Locations

To begin with we decided to film at Carlton Road due to discovering that there was an abandoned college which overlooked the city creating a strong urban image. However after doing a shoot at this location we were disappointed since we believed that there was more graffiti and damage to the area, making the place link to other Indie music videos. A photo of this location is shown below:

Therefore after this shoot we decided to change location as it didn't meet the needs of the typical Indie Genre, so we decided to film at 'The Recording Studio' at Saint Annes where it has more graffiti and a more professional appearance for the artists.

The image above reveals how we have used a recording booth in order to create a professional image of the artists as well as keeping the urban feel as this is what attracts Ed Sheeran's audience since this location has graffiti walls which we used for our CD cover. 

This image above reveals the amount of graffiti which was available at Carlton Road, therefore the image below appears more striking and appealing to the audience due to the close up shot and the colourful background.

Here we decided to link the artists in the narrative which is an effect that Ed Sheeran uses in 'A Team' as in the photo above the actress playing the role of the prostitute walks back the artists as they have just left the recording studio after filming. Therefore by showing the recording studio sign it shows how they have just finished recording the song 'Little Lady' but it still creates the illusion of the narrative.

Last shoot - monday 16th january

On our last shoot  we went to carlton studios to get some footage of our actors Ashley and Jake in the studio booth. 

We had issues with the two cameras. Yasmins camera is better quality that the college camera, however when the rest of the actors are available to film Yasmin sometimes isn't. We decided to use both cameras and edit the film to make it look professional. 

Another issue we had is that we had to change our singer as he was unreliable and wouldn't turn up for shoots. Although this wasn't ideal we think now that it was the better thing to do as he is more confident than our last actor and is available when we need him. 

First actor Adam with rapper Ashley 

New actor Jake with rapper Ashley 

We worked through the  whole day so we could go to the studio and take shots then go to the house and do the final scene. This scene went really well and both of our actors 'Lexi' & 'Darnell' got into their roles and had a really convincing confrontation, however because the room was really small it was hard to get different angles and variety in shots.

However we still need to do another shoot, we need to go back to the hospital so we have continuity and all our scenes link together. We still need to finish off our final scene and do a lot more editing so we can see whether we need to include more filming or not and also whether we are going to use the black and white idea in some of our shots. We hope that using the black and white it will include some emotion like the Ateam Video uses and also help us to make the difference in the camera less obvious.

This is an example of the black and white effect to make the difference of the camera less obvious.

All in all we have done a lot of filming and hope to make it for our final deadline although we still have more work to do. 

Change in Ed Sheeran Actor

Our CD cover shows both the rapper and the artist together in front of a graffiti wall however due to the this actor being unavailable and unreliable we had to change the actor for filming as the deadline is close. Therefore we have chosen an actor who looks similar to the previous actor in order to make the change less noticeable. We keep the same clothing image - baseball cap, zip up hoodie and jeans, which Ed Sheeran usually wears creating a believable representative of the singer.

Next shoot

In our last shoot we hoped to film a lot of the material for our music video, however things didn't go as planned. 

We used a different camera in our first shoot so whilst editing you could see the difference and it looked unprofessional due to the different settings on the wide screen.
 As you can tell there is a difference in the quality and image size. Therefore we have decided to try and continue using the first camera if possible so we can maintain a professional music video.

However due the circumstances of not everybody being available to shoot at the same time we may need to use the college camera so that we can make progress towards our deadline.

Although we have had some difficulties in shooting and editing shot so far, its taught us that we ned to be consistent with our filming, we need to make sure that the next time we film we set our camera up properly and also find the right location in.

On our next shoot we need everybody to take part and attend the sessions so we can do as much as possible on one shoot. 

Different cameras

Today i had to figure out how to edit some of the clips so they would blend in with the previous ones as they were filmed using different cameras. The clips on the college cameras would play in wide screen, where as the clips filmed on the previous camera would play with a letter box effect.
So i had to go on the editing options in Imovie and apply the letterbox effect to the clips that didn't have them. In the end this worked effectively.

Before.

After. 

Shoot: Filming Narrative

For our performance we decided to use an urban environment in order to relate the surroundings to the lyrics. For our verse shoots we chose an area which we believe would be effective, however when looking back at our footage with Mel it is clear that the surroundings did not achieve that effect which we desired. As well Mel informed us that a wider variety of shots will be necessary in order to entertain the audience. The screen grab below highlights one of the typical shots that we used in our filming, which reveals how the distance between camera and actors was too great making the connection between audience and "artists" weak and boring. Therefore in our next shoot we have decided to use the graffiti location which we used for our CD cover, this creates a stronger image making the visuals have a larger impact on the audience. Also Mel told us that the rapper's costume should appear more dominant therefore, throughout the shoot his hood will be up portraying an urban image. 

Re filming

More filming was done on friday, how ever whilst reviewing the clips we decided along with Mel that our shots were not good enough and neither was our location, therefore we have decided to re film these scenes.

The reason our shots were not good enough was because they were to far away and they wouldn't of been able able to engage with our audience, so when we re film we shall include more close ups of our artists and other shot types included a variety of different camera angles. 

Furthermore the location we used was very dull and boring, therefore we have changed our location to CRS studio where the graffiti walls are much more vibrant and colourful which i believe will work much better in engaging our audience and making them want to watch more of our video. 

Finally the camera we used on this day was different to the camera we used on our first day of filming at the hospital, we've decided that we will use the first camera as it is HD ad provides us with clearer shots and emphasizes the colours in our scenes much more.