Alice's foundation production- key stages of production and evaluation: November 2009

The Shoot Day

In preparation of our shoot day on 19th November, we as a group were very well organised. We made a shooting schedule to enable that we got all the shots that we required from our storyboard and too so that we could organise which actors we needed so no-ones time was wasted just waiting around. Along with this shooting schedule we made a props and costume list to ensure we had all that we needed for the shoot. A week before our shoot we visited our school costume cupboard and got the costumes for our dancers, DJ and lead singer. However, we had to order the pink and silver makeup from the Internet. As our shooting date was so far in advance we had a lot of time to guarantee that all was prepared for, for the shoot day and that we had everything we needed. However, days before our shoot, some girls out of the six dancers dropped out and were unable to do the shoot, therefore in panic we had to find new girls who could learn the dance in time for the shoot. This was a major problem, however I believe that our new dancers worked really hard and danced really well!
Here is a photo of our dancers rehearsing prior to the shoot day and a group photo.

However, we knew that on the day of our shoot we wouldn’t have time to shoot all the footage we wanted, therefore decided to shoot the ‘wires’ a few days after our shoot. This allowed us to spend more time on preparation for our shoot and then time after the shoot to make the wire structure. The day before our shoot we were able to get into the studio to set up our set for the following day. This didn’t take too long because our set was quite limited and only comprised of a DJ set and the led lights in a black room. I think that the led lights worked effectively spelling out “DVNO” because it drew attention and through minimalist lighting created silhouettes and shadows for the dancers which worked successfully.

Here is a photo of the DJ set as a part of our props.

On the day because we underestimated the time it would take for our dancers to get into their costumes and for their pink paint makeup to be put on, we were a little behind our schedule. I feel that we could have limited the time it took for the dancers to get ready if we had practised the makeup on them before the shoot day. However, this didn’t put the schedule behind by very long. Prior to the shoot day, in the morning we wanted to shoot the DJ, Dan and Kaleem, the lead singer, whilst the dancers practised the dance in their costumes in to make sure that I was really together and no alterations needed to be made on the costumes. The shooting of Dan and Kaleem in the morning was really good and went to schedule, we were able to capture all the shots we wanted of them and used tracking shots of them which were not initially within the storyboard. After filming Dan and Kaleem, we filmed the dancers in wide shots, and mid shots using smoke and lights, which worked really well. However, by lunchtime, everyone was really hungry and we had to take a break, but deciding that after lunch we would return to the studio to capture a few more shots of the girls dancing, but this time with the DJ in the shots. This made us a little off-schedule and might make us run out of time for the filming in our second location later. However, this did not disadvantage us too much and filmed our outside shots first to ensure that it was still daylight. By filming the girls and the DJ in the morning and a little of the afternoon, it meant that they didn’t need to come to our second location with us. We knew that it would be long day and difficult to capture all the shots in this one day, but by sticking close to our schedule and only falling one or two hours behind schedule we were able to capture everything, and I’m really pleased with our footage.

Our storyboards are to an extent close to the shots we captured, however on the shoot day we were able to visualise shots better which worked more effectively. We took advantage of the use of tracking in the shots of Dan and Kaleem because it worked really well. On the day we decided to shoot more footage of our DJ and our Lead singer and the dancers so we gave ourselves more of a variety of shots to work with when editing. However, we did stick to the storyboard at our second location in our narrative element of our people getting ‘infected’ by the music, but looking back at the footage, I believe that when editing we will not stick to the storyboard, because in retrospect our performance element is so much stronger than the narrative, therefore use this more. I don’t think that this will affect us too much because we still have the three elements to our video, both the dancers and the performance element of the DJ and the lead singer, the wires and we will still use the gramophone shots because they worked well. However, I’m saying this in retrospect and before the editing process, so it’s not set in stone yet.

We used different technologies on the day of our shoot, obviously we used a camera to capture our footage but we also used, red head lights, smoke machine, tracking and led lights which spelt out “DVNO.” I feel that because there was not much to our set it has more of an impact and more focus to our performance. Through our limited use of lights, the red head lights created a mysterious atmosphere to our set, which we could only just see their features. This too with the use of a smoke machine through the dancing element furthermore created an atmosphere. Also on the day, we had to ensure that some of our footage of the girls dancing was digitised during lunch that so later in our second location, when two of our characters were sitting watching an imitation of what the music video would be. On the day of our shoot, we all to an extent shared the production roles. Each of us had a chance to be the director and have different visions of which shots to capture and how we wanted them to be set up. Again, each of us took it in turn to be on playback of the music and was in charge of the camera. On the day, I several times was taught how to do a focus pull, which was exciting in extending my camera technical skills.

Here is a photo of some of the equipment that we used on the day.

I am particularly pleased with our performance element, the DJ and the lead singer and the dancing element, because it looked as good if not better than I hoped it would and feel that this will be the strongest element to our music video. If we had a chance to re-shoot our video, I feel that we should have either spent more time on the narrative to perfect it, or forget about it completely and focus on the performance element, capturing more shots so we can cut between it, to make it even stronger. Also, I feel that our dancers, besides dropping out only a few days prior to our shoot, I believe that if we found more reliable dancers, they could have rehearsed more to the shoot, so that there would be no mistakes, however it’s inevitable there would be and I am really pleased with their performances.