Last Monday, we had a three hour session in which we practised using some of the equipment that we are going to use when filming our final music video and the basics of how to edit a music video. We started by getting into 3 groups and one by one we would have a go at filming or performing on each set. The three sets involved:
• A few panels with neon lights in which we used a dolly on a track to achieve smooth tracking shots.
• A sofa which was placed in front of a green screen with which the camera was levelled with the eye
line of people seated on the sofa
line of people seated on the sofa
• A small 'apartment' set in which the camera was at eye line level of a standing performer.
Before beginning to film anything, we had to assign certain roles to people such as the director, cameraman, performer(s), floor manager and playback operator. The director would inform the performers and cameraman of what they wanted to achieve from each shot, the cameraman and performers would do so, the playback would play the song and the floor manager would ensure that every group was ready and initiate the filming. The playback would involve a timer that before each shot, each group would focus on before realigning and focusing our camera on the performers on the set that we were using. Before the song would start, we would hear a bass drum and then two beats from a snare drum and then the song would begin. The reason why focusing on the playback is important is because when it comes to editing all our footage, the timer would help us sync our footage to the song. On a set like the green screen, we couldn't focus on the playback because the camera was
facing the opposing direction so we couldn't use the visual cue. Instead, we would have to listen in for the bass and snare drums to sync the footage. This was quite tricky because hearing the snare and finding the exact moment to align the footage with was more complicated than we'd anticipated. The floor manager would have to ask every group if they were ready for another take and when they were they would call 'standby, roll camera, action' with all the groups responding where necessary.
My group started off on the set with the dolly where I started off as the cameraman. What I thought was the hardest thing about this set was trying to keep in time with the performer. If the were walking forwards or backwards, it would be hard to try and keep up with them because the person pushing the dolly wouldn't always be able to push fast or slow enough. Eventually we tried some shots where there were four people standing in a row with the camera tracking past them all. These were the shots that my group clearly got most comfortable with because, when getting back in the editing suit, we found an awful lot of them.
When going onto the set with the green screen and the sofa, we were a bit stuck on ideas, a lot of our shots were very similar simply having a few people sat on the sofa lip syncing. We kept trying to find more create and original ways to use the set such as having the performers sit upside-down on the sofa or have a load of people jump on the sofa all at once. This was probably the set that I felt most limited by however, there were a few decent shots that came from it.The final set that we went on was the 'apartment set'. This was the set where again I felt fairly limited however the performers would be far more creative than in the set with the green screen. The camera was at a height to match the eye line of the performers and was positioned quite far back so we were able to
have a lot of people in each shot.
When it came to editing, it was interesting to see how different the initial process is compared to editing a thriller. Instead of being able to simply place any shot into the timeline, we had to sync it up with the song and label every shot very specifically so that our rushes would be organised. I found the syncing quite tedious but I know that it's vital in order to make the dancing and lip syncing to correspond with the song. One thing that I found hard to keep track of was the continuity. Often there were shots that we thought would be really good to use at certain points in the song but unlike the openings, we had three different sets and often we would use one tracking shot and then cut into another but going in the other direction or with the performers doing different things. Continuity wise these cuts simply wouldn't look good so we would have to try out various shots before we were happy to move on. Another thing that I became more aware of was that when editing to a song, the cuts will look cleaner if you do coordinate them with the beats in the music. However, when doing this you have to be careful to not make the cuts too predictable because it can then become boring. 