The day after finishing our rough cut, me and my partners James and Josh showed it to our peers in order to gain feedback on the video.
Below you can see all of the feedback we received, along with the video.
We received both positive and negative feedback with the main points raised being that the editing and use of the CCTV effect is good, and that one of our actors laughs near the end and the chase scene is slightly too long.
Tuesday, 18 December 2012
Music Video Rough Cut - Group
This is the first rough cut of our music video. As you can see, we managed to film in almost all of the locations that we had planned to, and even though some improvements needed to be made, I feel that this rough cut along with feedback from my peers will enable me and my partners to make the final cut as good as possible.
Saturday, 15 December 2012
Madeon Live @ Electric Ballroom - Group
On Thursday 13th December, James, Josh and I went to see Madeon perform at the Electric Ballroom in Camden for part of his European tour.
We thought that it would be good to see what he was like as an artist and the way that he performs his set, the types of lighting he uses, and the way the crowd reacts to some of his most well-known songs.
Clearly we were most interested in seeing how he performed 'Finale', the track we are doing for our music video, and the way the crowd reacted to it. As it came on the crowd's enthusiasm reached a new height and people started getting more into the music. Clearly a fan favourite. There was a lot of adrenaline and the fast paced beat of the music and crown reaction clearly would go hand in hand with the chase scene idea of our music video.
We left at the end of the night with an even clearer idea of the target audience of our music video, and are now very confident that our choice of narrative story to go with the music video was the right one.
Friday, 14 December 2012
CCTV Video Feed Construction - Luke/James
A major part of our music video is the scene filmed in the CCTV office. You will notice the effect which is projected onto the large screen in front of the masked men. This needed to be completely constructed from scratch as it needed to feature our actor.
The first thing we did was set a 30 second loop as to ensure the video would not continue on and therefore become out of sync, we obviously did this for all 4 separate screens as to ensure that when the video was looped, a single feed would not interrupt the events which are occurring in another.
The second change was to add the black and white overlay which is a staple of CCTV feeds. This was simply done by saturating the video clip. Above you can see the settings we selected for making the flicker which gives the CCTV feed a realistic look, as if it is feeding through live, something we wanted to portray. We selected a cloud overlay and then stretched the layer, as seen in scale. We also reduce the opacity as to not cover the entire video with this effect and set it to rumble, to look like interference.
After doing this we wanted to insert timecodes into all the clips. These were seen in our CCTV research and as well as being common place on all CCTV cameras, look really effective and slick! We set all the settings and added the black box and white text and moved it into the bottom corner.
It was much the same process when making the camera name banners. We set 4 boxes with the camera names in it (Cam1-4) and set white text in a black box. We anchored this to the top corners of the feeds and this only helped the realism of the CCTV feeds.
The final and clever idea we had was to elongate the clips when Dan is in another frame…..ok basically I mean that when he moves from one frame to the other, with the original on loop, it would look like he was in 2 places at once. To solve this I cut the end section off of the original clip and looped it to look like it was live but in fact wasn’t, a clever idea to stop this problem, this can be seen above.
And above you can see our final effect on a sample clip. This allowed us to produce the 4 feed effect by merging all 4 of the finished edited feeds together. The final effect can be seen below.
The first step was to film the shots, this was our on second day of filming. I did this from the stereotypical places you would expect CCTV cameras to be positioned. The next step was to make the overlay which would give it the CCTV effect. The only program which would give us a good enough effect was adobe after effects, specifically CS4. Below gives you an in depth look as to how we made it on this software.
The first thing we did was set a 30 second loop as to ensure the video would not continue on and therefore become out of sync, we obviously did this for all 4 separate screens as to ensure that when the video was looped, a single feed would not interrupt the events which are occurring in another.
The second change was to add the black and white overlay which is a staple of CCTV feeds. This was simply done by saturating the video clip. Above you can see the settings we selected for making the flicker which gives the CCTV feed a realistic look, as if it is feeding through live, something we wanted to portray. We selected a cloud overlay and then stretched the layer, as seen in scale. We also reduce the opacity as to not cover the entire video with this effect and set it to rumble, to look like interference.
After doing this we wanted to insert timecodes into all the clips. These were seen in our CCTV research and as well as being common place on all CCTV cameras, look really effective and slick! We set all the settings and added the black box and white text and moved it into the bottom corner.
It was much the same process when making the camera name banners. We set 4 boxes with the camera names in it (Cam1-4) and set white text in a black box. We anchored this to the top corners of the feeds and this only helped the realism of the CCTV feeds.
The final and clever idea we had was to elongate the clips when Dan is in another frame…..ok basically I mean that when he moves from one frame to the other, with the original on loop, it would look like he was in 2 places at once. To solve this I cut the end section off of the original clip and looped it to look like it was live but in fact wasn’t, a clever idea to stop this problem, this can be seen above.
And above you can see our final effect on a sample clip. This allowed us to produce the 4 feed effect by merging all 4 of the finished edited feeds together. The final effect can be seen below.
Tuesday, 11 December 2012
Creating CCTV Footage - Luke
In the Prezi below you can see the research and different stages of construction of the CCTV Footage that we wanted to put into our music video.
Sunday, 9 December 2012
Filming Day 6 - Deluxe 142 and London - Luke
8/12/12
On Saturday we went to London to get the last shots needed for our rough cut. We visited my Dad's work, Deluxe 142, where we had booked out the private cinema screen. This is where we filmed our CCTV office shots. It took quite a long time to set everything up in the cinema room so it was a good thing that we got there quite early, allowing ourselves extra time if we needed it. After all of the equipment was set up and everybody knew what they were doing we started to film our first few shots. To start with we filmed a dolly shot from behind Josh and Phil sitting at the desk to give almost a point of view of what they were looking at. We then went on to film them sitting at the desk from a range of different positions and angles around the room to give ourselves lots of options when it come to editing our rough cut together.
After nearly 2 hours of filming at the cinema, the final shots were of Phil and Josh grabbing their jackets and running down the stairs out of the room as they leave to start chasing Dan. These were very important as they provide a clear link between the CCTV office and the chase scene.
After we finished in the CCTV office we went to look around London to see if there were any other locations that would be suitable for the chase scene, and places that could contain stunts and jumps.
The day before filming Josh started looking on the internet for different locations that would be suitable for stunts and jumps that him and Phil would be able to do.
He ended up finding a website called ParkourGenerations.com, which lists many different locations around the world that parkour and free running enthusiasts had found to be suitable for stunts and jumps. This was a great thing for us to find as it allowed us to look for various locations near to where we are filming that we could use for stunts. One of the best looking locations that was close to us was a small area on Whitchurch Road in Kensington that contained a high wall that Josh and Phil felt they would be able to run up and jump over.
View Larger Map
We Filmed many different shots at this location, and also tried many variations of the wall run/jump stunt. The best variation was one of Dan running along the level above while Josh and Phill are down below trying to catch up with him. Josh attempted to to rund across two walls and jump over and phil attempted the lower wall run and jump. This finished bit of filming looks very effective and I think it will work well in both the rough cut and final cut of our music video.
On Saturday we went to London to get the last shots needed for our rough cut. We visited my Dad's work, Deluxe 142, where we had booked out the private cinema screen. This is where we filmed our CCTV office shots. It took quite a long time to set everything up in the cinema room so it was a good thing that we got there quite early, allowing ourselves extra time if we needed it. After all of the equipment was set up and everybody knew what they were doing we started to film our first few shots. To start with we filmed a dolly shot from behind Josh and Phil sitting at the desk to give almost a point of view of what they were looking at. We then went on to film them sitting at the desk from a range of different positions and angles around the room to give ourselves lots of options when it come to editing our rough cut together.
After nearly 2 hours of filming at the cinema, the final shots were of Phil and Josh grabbing their jackets and running down the stairs out of the room as they leave to start chasing Dan. These were very important as they provide a clear link between the CCTV office and the chase scene.
After we finished in the CCTV office we went to look around London to see if there were any other locations that would be suitable for the chase scene, and places that could contain stunts and jumps.
The day before filming Josh started looking on the internet for different locations that would be suitable for stunts and jumps that him and Phil would be able to do.
He ended up finding a website called ParkourGenerations.com, which lists many different locations around the world that parkour and free running enthusiasts had found to be suitable for stunts and jumps. This was a great thing for us to find as it allowed us to look for various locations near to where we are filming that we could use for stunts. One of the best looking locations that was close to us was a small area on Whitchurch Road in Kensington that contained a high wall that Josh and Phil felt they would be able to run up and jump over.
View Larger Map
We Filmed many different shots at this location, and also tried many variations of the wall run/jump stunt. The best variation was one of Dan running along the level above while Josh and Phill are down below trying to catch up with him. Josh attempted to to rund across two walls and jump over and phil attempted the lower wall run and jump. This finished bit of filming looks very effective and I think it will work well in both the rough cut and final cut of our music video.
Thursday, 6 December 2012
Filming Day 5 - Dartford Car Park - Luke
5/12/12
In the initial stages of our planning we wanted to make sure that throughout the duration of the video, the music plays a key part in the editing of the video. This means that we wanted the pace and beat of the music to determine when there were cuts, how frequently, and what type of action was being on screen.
Near to the middle of the song there is a section where the music slows down to create a tense atmosphere, and after a lot of thought, Josh, James and I decided on adding a confrontation between Dan and the two masked characters. One idea that we had for the confrontation that we were forced to change was the idea of the two masked men carrying guns, and using them to act as something that would mix in well with the editing of the music. We thought that it would be a good idea to have the firing of the guns as the point where the music kicks back in and the chase scene starts back up, but after discussing this idea with our teacher we realised that it would be too much of a risk and we could end up in a lot of trouble if we were caught with imitation guns out in public. We therefore dropped the idea of the masked men physically carrying guns, but decided it might be better if there was a hint at the guns being there, with them looking down to get them out of their jackets just as Dan runs off.
The first shots that we filmed that day were of Dan running through the doors to the car park and a tracking shot showing him running over to hide behind one of the pillars. We then filmed a still hsot of him arriving at the pillar and an over the shoulder shot of him loking out to see if he had been followed.
An idea that we thought would create more tension within this part of the music video was that the two masked characters would come out of the lift together, walk slowly out next to each other, and then split off so that they covered both sides of the pillar, blocking Dan from escape, before they walk slowly towards him. We filmed these shots, and then filmed the shot where the two masked characters look down towards their guns, which would cue Dan attempting to escape.
The last shots that we filmed of the day were of Dan, Josh and Phil running down the slope as Dan attempted to escape. This turned out to be one of the hardest shots to film as even though we knew the slope was steep, and we had addressed it in our risk assessment, it turned out to be a lot steeper than we thought, and it was hard for the actors to run fast enough down it to look like it was a proper part of the chase, but slow enough to prevent themselves falling over. This then led to the shot of Dan running around the corner, and Josh and Phil jumping over the barrier out of shot.
Overall we were happy with what we had filmed, but today when importing the shots to the computers at school, we realised that we had some big problems. The first problem was that it is clearly visible that it is night outside the car park, and all of our other shots were filmed during the day, and the other was that I had somehow changed the white balance settings halfway through filming, changing the lighting from an effective blue/green tint to an orange glow.
We have now decided that we will need to re-film some of these shots with the lighting sorted if we want our video to look as professional as possible.
In the initial stages of our planning we wanted to make sure that throughout the duration of the video, the music plays a key part in the editing of the video. This means that we wanted the pace and beat of the music to determine when there were cuts, how frequently, and what type of action was being on screen.
Near to the middle of the song there is a section where the music slows down to create a tense atmosphere, and after a lot of thought, Josh, James and I decided on adding a confrontation between Dan and the two masked characters. One idea that we had for the confrontation that we were forced to change was the idea of the two masked men carrying guns, and using them to act as something that would mix in well with the editing of the music. We thought that it would be a good idea to have the firing of the guns as the point where the music kicks back in and the chase scene starts back up, but after discussing this idea with our teacher we realised that it would be too much of a risk and we could end up in a lot of trouble if we were caught with imitation guns out in public. We therefore dropped the idea of the masked men physically carrying guns, but decided it might be better if there was a hint at the guns being there, with them looking down to get them out of their jackets just as Dan runs off.
The first shots that we filmed that day were of Dan running through the doors to the car park and a tracking shot showing him running over to hide behind one of the pillars. We then filmed a still hsot of him arriving at the pillar and an over the shoulder shot of him loking out to see if he had been followed.
An idea that we thought would create more tension within this part of the music video was that the two masked characters would come out of the lift together, walk slowly out next to each other, and then split off so that they covered both sides of the pillar, blocking Dan from escape, before they walk slowly towards him. We filmed these shots, and then filmed the shot where the two masked characters look down towards their guns, which would cue Dan attempting to escape.
The last shots that we filmed of the day were of Dan, Josh and Phil running down the slope as Dan attempted to escape. This turned out to be one of the hardest shots to film as even though we knew the slope was steep, and we had addressed it in our risk assessment, it turned out to be a lot steeper than we thought, and it was hard for the actors to run fast enough down it to look like it was a proper part of the chase, but slow enough to prevent themselves falling over. This then led to the shot of Dan running around the corner, and Josh and Phil jumping over the barrier out of shot.
Overall we were happy with what we had filmed, but today when importing the shots to the computers at school, we realised that we had some big problems. The first problem was that it is clearly visible that it is night outside the car park, and all of our other shots were filmed during the day, and the other was that I had somehow changed the white balance settings halfway through filming, changing the lighting from an effective blue/green tint to an orange glow.We have now decided that we will need to re-film some of these shots with the lighting sorted if we want our video to look as professional as possible.
Tuesday, 4 December 2012
Filming Day 4 - Dartford - Luke
1/12/12
On the 1st December we went back into Dartford to film some more shots as we realised that we were quite light on footage of the chase scene in different locations and had to re-film some of the shots that we either missed out due to the camera battery running out or that we didn't get quite right on the first day of filming in Dartford, most importantly the panning shot of the actors running along the bank of the river.
The first shot that we wanted to re-film was of the shot of our actors running along the bank of the river. Instead of just re-filming the one shot we had of that location, we decided that we should film some more shots of this from different angles and positions along the river, from both the other side and the side that they were running on. Here you can see one of the different positions that we filmed this shot from.
The next shot that we didn't have time to film on the other day in Dartford was of our actors jumping over a fence and then running over a bridge. This shot would give the video a bit more urgency as it was a small enclosed space that they were running on and the jump adds an extra sense of danger. Filming the shot of our actors jumping over the fence turned out to be quite tricky as the thief (Dan) was quite slow to jump over, meaning that he would easily have been caught in real life. This meant that we had to find a new way of him getting over it a lot quicker. This turned out to be him almost climbing up onto it like stairs and then jumping off. Josh and Phil were both able to jump over the fence with ease but the problem with them was that the shot would take too long if both jumped over it individually. In order to make this shot work we had to risk them jumping into each other and get them to both jump at the same time. Below you can see some photos of us filming this part.
After the jump over the fence the camera pans around and follows them as they run onto the bridge. After filming them running over the bridge from this angle we realised that the shot was too long and that it was quite boring watching them run the whole way from one position. To fix this problem Me and James went over to the other side of the bridge to film them running across from a lower angle. This gave this section of the music video a quicker pace as the view of the actors from different positions makes it seem like a more frantic part of the chase.
After this we returned to another point further along the river to get a low angle shot of Dan being chased along the path by the masked characters. We were easily able to access the other side of the river, so James and I decided to go over and film a panning shot of them running along the path.
The final shot that we planned to take this day was in Temple Hill. However, as we arrived at the location we realised that it was not as suitable for our music video as we first thought, and seeing as it was getting dark and we already had plenty of footage, we decided to finish for the day.
On the 1st December we went back into Dartford to film some more shots as we realised that we were quite light on footage of the chase scene in different locations and had to re-film some of the shots that we either missed out due to the camera battery running out or that we didn't get quite right on the first day of filming in Dartford, most importantly the panning shot of the actors running along the bank of the river.
The first shot that we wanted to re-film was of the shot of our actors running along the bank of the river. Instead of just re-filming the one shot we had of that location, we decided that we should film some more shots of this from different angles and positions along the river, from both the other side and the side that they were running on. Here you can see one of the different positions that we filmed this shot from.
The next shot that we didn't have time to film on the other day in Dartford was of our actors jumping over a fence and then running over a bridge. This shot would give the video a bit more urgency as it was a small enclosed space that they were running on and the jump adds an extra sense of danger. Filming the shot of our actors jumping over the fence turned out to be quite tricky as the thief (Dan) was quite slow to jump over, meaning that he would easily have been caught in real life. This meant that we had to find a new way of him getting over it a lot quicker. This turned out to be him almost climbing up onto it like stairs and then jumping off. Josh and Phil were both able to jump over the fence with ease but the problem with them was that the shot would take too long if both jumped over it individually. In order to make this shot work we had to risk them jumping into each other and get them to both jump at the same time. Below you can see some photos of us filming this part.After the jump over the fence the camera pans around and follows them as they run onto the bridge. After filming them running over the bridge from this angle we realised that the shot was too long and that it was quite boring watching them run the whole way from one position. To fix this problem Me and James went over to the other side of the bridge to film them running across from a lower angle. This gave this section of the music video a quicker pace as the view of the actors from different positions makes it seem like a more frantic part of the chase.
After this we returned to another point further along the river to get a low angle shot of Dan being chased along the path by the masked characters. We were easily able to access the other side of the river, so James and I decided to go over and film a panning shot of them running along the path.
The final shot that we planned to take this day was in Temple Hill. However, as we arrived at the location we realised that it was not as suitable for our music video as we first thought, and seeing as it was getting dark and we already had plenty of footage, we decided to finish for the day.
Sunday, 2 December 2012
Filming Day 3 - London - Luke
On Friday 30th November we had a staff development day at school and decided that the day would be a good time to get some of the footage that we had planned to film in London. There was, however, a problem earlier in the week as one of our actors (Ryan) had suffered a stress fracture in his foot while doing judo and was unable to act in our video anymore. We needed someone of a similar build and height to Ryan to take his place in the video without it being too obvious that it was a different person. After a lot of thinking we decided that Josh would be the best person to take over from Ryan.
One small problem with this would be that there would be less of a chance for Josh to film and direct the video as a lot of his time will be spent acting. Josh did, however, feel that he could still give feedback on how each shot went as he would be getting a different point of view than me and James who were filming. A lot of the time Josh would come back to me and James after filming a shot to say that he wasn't happy with the shot as he had seen something that we hadn't noticed. This was one of the benefits of having him as an actor. Josh did in he end film and direct the shots that he wasn't acting in, including the shots of dan running on his own.
The area that we spent most of our time filming in was along Southbank and the Soho area.
The first shots that we took on the day were of our actors running down Southbank and jumping over the many obstacles in the skatepark. After having a few initial problems with keeping the camera steady while running, and after many different shots from different angles and positions, we eventually got the shots that we needed for our video. Below you can see the pictures of us filming and directing some of the shots here.
After successfully filming the shots in the skatepark we moved on to our next location, which was running alongside the River Thames down the Southbank and the small stunt/jump that we had planned. This shot was fairly simple to film, the only problem being the large amount of people walking by that were sometimes getting in the way of me with the camera, the actors when they were running, or generally getting in shot and looking into the camera (ruining the shot).
We proceeded to move on to other areas of Soho, which gave us an endless set of locations with the exact urban looking shots that we wanted for our video. One of the best locations that we found was an alleyway just off of Oxford street that would allow us to film the actors running in a tight space, creating a sense of panic and urgency, as one wrong move would mean that the thief would be caught.
Another location we knew of in Soho was Soho Square, a greener location which we thought would link in well with another shot that we had planned to film in our home town centre, Dartford. At this location we decided to try a different type of shot and started experimenting with different ways to get good feet shots with the camera still moving with the actors (a lot harder than it sounds). In the end we ended up putting the camera on my tripod, flipping the tripod upside down and running along holding the legs of the tripod with the camera only inches off of the ground. As this section was done we realised that we couldn't just have our actors running up to the building in the middle of Soho Square and then cut to them at another location as there would be no continuity. To make up for this we filmed them running around the building and along the path on the other side and towards the gate. This meant that they would be seen to be going on to another location, and it wouldn't look like they had just appeared there.
The last shot that we filmed on the day was of the actors running through Covent Garden and out through an alleyway. This location differed slightly from all of the others that we had filmed previously as there was a lot more members of the public in the area. This meant that we had to make sure that there was enough space for our actors to run through without being blocked off by anyone or knocking anyone over. We ended up getting over 7 shots at this location purely because of the large number of people and the fact that our actors kept running out of places to run into. In the picture on the right you can see Josh, Phil and Dan trying to navigate their way around the crowds of people as me and James filmed them.
One small problem with this would be that there would be less of a chance for Josh to film and direct the video as a lot of his time will be spent acting. Josh did, however, feel that he could still give feedback on how each shot went as he would be getting a different point of view than me and James who were filming. A lot of the time Josh would come back to me and James after filming a shot to say that he wasn't happy with the shot as he had seen something that we hadn't noticed. This was one of the benefits of having him as an actor. Josh did in he end film and direct the shots that he wasn't acting in, including the shots of dan running on his own.
The area that we spent most of our time filming in was along Southbank and the Soho area.
The first shots that we took on the day were of our actors running down Southbank and jumping over the many obstacles in the skatepark. After having a few initial problems with keeping the camera steady while running, and after many different shots from different angles and positions, we eventually got the shots that we needed for our video. Below you can see the pictures of us filming and directing some of the shots here.
After successfully filming the shots in the skatepark we moved on to our next location, which was running alongside the River Thames down the Southbank and the small stunt/jump that we had planned. This shot was fairly simple to film, the only problem being the large amount of people walking by that were sometimes getting in the way of me with the camera, the actors when they were running, or generally getting in shot and looking into the camera (ruining the shot).
Another location we knew of in Soho was Soho Square, a greener location which we thought would link in well with another shot that we had planned to film in our home town centre, Dartford. At this location we decided to try a different type of shot and started experimenting with different ways to get good feet shots with the camera still moving with the actors (a lot harder than it sounds). In the end we ended up putting the camera on my tripod, flipping the tripod upside down and running along holding the legs of the tripod with the camera only inches off of the ground. As this section was done we realised that we couldn't just have our actors running up to the building in the middle of Soho Square and then cut to them at another location as there would be no continuity. To make up for this we filmed them running around the building and along the path on the other side and towards the gate. This meant that they would be seen to be going on to another location, and it wouldn't look like they had just appeared there. The last shot that we filmed on the day was of the actors running through Covent Garden and out through an alleyway. This location differed slightly from all of the others that we had filmed previously as there was a lot more members of the public in the area. This meant that we had to make sure that there was enough space for our actors to run through without being blocked off by anyone or knocking anyone over. We ended up getting over 7 shots at this location purely because of the large number of people and the fact that our actors kept running out of places to run into. In the picture on the right you can see Josh, Phil and Dan trying to navigate their way around the crowds of people as me and James filmed them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)