Shoots

We have had a busy week of shooting and have had a grand total of three this week. We had one shoot at the tunnel in New Southgate on Tuesday, on at Grovelands Park on Thursday and one at Trent Park on Friday. We also met up to do some planning on Monday at Mia's house.

We managed to shoot the fire-spinning at Grovelands on Thursday, which went really well and looked cool on camera.

But we will probably have to reshoot a the tunnel due to lighting issues. This was mainly because we couldn't get hold of the paglights but we managed to get them to our shoot on Friday.

 Another problem was that we found it went dark really quickly so we will have to meet up earlier like we did on Friday for any reshoots.

Overall they were quite successful as we have footage we can use, especially from Trent Park, I think although we will find out how all the footage looks on Monday.

Problems problems problems

Holly and Laura haven't got back to me about the lights...

Mary says:

Okay, so I just checked and my medium blue jeans don't fit. I'm wearing my black ones, but I'll bring my light blue pair and my dark blue/painted ones as well, so we can decide which ones work best.

Selina, I should have enough white material, but I need somebody to bring scissors. =3

Please could you bring the blazer I was wearing before? Thanks. =3 I checked my dad's wardrobe and was rather disappointed that he had no pinstripes either. Honestly, these people. No sense of fashion. *shakes head*

Selina says [finally!]

HEY GUYS,

SORRY for missing out on the whole planny-ness...but I have read all the posts and am totally up-to-speed with it now!

MARY - I can bring the black blazer that you were wearing on Tues if you want [sorry, no pinstripes!]

Also, I'll have a look for white materialy stuff too...and bring all the usual stuffs we need

See y'all at half two [she says!]

-Selina-

Mia says:

I don't know, I think so, but I've asked Matt to bring one if he has one anyway. And yeah, blue jeans and Converse if poss.

Mary says:

Yep, sure.

What's happening in the way of costumes? Is Selina bringing blazers for all of us, or is Matt bringing his own? And all the masked people are meant to be in blue jeans and Converse so we match, right?

Mia says:

Ok yeah that's cool. Can you text Bhavika? I'm very low on credit...

Mary says:

The lake bit? Seems like it would be easiest to find. For me, anyway. I'd suggest the play area, but then we might get odd looks...haha.

Mia says:

Southgate Station... We're meeting at Grovelands right? Which bit?

Mary says:

Okay, I know the changeover to the 121. Any idea what stop I get off at?

Mia says:

Aagh, can't you remember how you got there last time? Buses that go to Southgate are I think 121, 125, 298, 299, 382, W6, and W9. Where are you travelling from? I'll work it out for you maybe?
Mia x

MASSIVE PROBLEM

The TFL journey planners I had have timed out...so I don't know where I'm going.

Anybody know which bus takes me roughly nearby? I can probably figure out the changeovers myself, so long as I know which bus I need to end up on.

Mary x

Bhavika agrees:

Yep okay half two.
I was going to say tell Matt to get there for three but he probably wouldn't be able to find us in the park forest.
Well anyway cya then
xx

Mia thinks:

Mary's onto a good thing with her post-titling. Also I dunno, maybe like half 2 might be better?

I'm gonna say yes it is and hope everyone agrees...
If not tough because I'm going to sleep now!

Bhavika xx

Mary says:

Okay, there should be enough material for that.

Also, is that an ~actual~ 3pm tomorrow? xD

For the shoot tomorrow, (presuming we're not doing the morning now) shall we say Grovelands park at 3.oo? Let me know if you want to meet earlier. As the sun sets at about 4.40 I thought this might be early enough.
Bhavika

Oh also we are definitely shooting on Friday anyway because that's when we're doing Trent Park (unless Trent Park is tomorrow in which case we're doing Grovelands on Friday) and we definitely need a different day to do it, considering how long different setups and transportation takes.
Mia xx

Ok well we can't really do tomorrow morning anyway unless we stop halfway through to get the paglights. I'm still up for it though if we need to. It's probably more likely to be misty tomorrow morning than Friday morning and we don't have smoke pellets, so... it all depends on whether that's an effect we actually want. I'd quite like it but it isn't vital and I'm sure we can improvise some other way.
Sunset tomorrow is at 16:38 so don't worry Mary, I don't think we'd be shooting that late. We need to actually have times down now though so we can let Matt know.
Also, the white material is because we want the masked figures to have bandage-like material raggedly tied around their wrists I believe.
Mia xx

If we're going to do tomorrow morning, I need to know by 11pm tonight, because I won't be staying up late. Tbh, I think we should shoot in the afternoon/evening tomorrow (please not TOO late; I didn't get home until gone 9pm on tuesday!) and then on Friday morning if we need to.

But I'd rather not shoot tomorrow morning, because my mum just told me they're coming back a day early, and I need to tidy the house up. *ahem* Which is obviously my own problem, and if we need to shoot tomorrow morning then I gladly will. Just saying.

That's good news about Matt!

I have some white material - what do we need it for again? There's not much - about four A4 sheets in size, but I'll bring it anyway.

Off to do my 'thang' now.
Mary x

So we have our third masked person!!

About the shoot on Thursday, if it is going to be cloudy, the lighting won’t be as good so we won’t have cool shadows and stuff from the trees. Maybe we shouldn’t do it in the morning tomorrow. Then we can decide whether or not to have a shoot in the afternoon depending on the weather. Also, we can make our own 'mist' if we need to. I don’t mind either way. If we decide to do it in the morning I will be there!

Bhavika xx

I bought some playing cards for tomorrow and Friday.
If anyone has white material that we can cut up to use as the bandagey things rather than gauze bandages, please bring it!
Mia xx

Shot list

Shot List
Do your thang, Mary!
Mia xx

GOOOOOD NEWS!

Matt got back to me! He says he should be able to make it, and has given me contact details - I'll email them on to all of you so we can add them to the call sheet. We just need to let him know what times we're shooting and where to go, and what to wear etc.
It might be quite misty tomorrow - http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/8 - it's supposed to be cloudy tomorrow, and sunny intervals on Friday.
Sunrise is at 06:49 tomorrow, and max temp. about 19°C. Sunrise is at 06:51 on Friday, and max temp. is 19°C again. So question is whether we want to film early in the morning or not. Thoughts?
Mia xx

The Shoot

So, we had our first proper shoot yesterday, in the tunnel location. It got pretty cold and there were some minor injuries, but other than that I think it went pretty well!
It took a while to get all the makeup done and prepare each setup, as well as for me to get into it properly (sorry guys!) so I think it was good we got there for 3.
In the end, we didn't do any shots of her actually smashing the mirror, mainly because we thought we'd be able to get the mirror out of the frame, but when we tried it broke a bit anyway. However, it looked good already broken, distorting the image a bit and adding to the confusion/lost thing; we'll see when it comes back to looking at the rushes properly.
We did shots of the girl both with normal makeup and with distressed makeup, lipsyncing through the whole song from different angles and movements etc. as we'd planned, as well as shots of the lead masked-figure walking down the tunnel and doing static poses in various places down the tunnel, so we can cut them together without showing her actually moving (or maybe with the moving bits sped up a bit?). Basically we have quite a lot of footage to experiment and play around with, so hopefully our shoots on Thursday and Friday will go just as well, if not better!

Smoke pellets

Selina - http://www.diytools.co.uk/diy/Main/sp-39-3399-18954-monument-1470f-smoke-pellets-pack-of-10.asp - there's the link to the website to get smoke pellets.
Mia xx

Can we have a typed up shot list, please?

If you could blog the shot list up quickly, Mia, I can input it into CeltX and have the final sheets done before today's meeting.

If you don't get this in time, don't worry - I'll take the shot list tonight and do it for tomorrow.

Mary

Group meeting at mine tomorrow...

Hey, you've been texted but just to let you know to come to mine at about 2PM tomorrow please! Bring anything we might need - I have the post it note storyboard and lyrics/shot list thing in case anyone's been worrying about that. See y'all there...
Mia xxx

Mary's Directions (Journey Planner)

>>Southgate (Grovelands) - 06:39
http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/user/XSLT_TRIP_REQUEST2?language=en&sessionID=JP10_2301386907&requestID=2&tripSelector7=1&itdLPxx_view=detail&tripSelection=on&command=nop&calculateDistance=1


>> Oakwood (Trent Park) - 06:34
http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/user/XSLT_TRIP_REQUEST2?language=en&sessionID=JP10_2301537438&requestID=1&tripSelector7=1&itdLPxx_view=detail&tripSelection=on&command=nop&calculateDistance=1

>> Mia's House
???

Shot List - TBC

Shot List
ELS blurry lights moving in dark
Light through the trees (LAs?)
Montage of shots of what’s going to happen
Girl waking up in tunnel -> blurry focus
Girl waking up in forest tunnel
Montagey sequence of masked figures without revealing them (hands, feet etc.)
Tree bench (brench!)
Masked figure in background (MS of girl)
CU of masked figure with Ace of Hearts
Matt fire-spinning (slo-mo?)
Lake shot
Mirror shot – touching with sparks
Cutting between both characters – their movements are mirrored
Drop mask
LA/camera on the floor --> mask on the floor, girl walks away

Shooting Dates

Monday - planning
Tuesday - location shoot - Southgate Tunnel

Thursday - location shoot - Grovelands Park
Friday - location shoot - Trent Park

Props List

Glitter confetti
Spare masks (decorated)
Playing cards
Broken glass
Mirrors
Still camera
Paglights (Selina collecting)

Mia
Silver dress
Converse (sz7)
Tights
Make-up (black eyeliner; mascara; eyeshadow - black, purple, grey; face-whitening stuff)

Selina
Suit jacket/blazer (loose)
Jeans (snug, m.blue)
Half-mask
Converse (sz5)
Make-up (bright red lipstick)

Mary
Suit jacket/blazer (loose)
Jeans (snug, m.blue)
Mask
Black Converse (sz8)

Matt
Suit jacket/blazer (loose)
Jeans (snug, m.blue)
Mask
Black Converse
Fire Sticks

Trent Park

I was just looking at the pics from Trent Park. They are seriously cool. The tall thin trees will make our video even creepier, especially if we film in the early morning or something when the shadows will be really cool. I like the shot of the sort of arching tree and I reckon we could use the path.

I don't think it would be weird to have a mix of footage from Grovelands Park and Trent Park, it will just add with the confusion.

Selina

Ooh I really like the tall straight trees... but I like the ones like in Grovelands too 'cause they have a bit more character... if you know what I mean... Would it be weird to have a mix?
I dunno, they look really good. Good ol' Jake :D And you of course for checking it out :)
I might form more of an opinion when I'm not quite so tired... this post is a wee bit redundant isn't it? Haha... The whole thing of the trees all looking so uniform could be quite good though, reflecting the masks and being lost and I don't think I actually know what I'm going on about atm BUT ANYWAY. GOOD WORK. :)
Mia xx

Trent Park

Being really bored at home, I decided to go to Trent Park to look at the foresty bit, as suggested by Jake Wynne. This is what I found:




I love the tall, straight trees; if we could shoot here early in the morning/just before sunset we'd probably get a really wicked, eerie look [I particularly like the lighting in the last pic]

There's quite a bit of woodland surrounding the trees, which we could use for the 'interaction' between the characters as well







Finally, I found an interesting little path, which I didn't follow all the way down 'cause it creeped me out a little, frankly.. But it's quite narrow, so we could have shots of the girl 'following' the masked figure down here or something along the lines of that..




Overall, I think the location has great potential for us to produce some fantastic shots in, and I think we should definitely consider using this place at some point in our vid to mix things up a little... What do y'all think?

-Selina-

Idea Development

Jake Wynne recently popped in to give our class some tips and advice so I have tried to summarise some of what he said to all the groups in general as well as to our group individually.

Our music video is more about the visual look and less about the editing.
Have to work hard to get the right mise-en-scene to create the right atmosphere.
Should film in the early morning, late afternoon to get the best lighting but not at midday.
Should probably have the main girl lip-synch the whole way through.
Should visit the location a few times before the main shoot to get an idea of how to best achieve our shots and get get shots from different angles etc

He also suggested we should consider not revealing the masked figures for a while, but obviously for not too long. The video should progress other wise it will just be boring.
We really like this idea and will probably use it in our video.

He suggested another possible location. The woodland bit of trent park as there are thinner trees there that create a spookier atmosphere. Something to look into!

New Treatment

Group TreatmentWe have done a treatment for our new chosen track, Eyes on Fire!

Click here to read our group treatment for the track 'Eyes On Fire' by Blue Foundation

Pre-Production Ideas - The Notebook

During our test shoot/actual shoot we experimented with colour and imagery. We used different coloured sweet wrappers to cover the camera lense. As you can see in the other post they created a really cool effect. This reminded us of the very beginning shots in the film 'The Notebook' which I have put on the blog. We can use these shots as inspiration particularly as we might use shots of the lake in Grovelands Park. These shots resemble some of the shots we took yesterday when using the orange wrapper.

Test Shoot 11/10/09

The group hard at work! Bhavika supervises while Mia applies make-up and Mary scouts the area for photos.

Experimentation with colour - done using Quality Street wrappers. The red was made by overlapping the purple and orange, which is why it's a little hazy.
Mary went a little crazy with some furry rainbow wool and a Christmas decoration, and jazzed up a nearby tree. The pink wrapper looks the best for this one...

Some more crazy coloured sweetie shots:

Selina also showed up on the shoot despite family commitments, so that was cool. =3 Overall, a good day's work - plenty of footage, lots of experimentation, and some new ideas!

Mia mentioned something about Alice in Wonderland, which I think we ought to talk about at our next group meeting - I think with the colours and costumes, we should really be focusing on making our video really surreal. =D

Music

I have a battery-powered CD player, with batteries, and the song on a CD.

Never fear!

Mia xx

Mia, Mary & Cam techniques

Okay, even though I'm not gonna be here for the shoot, I thought I'd put my two cents in [after all, I am in the group too!]

ABSOLUTELY AGREE with the both of you - couldn't have put it better myself! Loving the shots of the forests at dawn - def something I'm up for doing...even if it's just getting location shots without the characters [that way you'd stay nice and warm, Mia :)] Oh, yeah and I like the Ace of Hearts thing - I think if we could get a little bit of the good ol' intertextuality in it'll give us quite a bit to talk about come eval time.
Although I'm not entirely sure about shooting on the tube thing - it could go horribly wrong and detract from the whole 'otherworldly' stuff...

Really, the only one thing that rings a bit of an alarm bell in my head is the Alice-in-Wonderland-esque fast-motion background shot thing; I haven't the foggiest how we'd achieve that...BUT I DID FIND THIS:



Obviously we're not using the same post-production programme as the one in the video, but at least we can kind of get the gist of what to do to achieve a similar effect. There's also a lot of other weird effects on this channel, which you might wanna check out: http://www.youtube.com/user/CyberLinkChannel

I've also been looking into changing the frame rate, so as to get a slow-mo effect [I'm guessing it'll work for fast-motion too]. The internet's not being very helpful by suggesting that the frame rate on a digital camcorder cannot be changed [only the shutter speed can], however I did come across this little piece of info on Yahoo! Answers that says: "This effect is achieved by recording at (super) high speed and playing back at just 24 frames per second." I'm not really sure how useful that is [it seems pretty straightforward, really], but we can always ask Ryan :)

-Selina-

Mary

I'm right with ya :D

Love it. It's pretty much exactly what I was thinking. And that dress is actually AMAZING - there's no way we'd be able to get anything like that though. Saying that, I did find this website: http://www.styleshake.com/ where you can basically design your own dress, choosing the material, adding bits on, etc. which seems quite cool. I had a little play around with it though and I still don't think we could get quite what we want - I reckon we'd be better off going on a shop around. Also, we could ask in charity shops - they might have quite nice dresses that have got a bit tatty so they're not selling them, 'cause they'd just be throwing them away otherwise. But yeah.

These are the dresses that I have that I think are probably most suitable, unless you count my posh dresses, but I don't really want to wear them in a forest.... :

This white one's actually a little bit small for me, but I'll bring it anyway if you want...

The mist looks awesome, it must be said - but are those pics you found online? We might not be able to get that... PLUS it'd be FREEZING. I quite want it in colour... maybe some bits in black and white? But I think if we're going for the whole mystical thing we need colour so we can make it really ethereal. I like the sweet wrapper thing - and luckily I have looads of different coloured sweet wrappers :D knew they'd come in handy... [yay for those Quality Street!] It'll be different to doing it with a still camera though I think, but I reckon it definitely is something worth trying out.
Love the tunnel theme idea - could fit quite well with my extremely poorly explained thing I was talking about, dunno if you liked that or even knew what I was talking about to be honest.. but yeah, the thing with the locations in the background all rushing past as though she's fallen through them right at the beginning. Again, don't even know if it's possible with what we have, but something worth considering? With regards to shots, they don't have to be too tunnel-y, just that kind of theme of an enclosed long space...
I'm up for the tube thing, as long as we don't get arrested! And we film at a time when it's not so busy that we can't move and/or get our stuff stolen. I was thinking about a her-on-the-tube shot too; in my mind she's just sitting in the same position while everyone moves around her, and we'd then speed this up in post-production. That might be a bit overdone, but it's what I imagine, and with the weird masky people we'd have our own slant on it.
I think the last thing I wanted to say was that even though it's a lot more about the atmosphere than the lyrics, I think we need to have some kind of link to some of them, as they could be quite fitting with the theme anyay, and there are some really cool things we could do with some of them. With the lines shuffling the cards of your game and suddenly I will play my ace I can see something like either the girl or one of the masked people holding up an ace [of hearts?] to their face in a weird mysterious creepy way. Also, you know how I'm still holding on to the Alice in Wonderland theme... Queen of Hearts and all... Just general surrealism. :)
It's sort of linked anyway if she's following this other person, if you look at the song as being about some sort of addiction or dependence on someone/something which leads to your own destruction, which is one way of looking at it... Thoughts?
Mia xxx

Pre-shoot ideas/images

Okay, so the last test shoot didn't work out so great because we didn't have a clear idea of what we were doing. I think with our new idea, it's a lot more thematic. So I just wanted to run some images past you guys and check we're thinking along the same lines.

I really like the ghostly make-up here - sort of ethereal. I think it would be nice to build up the contrast between the lead female being only half there - like she's an echo or a memory or something - whereas the people in masks/fancy-dress would be larger than life, realer than real.

Also, I love this dress:

But I can see it being really expensive, not least because it would get muddy as the shoot went on. But it gives an idea of the sort of floaty feel that I was thinking of, just so that I know whether or not the rest of you guys were thinking along the same lines.

We were all talking about shooting in a forest, and there was talk of a smoke machine. If we can't get hold of one, we could always use morning mist to our advantage - I love walking in the early hours of the morning, so I'd be totally up for that, but I can understand if the rest of you aren't. But just look how atmospheric forests look in the early morning!

I love the idea of our video being in black-and-white, but some of these extreme contrast photos look really awesome. I was wondering if maybe we could incorporate something along these lines in our video - if you guys like it, that is. The middle photo of the above three is CGI, I think, but I just love the colour scheme.

THIS is an awesome photo that I found that I really want to experiment with. See how the right of it is really ethereal and in a cool colour? That's not post-production. That's a sweet wrapper put over the camera. I'd like to experiment with unusual production effects on the shoot, filming through different materials and suchlike.

We discussed other locations, but hadn't really decided for definite on anything. So here are some shots I'd really like to consider:

The lead female pressed up against the wall. I think this could work really well in the tunnel location that we've already used.

We've already talked about the tunnel shot, but what're your opinions on having it as a repeated theme within the video, having various shots framed so they look like tunnels? I like the idea, but I'm not sure how practical it would be - I mean, I'm straining to think of shots that could be tunnel-framed, tbh.

I want a bridge shot, preferably at night. There's something about the contrast between air and earth that's really highlighted by bridges, and especially in b&w, could look really good.

I quite like the idea of filming in a subway or tube station - obviously, we're not meant to, but I think if we can get away with it, it would be awesome. I'd really like a shot of narrow staircases (stations feel really claustrophobic, y'know?) and also one of the girl actually on the train - possibly seated right next to the circus freaks without realising?

We also need a stalker shot - tracking the girl from behind and also watching the masked people tracking her.

That's pretty much where my ideas are headed. Let me know if you're thinking along similar lines, or if we're on totally different tracks here, guys.

~Mary

Shoot

Our wonderfully atmospheric new track has been approved, and we're going to do some shooting this Sunday the 11th to try out our shot ideas and see how they look on camera - hopefully we'll get some footage we can use for the real thing too? We're treating it as a real shoot to make sure we really get some good work done as we have less time now. We're going to start off in Grovelands Park 'cause a lot of it's going to be in a forest-y location, and it's an amazing park. I think there might be some pictures from one of our recces...

To the group:
meet at Southgate Station at 3.00 pm - Southgate's on the Piccadilly Line, between Arnos Grove and Oakwood, apparently in Travelcard Zone 4 - dunno if that helps?
from there we'll go on to Grovelands Park - we'll be walking down but it's really close & downhill
make sure everyone brings their equipment!!

Mia xxx

NEW TRACK!!!

This is our possible new track! We need to write a treatment this week and prepare a whole new pitch hopefully by the end of this week so that we can present our ideas to our class and get feedback on whether this track would work better than 'Fences' by Paramore.

Basically our ideas for this track are far more abstract and would work with just one actor (probably Mia) and is therfore more practical than the 'Fences'. We decided 'Fences' would be problamatic as we weren't sure we could get enough actors for the band and our idea wasn't very clear as we had majorly overcomplicated it.

So hopefully this track will work. :)

Barnet Concil Enquiry

Hey guys, you know I e-mailed Barnet Council about that abandoned house? Well, they finally got back to me; I can't print screen it 'cause it's too blurry, so here's just a copy-and-pasted version:

Request Reference: 90027623

Dear Miss Mir,

Thank you for your e-mail.

I have checked the details of the property you have mentioned, this property is not council owned.

Before you are able to gain filming permission, you will need to know who owns the property and seek their approval. I have included the telephone number for Land Registry, who will be able to advise who owns the property.

Land Registry :01792 458877

To film within the borough, you will also need filming permission. I have included the telephone number for 'Reel Film' who provide filming permission.

0845 402 2998

We hope you find this information helpful and if we can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us or visit www.barnet.gov.uk for more information about Council services.

Yours sincerely

Helen Shodeke

Customer Services Officer

So yeah...it may be worth giving them both a call...or not!

-Selina-

The Test Shoot

A selection of pictures from the shoot

Well... our test shoot on Sunday proved to be a bit of a... "glorious failure" - probably without the glory! Although our location was amazing, it's the only location we have, with no luck for the second - no one got back to us about places we found, and we don't even really have just an empty room we could do up. The problem even bigger than that is that we still don't have a band; with me doing vocals & Selina on guitar, that still leaves three members in demand (two at a push) for rhythm guitar, bass, and drums. Seeing as we planned the video to be predominantly (almost completely) performance-based, this is a MASSIVE problem. No one really confirmed that they would do it, and we need people who are reliable and want to be in it. Who'da thunk it would be so difficult?!

On the plus-side, we all agreed the makeup and costume were awesome. But we seriously needed to rethink.

To those ends, we kind of decided on a TRACK CHANGE!!

Selina & I had both been talking about a song called Eyes on Fire, by Blue Foundation, and thought it was pretty good video-making material; at the end of our shoot we played it to Bhavika & Mary, who also liked it. The song and our ideas for it mean we can work with what we actually have, rather than being a little over-ambitious, so we're going to come up with another treatment, re-pitch, and keep our fingers crossed!

Mia

THINGS FOR TEST SHOOT!

IF ANYONE HAS A BATTERY-POWERED CD PLAYER/SPEAKERS, CAN THEY BRING THEM TO THE TEST SHOOT TODAY PLEASE?
Mia xxx

Locations & Test Shoot

We had another meeting, and today we went to see one of our locations - the tunnel on Oakleigh Road South, New Southgate - which we all agreed was gooood. We also decided to test shoot in it on Sunday at 2.00 pm, so we've booked out a camera, a paglight, a tripod and 2 of the boiler suits so we can see what they look like on.
See you there guys!
Mia