23.1.11 - Filming Day

The arranged filming date was Sunday 23rd of January, confirmed by all cast and crew members beforehand; the times were arranged for convenience to the band members.

When we arrived the group that were filming before us were the only ones at school when we arrived and so there was a lot of waiting around at the start of the shoot. Later at around 1.30 the lead singer Kay Elkin arrived, with her son, and I notified her that she was the only one that has turned up yet.

It was beneficial that the other group had filmed first as the band equipment was already set up which saved us valuable time.

I tidied the stage whilst waiting for the band to arrive.

As mentioned in my researched into other band video's for set design ideas/ layouts; it became apparent that cables are not seen in the video. For example:

Foo Fighters - The Pretender, shows no power cables leading to the amps at all and simply have the guitars plugged into the amps.

The Killers - Somebody Told Me, no cables seen going from the guitar to the amp, or power cables.

Biffy Clyro - Bubbles, no cables despite the Extreme Long Shot showing many amps.

And so with this, I don't think my want for less cables on the stage was unprecedented.

I re-positioned the microphones into the triangle formation as they were previously set up for the other band.

I then asked Connor and Lloyd to remove all colour filters off the lights as we wanted only white lights, and they were the most qualified in light operation for the job.

Communication was hindered due to the band playing their songs at a loud volume whilst Max was trying to explain his plans and ideas to the singers; throughout the shoot I knew what I was supposed to be doing as Max had his storyboard and shot list to hand at all times and told me what shot he wanted me to do. I was also able to improvise with a few shots, with Max's approval as long as I didn't get in the way of any other camera shots he had set up.
We did eventually get the footage we needed and more, and it was arranged to do a photoshoot with the three singers after filming.
I feel the pictures are not of good quality,  as photography is a passion of mine and something I take very seriously, having my own web page to display my work, I believe I can do a lot better. I am disappointed in myself for not being able to show my creative abilities due not leaving enough time at the end of the filming.

Overall I feel that this is not one of my best media projects and I feel it could have been better, the band, the music and other details were not something I could be passionate about as it was something forced upon the group rather than having the ability and freedom to make the decisions ourselves.

Certain details such as clothing were an issue for me in my mind and in a way hindered the appearance of the video. For example, the dresses the girls chose could have been better and I think if I were to do the project again I would arrange to be given a budget by the band and buy the suitable outfits myself. Issues such as tucking in shirts and wearing plain black shoes instead of converse shoes also were not appropriate to genre conventions and could have been better etc.