Construction Post 1: Week 1 Production

In week 1 of production, we conducted our main shoot. It was a long and tiring week of shooting but I expect that it would have paid off and I hope that we have plenty of good shots to choose from while editing.

Our main shoot schedule can be seen below. We have been filming our music video every day; the different colours represent a different set up (shown in the key at the bottom), yellow is for when we are not filming because nobody is available to film and the muted pink colour is for when we are not allowed to film (school is locked up at 17.45 on certain days).

Main shoot schedule

Below is a summary of what we completed during the main shoot. I have recorded the events over the period of this week. I have included anything that we have revised and what we have maintained from the test shoot, issues that we have overcome, and reflections on each setup.

Monday

Puppets

We scheduled puppets at the beginning of the week because we knew that it would take less time to film. We had set up the rope looped over the rigging on the Friday of the test shoot so that we did not need to waste time on the Monday morning.

Performance wise, Georgina did a better job of acting. This time, she moved only her jaw and not her face when she was singing and she tensed her arms more rather than letting it flop. She also changed her position to appear more "knock-kneed"

We made some changes following the test shoot. We changed the lighting from a dark grey to a brighter blue. We also set up floor lamps to eliminate the shadows on the back wall and doubled up the rope so that it stood out better.

This week = better lighting and thicker string

Makeup wise, I learnt from the test shoot use use more water with the white face paint so that it stuck to her face and did not leave streaks. I also chose to apply the lipstick onto her cheeks and sleeked her hair back with hairspray, giving her a more polished look.

Puppet makeup that I did on Georgina
(left) test shoot, (right) main shoot

This week, we wanted to experiment with more movement, including arcs, pans, tracks and crabs. The video below is from one of the dolly shots that I operated.

Movement using the dolly

Puppet reflections

Snow White

We were fairly happy with the shots from the puppet setup and continued to work hard on the Snow White. Some of the feedback from our teachers and target audience was that they particularly liked the zoom out shot that introduced Snow White's character so we made sure to include that in our main shoot.

What we want to recreate

I was happy with the makeup that I had done on Georgina for the test shoot so I decided to recreate the same style for this week's shoot. Last week, I took photos of Georgina's makeup and costume on my phone so that I could use them for reference when doing the makeup this week.

Photos I took of Georgina to recreate the look

Below are photos of the set from behind the scenes. In the photos, I am operating the camera and watching playback footage on the monitor with my group members.

Snow White reflections

Tuesday

1950s Housewife

On Tuesday morning, we got started on setting up for the 1950s housewife. This time we chose to turn the table cloth over to show off the Gingham pattern that we didn't use in the test week. I think that it looks much better as it is more conventional of the time period when I look at photos from that era.

Last week's floral table cloth and this week's gingham style table cloth

We had a lot of positive feedback from our teachers and our target audience regarding this setup. Our teachers liked the arm movement in the introduction shot and the "Fly solo" shot. Our target audience also identified this setup as the one that peaked their interest and the overall comment was that they could easily recognise the 1950s housewife reference.

Intertextual reference

I took the feedback from our test shoot on board and applied more hairspray so that her hair was in place. The setup ran relatively smoothly and we finished earlier than expected.

1950s Housewife reflections

Land Girls

When doing 1950s housewife, we had gotten 4 hours ahead of schedule so we decided to use that time to film some footage from the Land Girls setup.

Our land girls setup

I chose to adapt Georgina's makeup by applying more bronzer to her face as it would give her a more sun kissed look as if she had been out if the fields. We liked her costume from the test shoot so we kept it the same as the test shoot.

Test shoot/Main shoot. Makeup and lighting has vastly improved

We were more than happy with the green lighting from the test shoot. However, we lost the green lighting gels that were put over the Arri floor lamps. This was quickly rectified when I suggested using blue and yellow gels together. Although it created a deeper shade of green, I think that it worked better. Despite this little hiccup, we continued filming into the late evening.

Wednesday

Land Girls

We used the first 3 periods to finish Land Girls. We did long shots as well as movement on the dolly. This took less time than we had anticipated so we moved onto Doll's House in the afternoon.

Land Girl reflections

Doll's House

In the afternoon, we made a start on getting our dollhouse footage. The dollhouse setup was an essential part of our music video so it took up a lot of our time to film.

Doll's house setup

Performing with Gabriel as dolls

I changed my makeup style by applying less blush,
less eyeshadow and wearing the contact lenses

Thursday

The entire Thursday was dedicated to Doll's House. I personally found this a very tiring day as I was filming non-stop from 9 in the morning to 8 in the evening, with a few breaks in between. A problem that we faced was complete lack of internet in the Seward Studio. This meant that we could not play our song from Youtube and had to use a different remix from iTunes.

The Doll's House was important because it was the narrative and conceptual side of the music video. This setup was the main signifier of hyper reality and allowed us to defy the difference between reality and fiction.

Hyper reality using the doll's house

Doll's house reflections

Friday

The performance setup was a vital part of our music video. This was the singer performing as herself so we made sure to use Richard Dyer's Star theory in this setup. We got as many CUs as we could of Georgina to use as beauty shots so that we could reinforce her image as an artist.

I am very happy with the changes that I made to Georgina's makeup. By choosing to use a bright purple lip-stain rather than the dark purple (almost black) lipstick, she looks a lot better. I also applied foundation and powder to her face for the main shoot. I sprayed her hair with hairspray to keep it in place through the shoot.

Performance: test shoot and main shoot

Performance reflections

Saturday

We had set aside time to do pickups on Saturday. Having this opportunity was very useful to us because it enabled us to redo any scenes that we were not happy with. For example, we chose to redo a few Snow White scenes because the footage looked extremely red and dark. We also wanted to redo Housewife scenes with new props that included the Dole ketchup bottle and pancakes to flip.

Time lapse of the studio

Lighting demo with Gabriel

My personal contribution:
filming shots

In general, I think that our first week of construction was very successful. We worked hard to complete the shoot on time and even worked ahead of the schedule. This week was probably the most time consuming and tiring task of them all so I am glad that we have completed it.