Production: Part 2

Filming the performance scenes

When filming our performance scenes at Norden Farm, we already knew we would be very pressed for time. So, we made sure all of the children were there early, as well as being early ourselves so we could go in and set up as soon as possible. We also brought sweets with us and took regular breaks to make sure the kids didn't get tired. Luckily, were brought water halfway through filming because the kids got really hot dancing around under the lights for so long. 

We managed to get through a majority of our planned shots by filming two at a time; as we had two cameras. We also did close up shots of some of the instruments e.g. the base drum while the children were having a break, as we didn't need the children in these shots. We were very worried when filming that we would not end up with enough footage in the time that we had, as we would not be able to reshoot (getting this time to film was difficult enough) unlike with our narrative scenes which we could easily reshoot at any time. 

Production: Part 1

Shooting our narrative scenes

The shots which we shot in the bedroom were quite difficult to do. First of all we had to make sure that the room was well lit enough so that we could see, without over exposing the room, which was hard to do with the lights which we had. As well as this we struggled to show depth in our shots as they were close ups and mid shots of the girl laying in bed against a flat background (her bed). We also found that after shooting these shots, we did not have a very big variety of shots to use in our video so we decided to do a reshoot. 

When reshooting the narrative scenes, we decided to record the girl walking up her stairs and into her bedroom, also including shots of her picking up her head phones and plugging them into her phone. It was a lot easier to create depth in these shots as the girl was not just against a flat background unlike our original shots. We also then had a much better variety of shots to use when cutting back to the narrative during our music video.

Some of the shots we took after reshooting:

Pre-Production: Test Shots

Test shots on location

Norden Farm:

Pre-Production: Shooting Schedule

Our chosen date

The only date which our whole group would be able to do is Sunday 13th September at 12pm. However, due to another event being held at 1:30pm on our stage we would only be available to us for an hour and a half, meaning that we would be really pressed for time. We will be taking two cameras to the shoot so that for each run through of the song, we could film the children from two different set ups, in the hope that we may be able to get through all of the shots which we had planned in the shot amount of time. 

Pre-Production: Lighting and Colour Research

What colours and lighting would be most suitable for our shoot?

For our shots in the bedroom, we wanted to make sure it was bright but not too bright so that the room looked over exposed. We wanted to create the effect of there being a sort of night light on. This would mean having a small dim light on in shot as well as possibly another light on out of the frame, so that we were still able to see as the light from a small night light would not be enough. The colour scheme in the bedroom which we were going to film in made the room look quite warm. As it would be too difficult to remove a bit of this warmth when filming, we would be able to take some of the red out of the shots in post-production. 

When filming on stage, we know that there will be high quality lighting already available. On the day, we will also have someone there to help us with using the lights. As the stage room is quite dark with black curtains around the stage, we would need quite a lot of bright lighting to make sure we could see all of the performers as well as creating some depth. We also decided to possibly use coloured lighting, to remind the audience that what they are seeing is in a child's imagination.

Pre-Production: Actors Research

Finding actors to represent The Jacques

Finding actors to use to represent The Jacques was luckily fairly easy. We decided to use one of our friend's sister and her friends. Four of our three actors are girls, they would play the parts of the lead singer, the guitarist and the base guitarist and the drummer would be played by a boy. Despite the fact that the entire band is actually male, we didn't feel like using girls would be a problem as had already decided to use children so they we would not be able to easily find lookalikes anyway. Also, as our narrative is based off a child dreaming that they were in the band, using children who do not necessarily look similar to the band would make this day dream perhaps more accurate as we would be representing a fan of the band instead of the band themselves. 

Pre-Production: Costume Research

Planning costumes for our actors 

When planning what kinds of costumes to use, we decided to study what kinds of clothes other indie rock bands wear. Here are some of the outfits which we found particularly useful:



From these images, we decided that most indie rock bands wore clothes which were darker in colour and have more of a 'hipster' look. As we would be using kids for our music video, we decided that we would tell them to wear all dark clothes e.g. black skinny jeans/leggings, black boots and a grey jumper/top. By doing this our band which we would be creating would look more as though they were of the indie rock genre. 

We then looked at the sort of clothes that The Jacques would typically wear and found similar things:


The Jacques also wear a lot of darker and baggier clothing, which confirmed for us what we had planned for our dress code for the children, which we would use in our music video.