Problems and Risks/ SHOOTING DAY 3

SHOOTING DAY 3: The Narrative


 

It’s safe to say that this day was the epitome of problems for the crew; out of the entire filming process this caused the most difficulty. Locations caused huge problems, ideally they should have been pre-booked but as we had such short notice of our latest cast member and we weren’t expecting this, the new addition to our cast could only make it on certain days and then, also due to our examinations in process it was difficult to arrange. After going to different café’s, KFC is what we had to settle for but fortunately that worked out well rather than looking tacky. Finding someone (decent enough) to match the good performance displayed by Erna was essential, but tough as it wasn’t really in our hands as it depended on whether someone would be willing to do it, but it was important for our narrative. The bedroom scene- initially what was decided on was that Erna would push the male lead off the bed, conversely Erna’s bed was too high as a result there was a risk of injury consequently for safety reasons it was decided against doing this, especially considering how difficult it was to find someone suitable for the role in the first place. The crew decided to experiment with a moving aerial shot which turned out pretty well and added variety to the shot types we used. As we were advised that during indoor filming, good lighting would be vital, lights were set up for the filming in spite of this some of the shots displayed a hint of artificial lighting effects which didn’t look at all right and in some of the shots the lighting shone too bright in Erna’s face, again which didn’t look appealing. Luckily these shots could be taken out of the video without causing much problem, therefore these weren’t used. We all like the little cheeky touch when Erna pops her number into the pocket of Luke’s friend and kisses him on the cheek, this helps put across the light hearted nature of the song and also displays her image as an artist as being fun, and cheeky. The bar scene was a big problem, none of the shots worked out, the lighting focus on Erna was terrible although the crew wasn’t aware of this at the time as on camera it looked perfectly fine. We also decided later that as the bar scene would be the main part of the beginning of the music video we need a way to really establish a narrative, which also represents Luke as the one who is wrong in the relationship and show him as not a very good boyfriend. Also this is important as not much was going on during this scene initially. Another spontaneous decision was to film an argument scene which could be used in between, this was shot in the car (kindly lent to us by Zainab who later on played the role of the ‘other girl’) and on the street. That was useful as helped establish the on-going arguments mentioned in the song and also show the progression of the relationship over time. Locations wise as we weren’t permitted to film in the gym we felt there was not entirely a need to shoot in a gym, and the bus stop was as convenient to get the friends involved, in the storyline.