the process.)
- Add the sound effect of the heartbeat to the flashbacks.
- Edit together the last chorus (us lip-syncing and flashbacks of Emily packing her bags and leaving.)
A problem we may face is that a few things from our list will be very time consuming. For example editing the last chorus and completing the bridge will mean we will need at least another 2 hours editing time which we don't have before we need to present our first cut (Wednesday 3-11-10). The adding of the heartbeat sound effect wont take long and we will be able to quickly do this at the beginning of the lesson. We have emailed Mrs Allison to ask for an extended deadline (Friday 5-11-10) which would mean we could hopefully finish the first cut on the Wednesdays lesson. She has not replied yet and if she does say no, it wont be a major problem as we got a lot of editing done today. Although this will mean that we will probably get a lot of feedback and wont be able to get feedback for the last chorus as it will not be done.
Sound for flashbacks
We needed a sound effect to play over the top of our flashbacks (Joe & girls). Our teacher Mrs Allison thought she had one we could use but when we put it on our reel, it was too quiet and didn't work. So one of my team members Laura Pinkney did a google search of 'heartbeat sound effect' and she found this link:
From this she choose 2 sound effects she thought were the best and saved them to her desktop. Laura will put the sound effects on a memory stick and bring them to Wednesdays lesson where we will be able to decide which one works best and add it to our first cut.
Editing 27-10-10
Today Sophie, Laura and myself arrived at school around 10.30am to begin editing our remaining footage. We had until 2.30pm although we did think we would have more time than this!
What was achieved today:
- The first and second verse and the first and second chorus. We edited them to a standard we thought was good for our first cut, but we know that there are things that need adjusting/changing.
- We created a rough version of what we want for the anti-climax part of the song. This will most definitely be changed.
- We came up with a list of things that we need to do in terms of completing the first cut.
The first verse
There wasn't much to do for this chorus because in a previous editing session it had been nearly completed. The only thing left to do was add in a reaction shot of Joe before the chorus started. We pulled the footage onto the left-hand editing screen then pulled onto the editing reel what we wanted by pin-pointing the start of the reaction shot and the end. This makes editing a lot easier and quicker. We pulled the shot straight into the video as we had already prepared a space for it. We were trying to find a transition to put in between the reaction shot and start of the chorus so the first transition we tried was a zoom. This worked really well so we decided to keep it as it linked the story to us singing.
First Chorus
Our idea for the chorus was to have the editing quick paced and flow well. We thought a series of shorter shots would create this effect nicely. We made sure each girl was shown lip-syncing individually along with the 2 group performances.
Problems we faced - lip-syncing:
Editing this section was particularly time-consuming although it was relatively simple. It took a long time to cut the footage down and put it in the right places. A problem found was that we couldn't seem to go my lip-syncing right. Some of the lip-syncing looked right then the rest didn't, I think it was due to me lip-syncing too fast rather than the editing. We came up with the idea to reduce the speed only slightly to 97% and this worked as the lip-syncing then looked perfect.
Second verse
The flashbacks are introduced in the second verse which makes editing a lot harder and timely! We thought to make it easier, we should edit the verse together first using only the shots of us lip-syncing (without the flashbacks) then once that was done, decide where we wanted to flashbacks and simply place them where we want them.
How we inserted the flashbacks
We put the flashbacks in between Laura's 2 shots and Sophie's 2 shots to break them up a bit and make the verse look even without having shots longer than others. We had the flashbacks on the left-hand side screen so we could see them all. For the first flashback we choose the one where Emily pushes Joe as he tries to start an argument with her. We dragged this onto the reel then used the razor tool to cut it down. We dragged the black and white effect on top which automatically makes it black and white then after a lot of adjustments we positioned it in between Laura's shots. We then did the same for the next flashback which was the one where Joe is sitting on the floor, this was placed in between Sophie's 2 shots. The next one used was the one of Emily looking longingly out the window, this shot isn't particularly interesting so we didn't want to have it for too long therefore it is shorter than the others. At the end of the verse the words 'passion to hate' are sung dramatically so we decided to have a strong intimidating flashback to represent the words. We chose the one where Joe punch's part of the wall, it also finishes the verse off nicely.
This verse is very well edited as we really wanted each shot to change when the beat hits. By being this particular I think it has made the verse look very professional.
Second chorus
In the second chorus we decided to include the choreography scenes, flashbacks and each of the girls lip-syncing individually.
Because the beginning of the chorus starts with Joe still punching the wall (carried on for the second verse) it meant we had to use the razor tool to cut into the first bit of singing. This wasn't a problem as we easily able to put the shot of Sophie lip-syncing afterwards. Using the razor tool we then cut out sections in the chorus where we wanted the flashbacks to be - we decided on 3.
The first flashback we decided to use was the one of Emily sitting by the fireplace on the phone crying. This was an effective flashback as it is quite dramatic and comes onto screen as the the lyrics 'I get high when you're making me weak' are sung. For the next flashback section we decided to use the ariel shot of Emily and Joe fighting down below. This shot was very long so we thought that cutting into 3 sections and putting them together as jump cuts (we had used this technique through-out from the beginning) would look very effective. We also slowed them down to 50%. This sequence of shots are my favourite as they are interesting to watch and shows a passing off time making it seem like they have been arguing for a long time.
The anti-climax
This part of the song was very problematic for us in terms of what footage we have and editing it together! Here are the problems we faced:
- The main shot which we initially wanted to be continuous was not and had to be edited together - which longed the sequence out.
- A lot of the walking shots had no meaning and didn't represent anything. They were also not framed well and the lighting was poor.
- When we reversed played the copied sequence - it looked very slow even though we had sped it up. To correct it it needed to be sped up to 200% which meant it finished way too early and we had no other footage to use to finish the anti-climax part.
Time was up after editing for over 5 hours and the school was closing. This left us with a sticky situation but we decided to just leave it how it was and return editing it when term began next week.
Plan for half term!
Half term week is the week commencing the 25th October and me, Sophie and Laura have decided to come in on the Thursday (28-10-10) to edit as Charlotte will be on holiday.
Our main aim of the session will be to complete our first cut, although things might not go to plan on the day and we may not complete it. Here are a number of things we are aiming to get done by the end of the day:
- Make sure all the lip-syncing parts of the songs are on the right place on the editing reel, even though we might have to add more flashbacks of Emily and Joe in between at a later date.
- Have all the flashbacks cut down to the right lengths we need them, and have them edited to black and white.
Although this doesn't look like much, it will actually take a lot of time. We know this as it took us a whole 2 hour media lesson to edit together 30 seconds of footage.
Hopefully after the editing session we will have a clear idea of how our video will turn out. We will also discuss as a group if there are any more shots we need to obtain and if there is anything else we can do to our video to make it look more effective.
Editing 22-10-10
During today's lesson, Sophie, Laura and I decided to continue editing our footage.
We edited up the to first chorus which means we spent a lot of time editing the pre-music footage and flashbacks of Joe and the girls. We also cut down and selected the footage of Joe and Emily that we wanted to put into the first verse where Laura and Charlotte are performing.
Although most of our time was spent editing the pre-song footage we felt that the overall result was good! We did come across a few problems and difficulties, these were:
- The shots were too long. A lot of the shots of Emily were too lengthy and long.The tone of the song is slow and sad but we felt that this bit needed to be sharp and edgy to make it more dramatic.We got around this problem by using jump cuts instead of continuous shots. Normally we wouldn't use this type of editing but we found it looked more effective as it flowed and moved quicker. It doesn't look odd because they have been put together very well and makes her exit from the house more dramatic.
- Making good use of the 2 corresponding cameras. The footage we edited today was shot from two separate cameras, this was mainly done to make the shot-reverse-shot look smoother as we didn't need the actors to repeat their lines more than once. We at first found it hard to work with the two reels of footage on the editing line, but I suggested that instead we should drag the footage from camera 2 to the split screen and simply pull the footage down from there. This made editing the 2 cameras together much easier as it allowed us to work with camera 1 on the main line and just add the additional footage as and when we needed it.
3. Deciding the lengths of the flashbacks. In the first verse we decided to use the shots of Emily putting the case into her car and driving off. At first we were unsure whether to try a continuous flow like originally planned or stick to the jump cuts. After talking and thinking about it we felt that due to the fact we only wanted short shots it would look most effective to do the jump cuts. It took us a quite a while to edit the footage to the perfect length, we then asked our teacher once or twice on her opinion as to whether certain shots (the one of Emily from inside the car) was too long. She said she thought it was too long and we should go for the quick-cut editing therefore we adjusted it to shorter lengths.
Effects we used today:
Zoom: The transition from the reaction shot of Emily to the start of the song needed some sort of transition to link the 2 together better. We didn't really want to use white dip, black dip and cross dissolve as we already have them in our production. We looked through the effects list and decided to just try some random ones out. The first one we tried was zoom, we dragged it from the effects list to in between the middle of the 2 shots we wanted to link, we then dragged it in to reduce the length. The effect this gave us was then a quick zoom into Emily's face that then zoomed out to Charlotte's extreme close up. We luckily really liked this and decided it was a good way to establish the pre-song footage ending and the actual song starting.
Reduced speed: We wanted the emotion of the actors to come across strongly therefore we decided to reduce the speed on the close up reaction shot of Emily's face. There was only 1 decent shot of Emily and it was very short, so we tried reducing the speed to make it last longer and portray her sadness more effectively. We did this by right clicking the footage box and clicking the speed/duration option, we then reduced the speed number to 50%. This worked quite well, as it made the shot the length we wanted to it to be.
Increased speed:We decided to increase the speed of the shots of Emily reversing in her car and leaving the drive. We did this because we found that although we did reduce the shot lengths, the movement was still too slow for what we wanted. We tried increasing the first shot to 150% and the rest 125% and found this worked really well. It didn't look as if we had deliberately sped it up but looked as if Emily had reversed quickly.
Permission letter
We had to write a permission letter to the copywrite holder of the song 'Missing You' to ask for permission to use the song. Here is a copy of the letter that one of my team members, Laura Pinkney, wrote.
Dear Copyright Holder,
For our current A-Level Media Studies Advanced Portfolio we are producing our own music videos; this will consist of us performing the song, and editing it on a software programme that our school provides us with. As a group, we decided on a girl-group theme and the song we decided to chose was ‘Missing You’ (The Saturdays). We are writing to seek your permission to use this song in our video.
To briefly explain a little bit more about our production, we would be creating a video which is then supported with a digipak and a magazine advertisement. We hope to demonstrate our skills of storyboarding, camera-work and editing. Also, we would just like to make very clear that the use of this song is only for educational purposes, and would not be exploited in any other way (such as to a large audience or websites).
Throughout the whole process of this task, the artist that originally sung the track will be recognised and we would not try to pass off the product as our own in any way. Our examining body is OCR, and they will be more than happy to clarify that this is a legitimate educational task. If you would like to send us a copyright notice to feature in our coursework, we would happily oblige with your requirements; if this is the case, please send the information to the address listed above.
We’d like to thank you for taking the time to read this, and look forward to hearing from you.
Your Sincerely,
Laura Pinkney, Charlotte Andreas, Sophie Legge and Jodie Butcher.
For our current A-Level Media Studies Advanced Portfolio we are producing our own music videos; this will consist of us performing the song, and editing it on a software programme that our school provides us with. As a group, we decided on a girl-group theme and the song we decided to chose was ‘Missing You’ (The Saturdays). We are writing to seek your permission to use this song in our video.
To briefly explain a little bit more about our production, we would be creating a video which is then supported with a digipak and a magazine advertisement. We hope to demonstrate our skills of storyboarding, camera-work and editing. Also, we would just like to make very clear that the use of this song is only for educational purposes, and would not be exploited in any other way (such as to a large audience or websites).
Throughout the whole process of this task, the artist that originally sung the track will be recognised and we would not try to pass off the product as our own in any way. Our examining body is OCR, and they will be more than happy to clarify that this is a legitimate educational task. If you would like to send us a copyright notice to feature in our coursework, we would happily oblige with your requirements; if this is the case, please send the information to the address listed above.
We’d like to thank you for taking the time to read this, and look forward to hearing from you.
Your Sincerely,
Laura Pinkney, Charlotte Andreas, Sophie Legge and Jodie Butcher.
As of yet we have not recieved a reply and do not expect to. As we have not had any objections we have decided to continue using the song for our production.
Editing 20-10-10
Today as our group were all together ready to edit in our media lesson, we decided to reduce the amount of footage on our editing reel to make it much easier for us when it comes to cutting and editing everything together. We completed this task which means we can fully focus on a lengthy editing session on Friday (22-10-10).
We also captured the footage from the 2 cameras used on Monday (18-10-10). There was a lot of footage which meant it gave us time to analysis what we had filmed and see which shots looked best. This saved time as it meant we captured and decided what shots to use at the same time.
Our next editing session will take place on Friday (22-10-10) and during these 2 hours we will concentrate solely on editing our footage. As we want to have as much time to edit as possible to make it the best we can, we have booked one of the school computers on Wednesday and Thursday of half term to complete it if necessary as we need to meet our deadline for the 3rd November.
We also captured the footage from the 2 cameras used on Monday (18-10-10). There was a lot of footage which meant it gave us time to analysis what we had filmed and see which shots looked best. This saved time as it meant we captured and decided what shots to use at the same time.
Our next editing session will take place on Friday (22-10-10) and during these 2 hours we will concentrate solely on editing our footage. As we want to have as much time to edit as possible to make it the best we can, we have booked one of the school computers on Wednesday and Thursday of half term to complete it if necessary as we need to meet our deadline for the 3rd November.
Day 6 filming
The aim of the days filming session was to film all the flashbacks between Emily and Joe as well as the audio scene before the song starts. It took place on Monday 18th October at Sophie's house. I was not present for this shoot as I had other school commitments but the rest of my group were there and have given me a detailed account of what happened.
New techniques
As this is an advanced portfolio, the group were thinking of ways to demonstrate that we can work at a higher level than we did at AS. They came up with the idea of using 2 cameras; by doing this it meant they could film one scene from two angles, and then edit them together so the continuity will be perfect. They thought that this might be tricky to edit, but decided to give it a go.
It worked well, the only difficulty was positioning it so that the other camera was not in shot. It often took a while to make sure that the framing of both shots was correct, and that no other camera could be seen. We will not know how successfully this idea will be until we begin editing this particular section, but we are hoping that it will create a smooth look to the video which looks more professional rather than simply re-enacting the same scene twice but from different angles.
Flashback Shots
Here are some photographs of the flashback images filmed, they show the type of angles and locations that were chose for each particular shot.
Here are some photographs of the flashback images filmed, they show the type of angles and locations that were chose for each particular shot.
Most interesting/successful shot of the day:
One of the best shots took place when filming the flashback where Emily puts her suitcase in the car. Charlotte thought of it, and it consisted of filming Emily putting the suitcase into the car from the inside of it. To do this, the camera had to be unattached from the tripod and sit inside the car and hold the camera free hand. At first, it caused problems framing Emily in this shot, but after a few attempts a successful shot was obtained.
One of the best shots took place when filming the flashback where Emily puts her suitcase in the car. Charlotte thought of it, and it consisted of filming Emily putting the suitcase into the car from the inside of it. To do this, the camera had to be unattached from the tripod and sit inside the car and hold the camera free hand. At first, it caused problems framing Emily in this shot, but after a few attempts a successful shot was obtained.
How did the filming go overall?
Today the filming went okay. Lately the group have been feeling very time-pressured as we are all keen to make the first-cut deadline after half term; I do believe that we will achieve this. This does worry us somewhat as it makes us think that our shots may reflect how rushed we sometimes found ourselves, and today a lot of the shots were filmed free-hand purely because there wasn't enough time to constantly adjust the tri-pod as Joe needed to be somewhere at a certain time. Saying this, it did go well; most of the shots we wanted were maintained (plus a few more which were thought of during filming) and hopefully they will all be to a good a standard.
Today the filming went okay. Lately the group have been feeling very time-pressured as we are all keen to make the first-cut deadline after half term; I do believe that we will achieve this. This does worry us somewhat as it makes us think that our shots may reflect how rushed we sometimes found ourselves, and today a lot of the shots were filmed free-hand purely because there wasn't enough time to constantly adjust the tri-pod as Joe needed to be somewhere at a certain time. Saying this, it did go well; most of the shots we wanted were maintained (plus a few more which were thought of during filming) and hopefully they will all be to a good a standard.
Editing 14-10-10 and plans for upcoming week (Monday 18th October)
In today's 2 hour lesson we decided to spend the whole 2 hours editing more of our footage. We decided to continue editing the rest of the song onwards from the short flashback sequence which we completed last lesson.
What we edited.
What we did first was use the razor tool to cut out any footage from our editing reel that we knew we didn't want to use. We didn't cut too much out as we weren't sure of what footage we might need later on in the video. The next thing we did was try and fit the lyric images to the song. We dragged the song onto the audio line and looked for our first shot needed, which was the shot of Charlotte lip-syncing (extreme close up of her lips). We found the shot and used the razor tool to cut it down to the right size, then dragged it along the reel and positioned it to where the music first began. The shot is very effective in terms of lip-syncing and timing as it fits perfectly!
Then next thing we did was edit together the first verse which is predominantly Charlotte although we plan on featuring other members of the group in the section as well. First of all we focused on only putting Charlotte in the verse then later on adding other members. Towards the end of the verse Laura's lines appear therefore we had the shot of Laura facing her from the front for her first line then cut to a side view of her for her second line. We had a bit of a problem with continuity with cutting from these 2 shots, as in the first shot she is looking at the camera with her eyes open, then it cuts to the other shot of her from another angle with her eyes closed. This was obvious when we watched it back so we had to change it. It was easily done by shortening the length of the second shot and extending the length of the first shot.
Effects used:
Speed reduction:
We reduced the speed of the first nature shot that is seen before the singing starts, this reason for this was because we felt the spinning was too fast and gave a sense of urgency where-as when it was slowed down, it looked calmer and suited the slow speed of the song better. The way you change the speed of a shot (either by slowing down or speeding up) is by left clicking on the block of footage on the editing reel and selecting speed/duration from the drop down menu. This then opened a separate box where we could change the speed percentage to either lower or higher than 100%. We chose 50% and found it worked perfectly with the tone of the song.
Reverse play
We used reverse play in our second nature shot - although it is very unnoticeable. By watching it, it looks like it was filmed by us walking backwards. We found that this made the camera look as though it was backing away and trying to distance themselves from Sophie who is sitting on the path and then turning away from her. This shot is sort of like a point of view shot as you feel like you are doing the distancing yourself. Once again the reverse play was done by right clicking and selecting speed/duration, but instead of changing the speed, we clicked the reverse play box.
Cross dissolve
A few of our shots we wanted softened when they cut to another as we thought they looked too harsh otherwise. To make the transition from the nature shot to Charlotte lip-syncing look more smooth, we decided to add in a cross dissolve. This looked really effective as the scenery from both shots blend together and it looks very calm. By clicking on shot transitions which comes under the effects section, and dragging cross dissolve onto the block of footage we managed to create this effect.
Dip to black
Instead of using lots of cross dissolves to soften a lot of our transitions, we used dip to black instead. We placed it just after Charlotte had lip synced to the words ' I miss missing you' so it comes in just as she says the word 'you'. It is just another way of softening the transitions of the two shots except this works better because of the scenery. We dragged the dip to black effect in between the 2 shots on the timeline and changed the length by dragging either side closer to the other side.
Plans for upcoming week [Monday 18th October]
This is the last week before half term and therefore only have 4 hours of lesson time left as a group to edit together as Charlotte is going on holiday in half term. There are a number of tasks we would like to get complete this week before we break up and to help us keep to our schedule! Here is what we hope to achieve before half term:
What we edited.
What we did first was use the razor tool to cut out any footage from our editing reel that we knew we didn't want to use. We didn't cut too much out as we weren't sure of what footage we might need later on in the video. The next thing we did was try and fit the lyric images to the song. We dragged the song onto the audio line and looked for our first shot needed, which was the shot of Charlotte lip-syncing (extreme close up of her lips). We found the shot and used the razor tool to cut it down to the right size, then dragged it along the reel and positioned it to where the music first began. The shot is very effective in terms of lip-syncing and timing as it fits perfectly!
Then next thing we did was edit together the first verse which is predominantly Charlotte although we plan on featuring other members of the group in the section as well. First of all we focused on only putting Charlotte in the verse then later on adding other members. Towards the end of the verse Laura's lines appear therefore we had the shot of Laura facing her from the front for her first line then cut to a side view of her for her second line. We had a bit of a problem with continuity with cutting from these 2 shots, as in the first shot she is looking at the camera with her eyes open, then it cuts to the other shot of her from another angle with her eyes closed. This was obvious when we watched it back so we had to change it. It was easily done by shortening the length of the second shot and extending the length of the first shot.
Effects used:
Speed reduction:
We reduced the speed of the first nature shot that is seen before the singing starts, this reason for this was because we felt the spinning was too fast and gave a sense of urgency where-as when it was slowed down, it looked calmer and suited the slow speed of the song better. The way you change the speed of a shot (either by slowing down or speeding up) is by left clicking on the block of footage on the editing reel and selecting speed/duration from the drop down menu. This then opened a separate box where we could change the speed percentage to either lower or higher than 100%. We chose 50% and found it worked perfectly with the tone of the song.
Reverse play
We used reverse play in our second nature shot - although it is very unnoticeable. By watching it, it looks like it was filmed by us walking backwards. We found that this made the camera look as though it was backing away and trying to distance themselves from Sophie who is sitting on the path and then turning away from her. This shot is sort of like a point of view shot as you feel like you are doing the distancing yourself. Once again the reverse play was done by right clicking and selecting speed/duration, but instead of changing the speed, we clicked the reverse play box.
Cross dissolve
A few of our shots we wanted softened when they cut to another as we thought they looked too harsh otherwise. To make the transition from the nature shot to Charlotte lip-syncing look more smooth, we decided to add in a cross dissolve. This looked really effective as the scenery from both shots blend together and it looks very calm. By clicking on shot transitions which comes under the effects section, and dragging cross dissolve onto the block of footage we managed to create this effect.
Dip to black
Instead of using lots of cross dissolves to soften a lot of our transitions, we used dip to black instead. We placed it just after Charlotte had lip synced to the words ' I miss missing you' so it comes in just as she says the word 'you'. It is just another way of softening the transitions of the two shots except this works better because of the scenery. We dragged the dip to black effect in between the 2 shots on the timeline and changed the length by dragging either side closer to the other side.
Plans for upcoming week [Monday 18th October]
This is the last week before half term and therefore only have 4 hours of lesson time left as a group to edit together as Charlotte is going on holiday in half term. There are a number of tasks we would like to get complete this week before we break up and to help us keep to our schedule! Here is what we hope to achieve before half term:
- Complete all filming (flashbacks with Joe & Emily - scheduled for Monday 18th) so we can begin editing properly with all the material we need.
- Upload everything onto adobe premier.
- Ideally have the pre-music scene edited all together as well as the first verse and chorus.
- Keep up to date with blog entry's
- As a group, asses our footage and what we have done so far so we can make a decision as to whether we will need to film more shots or many any general changes to the video.
Script for pre-music acting scene
Establishing Shot of house (ambience sound)
2 seconds.
Extreme close up of Emilys hand opening the door handle.
Extreme close up of Emilys hand opening the door handle.
1 second.
Long Shot of her walking out with a suitcase and shutting the door.
Long Shot of her walking out with a suitcase and shutting the door.
2/3 seconds.
Long Shot (from switched angle) of her dragging suitcase down the path.
Long Shot (from switched angle) of her dragging suitcase down the path.
2 seconds.
Long Shot of Joe running out the house and up to Emily.
Long Shot of Joe running out the house and up to Emily.
2 seconds.
---------------------------------------------------------
Joe: Emily! Wait!
(He grabs her shoulder, she turns, shot-reverse-shot begins)
Emily: Get off me Joe, I'm leaving you!
(She pushes him off her and turns to walk, he rounds around in front of her and grabs her shoulders - all a full body shot sequence)
Joe: But I don't understand, what have I done?!
(Shot-reverse shot)
Emily: You know what you did!
(Flashback sequence of Joe cheating with four girls is shown, cuts back to full body shot of Emily and Joe looking at eachother, there is silence for 1 second, then a close up of Emilys face).
Emily: *sighs*
SONG STARTS.
Joe: Emily! Wait!
(He grabs her shoulder, she turns, shot-reverse-shot begins)
Emily: Get off me Joe, I'm leaving you!
(She pushes him off her and turns to walk, he rounds around in front of her and grabs her shoulders - all a full body shot sequence)
Joe: But I don't understand, what have I done?!
(Shot-reverse shot)
Emily: You know what you did!
(Flashback sequence of Joe cheating with four girls is shown, cuts back to full body shot of Emily and Joe looking at eachother, there is silence for 1 second, then a close up of Emilys face).
Emily: *sighs*
SONG STARTS.
Plans for flashback shots (Joe & Emily)
Here is a list of shots we need to film for the flashbacks between Emily and Joe. These shots may not work when filming and may need to be altered or changed to fit the situation. Extra shots may be added when we actually film the shots as we may think of a new idea or something will not work and therefore have to be replaced with another idea.
Shots we need before the music begins:
- Establishing shot of location and house
- Long shot of Emily and her suitcase leaving the house
- Close-up of the suitcase's wheels being dragged along the floor
- Shot of suitcase being dragged along the floor (without thought to angles or anything as it is purely for the sound)
- Long shot of Joe following Emily out the house
- Joe and Emily's conversation using shot-reverse-shot
- Close-up of Emily's face looking sad to be put after the quick flashbacks of each of the 'other girls' and Joe.
- Over the shoulder shot of Emily walking to the car.
- Close-up of Joe's face to show his reaction
- Tracking shot of Emily in her car driving away.
Flashbacks to be used during the song:
- Mirror shot of both Joe and Emily (as practised in the barn)
- Close-ups of Joe looking upset
- Close-ups of Emily looking upset
- Long shot of them in the same room with the focus on one of them and the other one looking blurry
- Full shot of both of them sitting at opposite ends of dining table
- High angle shot of Emily picking up Joe's phone to read his texts
- Medium close-up of them shouting in each others faces
- Long shot of Emily peering out the window looking sad as Joe does the Gardening
Extreme close-up of Emily's eyes crying- Long shot of Emily throwing a house-hold object at Joe from across the room
- Extreme close-up of Joe looking scary and intimidating into the camera while shouting at Emily
Towards the end of the song when the tempo picks up:
- Full shot of Emily packing her suitcase and getting ready to leave
- Close-up of her pulling clothes out of her draw
- Medium shot of her zipping up her suitcase
- Full shot of her front the front wheeling her case out the bedroom
- Same shot but from behind
- Low angle shot of her coming down the stairs with her case
- Long shot of her walking past Joe confidently and rejecting him
- Close-up of Joe's confused face by what has just happened
- Full Shot of him following her out the house from behind (both are in shot - this then links back to the beginning where she first walks out the house).
Plans for upcoming week (Monday 11th October)
This week me and my group have lots of things we need to accomplish!
- Upload my animatic onto my blog
- Plan a list of shots we need to get done when filming flashbacks with Joe & Emily
- Film the last of the flashbacks shots with Joe & Emily (which will hopefully take place on Wednesday)
- Upload and organise all material gathered so far onto school computer ready for editing! Look through with the rest of my group to see if any-thing hasn't worked, needs to be re-shot or can be added.
- Start researching ideas for ancillary tasks - the digi-pack and magazine advert.
Props!
Through-out our video we will be using various props to make our music video as interesting and visual as possible.
Epping Forest
Our main prop in Epping was nature. These pictures show the location we used, where we actually filmed and what we interacted with.
The reason we decided to include a lot of nature was because it made beautiful scenery instead of using a boring coloured wall or something unnatural. Nature is also prominent in The Saturdays video, here are some examples:
Flashbacks (Joe & Girls)
As these flashbacks are to be very short (2-3 seconds) we decided not to include too many props and keep it easy and simple. For the first shot we used a ring which Joe produced to Emily.
For the second shot our main props were 2 glasses of wine and a bottle of red wine.
For the last shot with Charlotte and Joe we decided we wouldnt use a prop as the main focus of the shot was the kiss between them.Flashbacks (Joe & Emily)
A suitcase for Emily.
A phone for Emily to pick up.
Dining room table.
Silver Corsa for Emily to drive away in.
Clothes for Emily to pack.
Update 08-10-10
We only have the flashbacks of Emily and Joe left to film. We are planning to film these shots sometime next week after school as we can't do it during school because it would be unfair on Emily to miss her lessons. Hopefully as soon as we have got these shots and uploaded them on the computer we can begin editing. Luckily as we managed to start filming as early as possible it means we are ahead of schedule which means we have a lot of time for editing and can experiment with different effects and techniques. It also means that when we are editing if we find we do not have enough shots, we can go out and film some more without it being a major problem.
Day 5 Filming
We arrived at Sophie's house on Friday 8th October to begin re-filming some individual and groups shots of the chorus.
The first shot we filmed was a shot of Laura's legs walking down some steps into the living room. For this shot we used a medium close up and had Laura walk into the shot rather than already being in the shot. This was one of our action shots done and it looked really good.
The next shots we decided to film were more action shot of our shoes on the stairs. We thought these shots were important as we wanted to draw attention to our different coloured shoes. The landing was the best place to shoot this as the background was plain and the lighting was good. I went first and we got my shot practically straight away, but we the others took a lot more time. Because we were moving into the camera shot instead of starting in it, it made it hard to get the whole of the shoe in the middle of the shot and in the right place. We decided that we should each move into the shot from different angles and place our feet in different positions. Laura went next and it took around 5 minutes to get her shot perfect. Here is how we filmed the shot and what is will look like:
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Charlotte went next and because of the awkward position her feet were in, it made it hard to get the shot perfect. Then we filmed Sophie and she got it right first shot. Hopefully when edited together these shots will flow well and look effective.
We then did more action shots of us walking around the house using various different props. Laura went first and she had to casually walk down the stairs looking natural. Then I had to walk out from behind a large wood beam and slowly move towards the camera. Once again these will all appear towards the end of the video. Charlotte went next and then Sophie where she was made to look like she was looking into a mirror doing her hair.
Next we decided to film more footage of us lip-syncing to the chorus individually around different parts of the house. Laura went first and we thought she should stand in front of the very large fireplace as the framing looked really good! There was also a large interesting candle holder with candles in it which we decided to put into the frame to make the shot more interesting. We tried her sitting down in front of the fire place first but decided her standing up would look better.
Sophie went next and we decided to have her sitting on the steps that Laura walked down earlier. We had a bit of trouble with the background of the shot and had to move a lot of objects and experiment with the camera positions and angles to the room didn't look too cluttered. Sophie's shot didn't take long at all to film as she got it right in the first take, then we moved the camera a bit closer and filmed her again.
Charlotte was next to shoot and once again we used a large wooden beam as a prop and had her standing next to it lip-syncing towards the camera. Charlotte is very comfortable at lip-syncing so her performance looks really effective. We only filmed this shot from the one long/medium shot because we felt this looked the best.
For the last individual shot we decided i should stand in front of the large double doors leading to the garden. First of all we tried having me inside the house with the garden behind me, but when we saw what it looked like it on the camera we had to change it as it was so bright outside, it made me look very dark.
So instead we switched it round and brought the camera outside and I stood in the doorway facing the garden with the living room behind me. The framing was also very good for this shot because the doorway was a perfect rectangle and the background looked modern.
The last shots of the day were random shots of us having a joke and acting casual mainly in the living room, these will be used at the end of the video as quick cuts. We also did group shots of us sitting together on the sofas acting naturally.
In conclusion this day was a success considering the set backs we have had so far when it comes to filming these shots! Hopefully we have enough shots - we got all the ones we planned but when editing together we may need more. Luckily now we have relocated to Sophie's house - getting more shots shouldn't be a problem.
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