Location: Bigg’s House!
Today we only focused on a very short section of our video; in fact it will only make up about 3-5 seconds of our production.
We referred to these shots as the ‘flashback shots’, whereby they will be used in the very beginning of our video. They featured shots of us four girls (Sophie, Jodie, Charlotte and myself) in various scenarios with our friend Joe, who plays the lying boyfriend who you see has played off five girls at the same time.
The first shot we did was the ring shot; this is where Sophie and Joe sat on the sofa of what was meant to be Sophie’s home, and Joe presents her with a ring. For this shot we used a simple medium close up of the sofa and the two actors on it. It was positioned nicely, and the framing was just right. Sophie had a cup of tea in her hand as a prop, which we felt made it seem like a very homely shot (as we wanted it to be portrayed as an ordinary couple relaxing in their house). As it was somewhat awkward at first, we decided that we would add speech to the shots. This speech will not be heard on the actual video, but it adds a realistic element to the video as nobody would just sit there in silence.
The next shot we filmed was mine and Joe’s in the kitchen; this is where the two are drinking a glass of wine together like a couple would. The shot here is a medium close up, as we wanted to emphasize the body language of the company. As the kitchen was a small area, it enabled us to include a lot of it in it which made the framing but easy and effective. We placed the bottle of wine in the middle of us on the oven that was behind, just to show what it was that we were drinking.
Our third shot was the bedroom shot, where Jodie is doing her hair in the mirror and Joe approaches her from behind to give her a hug. At first we tried Jodie perching on the end of the bed looking in a small mirror, but then we realised it would be an awkward looking shot with the bed being in the way. Instead, we decided that we would use the camera as the mirror, and have Jodie looking into it doing her hair. This was a medium close up again, and Joe approached her from behind. This shot was hard to frame because of the height difference, but in the end it came out alright.
The last shot was the kissing shot. We returned to the living room for this as the lighting was really good, and we could use the white wall as a neutral background. We tried to make this shot a close up, so we could emphasize that Joe was a bad cheat. This was difficult to frame because of height differences again so we managed to somewhat choreograph the kiss so that they step into it and Charlotte raises herself on to her tip toes.What worked well about today’s filming is that we managed to get four effective shots out of one relatively small location. They are going to be extremely short in length but we managed to obtain enough shots to get a variety so we have much more to pick from.
As you can see, they are a very feminine group. They wear evening dresses and high heels to achieve a sexy yet tasteful look for both their male and female fan base.
Their album covers are very colourful, and often very fun and playful. We need to take this into account when doing our ancilliary tasks, as it is the same sort of image we are trying to portray (just in a more mature sense).
We had all previously agreed that we were going to bring various props to the scene, these included things such as umbrellas, rings and hoody’s.
Throughout the duration of the day, we filmed chorus shots. Each girl filmed themselves separately singing the chorus (as previously mentioned) but we also decided to film group shots of us performing it all together. Firstly, we used the tree that I used for my verse shots, as it was big enough for us all to position ourselves on it. We had to film this shot around 3 times due to us making mistakes with the lyrics (and Jodie falling off the branch half way through one take). This shot worked well as it is really nicely framed; I feel that we used the space well. The only downside about it was the fact that it couldn’t be a close up shot, purely because we wouldn’t fit all of us in the shot. This therefore meant it was up to us to be extra ‘performance’ into our lip synching as you are unable to see our mouths all that clearly from the distance of the camera. We then filmed a walking scene in a very enclosed part of the forest. This shot was particularly good in my opinion because it was a very pretty part of the forest; it had tall trees with fallen leaves and gave it a real autumnal feel. It took us a fair while to film this scene properly as we had trouble with our positioning, we seemed to keep missing someone out of the shot with each take we did. Eventually, we managed to position it just right and filmed us walking towards the camera singing the chorus; we had placed a log as a point of reference for us all to stop there and continue singing on the spot. This worked well and we thought fit the criteria of things you would tend to see in a music video of a girl group. Finally, we decided we could add a bit of minor choreography to the film. This was a last minute decision, as we initially ruled this out as an option because we felt uncomfortable with the idea. However, we talked about and decided we didn’t have to do any difficult or technical dance moves, just movements. So, we quickly put a short routine together for the chorus, and we managed (after around 3 takes) to film it to a decent standard. We are still undecided whether or not to use it in our final cut, but we thought we’d allow ourselves the option as we identified this as an important part of a girl group music video in our pitch.