Filming session - Whitescreen 7

In this filming session, I filmed hopefully the final white screen shots for a while except the odd one (but no more noteworthy work on it). Some shots done on Monday and Friday were not in focus, so those had to be re-done and after reviewing my anamatic I had missed out some shots that I hadn't even payed attention to. Therefore today I went through and fixed them up.

I'm pleased with the progress made on these, and hope that most of the footage is able to be used as final shots. However, the lipsyncing ones at the end (which I spoke) will have to be done as the mouth movement doesn't make the lip syncing clear. Therefore, when I reshoot I will have to exaggerate my mouth movements more.

Editing Progress 4

Editing now, I replaced some white screen footage and really took some time to go through if there were any issues with other footage. There was some, so I have noted down that I must fix these errors within the week. On the images, I had to scale them down as they were too large in the frame, but this was a quick fix. Here is what my timeline looks like now:



Because I have still not been able to have access to two of the locations, it still looks very empty. I am not very pleased with the progress made, and will be speeding up filming within the next two weeks to ensure that it is in a decent state. I am worried I am falling behind in term of the production of the music video, hence why I plan to be heavy on filming for the next two weeks whilst I still have an opportunity to catch up. 

Filming session - Whitescreen 5 & 6

Over Friday and Monday, I filmed some more white screen details, re-shooting some footage that needed to be redone. However, I'm still not done with the white screen footage, but I wish to be done with it this week.

I'm pleased with the footage shot, however what I shot on Monday could be better. This was mainly because I have nobody with me to check that it was in focus, which made it a struggle to film. The setup and acting is fine however, so it should be easy to finish all white screen footage this week. 

Review and week 6

Over last week, I re-shot much of the white screen takes, however I will have to re-shoot more of these this week due to small mistakes made. I hope to get most of the white screen shots corrected again, so I can make progress on the street shots instead. I will attempt to use the track, hopefully to make the moving shots easier on tarmac. Once this is all complied, I will edit early in the week starting the 5th, to hopefully move onto other shots, and more outside ones during the half term and beyond.

Because of this, most of my weekly schedule is filming. I will attempt to animate more, as the animation takes up a minute of my video and it would be very nice to get it done early. I feel that this is a realistic plan because of my motivation to get some sort of first draft out before the end of the half term.

Editing Progress 3

After two weeks of no editing, it was time to sit down and put in the clips that I had filmed over the past two weeks. The progress was not very harrowing, as most of it was just inserting clips that were behaving fine and may have just needed some slight slowing down. The only thing that was new to me in this program was that I had to stabilise a clip, which I had to find out how to do - once I knew it wasn't hard at all. However, stabilising couldn't even save this clip so I will have to reshoot. Below is how my timeline is looking now, which I think it looks pretty good:

At the end of the timeline, I have inserted blank scenes where the animation will overlay. Not much adjusting was needed to make them look ok, however I did have to brighten and contrast them.

Hopefully over the next week I will add more new content, to attempt to get the street and white screen shots near some sort of completion. 

Filming session - Whitescreen 3 & 4

As said in my weekly review, I wished to film more shots to replace some white screen shots. As some were outdated, I needed to add more and replace some, hopefully with some being final shots. Here are some examples of what was shot below:

However, whilst I was editing, I noticed a few issues:

The lights are protruding, so this may change my schedule for next week. I wish to actually shoot some more of the white screen shots, correcting this issue. As I do want it out of the way, I will attempt to do it early next week, Monday and Tuesday. In which case, I hope to get better and even some final shots.

However, the lighting was absolutely fine and I think otherwise the clips are of excellent quality. I cut the stalks off the feathers to allow them to spread better, which worked well.

Review and week 5

I have found last week to go ok - whilst most shots were not successful, I was able to gain experience that I can apply when I re-shoot the street shots again. However, this week I just wanted to focus on white screen shots as they were very outdated and needed reviving. 

This week, I wish to shoot more white screen shots, and edit this in. This weekend I also hope to finally get some animation done, to see how well it works within my music video. I feel that this will be much easier to get right first time, as it is completely within my own control. 

Filming session - Street 2

On the Friday, I filmed some more footage for the street shots, after the failed attempt earlier this week. Because of the cold weather, I didn't want to go far in case the weather became off-putting, making me put out similar results to Tuesday. Therefore, I changed the location to the school's car park. I believe a car park can still work because:

1) It is still technically a road in itself
2) Less disturbances, especially in a private parking area

I also didn't want to miss the opportunity because it was very bright outside. Below is an example of what was shot:

However, as it can be seen in the video, there were some difficulties. Whilst the lighting and some shots were perfect/usable, the one shot that we did which involved movement did not work very well. I believe this to be because of the tarmac on the ground not being completely smooth. There are however ways around this, so when these are re-shot we will be using a track instead of a dolly, to hopefully illicit the same movement I want without the need to stabilise the footage to the extremity I have had to.

Overall, this was a successful shoot as I can draw conclusions from it on what is best to do next.

Filming session - Street

This was the first attempt of shooting on location for the street shots. Whilst the location I had picked out worked well, the day and time didn't seem to work so well, hence why the shoot was cut early. The temperature and other activities around me prohibited me to do all I wanted to do.

We shot very early in the morning in January, which meant the temperature was at it's lowest. This seemed to be an issue, because I and the person who was helping me were struggling to focus. It was off putting and didn't allow me to work to my full potential.

We were also filming on the day that people are collecting bins, in which case we had to move for them because we were in the middle of the road. This made what we shot slightly rushed, and not what I wanted.

Also, the dolly that I had picked out was confusing, and I didn't know how to work it. This wasn't as big of an issue as I could still shoot the shots where the tripod didn't need to move, but it was quite an inconvenience.

An example of what we shot is down below. Because of all the factors above they are not the best, however I am glad we found out these problems early on. :

For future reference, I will ensure that I shoot closer to midday, on a day where I know there will be less inconveniences and use equipment that I know how to use effectively to maximise shoot time.

Review and Week 4

Last week went well according to plan. I did manage to film all the test shots of the street with the help of a few others controlling the dolly, which allowed me to get the workload done with time to spare.

I hope this week to at least get a first attempt of the street shots done, however this may not be possible due to the weather. I would like to work on my digipak and get started on animations at this time, but this may also not be possible due to other responsibilities. I hope to get some blogging done and at the least make some more of my blog posts more interesting.

Test shots - Street

During the last days of this week, I filmed some test shots for the street scene, which I should hopefully be filming soon. I thought this would be a good exercise for many reasons:

1) See what equipment I needed and if it was efficient enough for the real shoot
2) To test if the camera angles planned in the anamatic worked
3) See if it actually looked any good in sequence with my music video.

With these test shots, I needed a tripod, camera and a dolly. I used a wooden dolly (controlled by someone else), and it was the first time I had used one before. It made my movement feel very professional and I enjoyed using it. The tripod and camera are standard in many media products, and I knew that they would work well.

The camera angles planned in my anamatic did work, however they may be challenging to film. The tilt down action if planned effectively would work very well and add a nice element to my music video, however it could be tricky to pull off to a high enough standard. The other camera angles and shots worked well with minor adjustments which was pleasing.

As I'd already planned my anamatic, I did know they they would look ok just from the drawings alone. However, filming the test shots was still a good way to confirm this.



The street shots do not actually add that much footage, as seen below. Therefore, as it get closer to being completed, I may end up adding more street footage to give my music video more variation.

Editing progress 2

This time, I edited the old lipsync footage and put the new one in, which was a relatively easy process. I just had to line up the footage, speed/slow if necessary to fit the pace of the song, and brighten/contrast the clips. Doing this took me and hour, and it hasn't added anything to the timeline, so here it is in it's current state:

Here is also how my clip looks, with the brighten and contrast set to their current settings. I didn't want to look washed out and I still wanted the red lipstick to be vibrant, but I wanted to cancel out some of the discolouration in my face.

Overall, I'm happy with the new progress that has been made, however I feel I am lacking with actual footage to work with. I am shooting again within the week, doing test shots for the street scenes so when I actually come around to filming it I am able to get what I need done fast.

Filming session - Lipsync shooting 2

I wanted to re-shoot the lipsync footage as I knew it was unsatisfactory. I wasn't pleased with how it visually looked (lipstick was applied poorly and my skin was not good), however I expected these to be test shots, so I wasn't too concerned. Re-shooting this time was a lot harder as I was on my own, so knowing if my positioning was right was difficult. However, I did figure out a way to ensure I was in the right position, though it didn't work perfectly. The setup was extremely tight, as shown here:

Since the time of the initial recording, I had purchased more products to assist me with the clean look, and here are the products used below:

I recorded this footage 3 times to ensure a good recording. Unfortunately, the last two were spoiled by lipstick on my teeth and bad positioning, making the first recording the best one. I have uploaded it to YouTube on it's own:

I wanted to ensure I exaggerated my lip movements so it was clear when watching the full video. However, some mouth movements are very sharp, which make it appear jolted and wrong. There were also a few small details I missed (as the camera was zoomed in very far, it picked up on things I would have missed in a mirror), hence I feel it may have to be re-shot again. However, I'm not concerned about this as there is still plenty of time left. This only took me an hour to record, so it is easy to fit in with anything else on my schedule.