Kingston University visit

On our trip to Kingston Uni, we were taken to the film production department to shoot a short clip of our coursework music video, with the assistance of two graduate film producers and creative art directors called Jack Needell and Will Hooper, who have worked on advertisement and some short films such as 'Don't hug me I'm scared', and a 'First Acts' short film, run by Channel 4. This can be seen on their websites: www.jackneedell.com and www.willhooper.co.uk

The shot we filmed was for the chorus (the second and last chorus) and the last two lines of "Baggy Trousers". To shoot this we were given a Cannon 5D camera connected to a screen so that we were allowed to see what was being filmed. Positioning people within the frame was made a lot easier as this screen had grids, so I could direct the 'band' to move around in the frame in order to make it look more neat and in order. Pegs were put down in front of Tom, Filip and Mark in order to make sure they didn't move too far from their points, as this may mean they get cut out of the shot.

For most of the shoot the band was dancing randomly, which fits with our Ska genre, whilst Tom was lip syncing to the music. He forgot some of the words so we may have to re shoot these after we've checked if this is noticeable. For one shot they choreographed a dance that they performed with a white, and then a black background, so we can edit these together to encorporate the black and white theme further. The costume worked well with the black and white theme, however we only brought two pairs of sunglasses which would've made the shot look untidy. Luckily someone else lent us a pair in order for it to look more symmetrical.

The camera had to be adjusted a few times to reduce the amount of head room that was shown in the shot. To stop Tom's glasses from showing the reflection of the camera and tripod in the close up of his face we had to get Mark and Filip to hold up a black sheet to stop this reflection. He also had to keep his head slightly tilted down to reduce the reflection of the studio lights in the shot too. These were all things that I did not consider before and are basic tips that could make our video slightly more professional. I will remember this in case we are faced with a similar issue in another shoot.

I filmed some close up's of each member of the band with the spare time we had so that we could alternate the shots when editing our video. This worked well as we got some interesting and unique shots that fit in with our genre, such as a zoom, which went in and out from the end of the trumpet while Mark was playing it, as well as a close up on his fingers as he played the instrument.