Production Diary

08/03
I set up with my Canon 70D with a fig rig at home with the intention of filming a panning sunset from my the roof of my house. I was successful and managed to get 2 minutes of footage to edit down. In the end I chose 4 seconds of that footage to use as the opening shot.

09/03
Today I spent 2 hours filming around Ilkley Moor. I went up with the intention of getting footage that I can use as 'filler' footage because I had come to the conclusion that the shots I had already used were too long as the average length of the shots were around 6 seconds. I started at 'The Tarn' and shot close-up panning shots of the water ripples and natural imagery such as the ducks. As I walked round 'The Tarn' I also managed to get a lens flare through the trees. But unfortunately even though I was using a fig rig, my footage was too shaky when I came to edit it. I carried on round 'The Tarn' and took a still image for my digipak as it would be higher quality than filming it. However, I then also filmed the same shot so I could relate my music video to my digipak directly. Then we headed up towards the moor. The shots on the way up did not have the vibrant colours that I intended them to have and I therefore did not use them. As we got further up the moor I continued to take shots but due to the weather and conditions of the ground, it was too slippy and uneven to have many stable and usable shots. Finally, we got to a second tarn and I took a secondary lens flare shot. Also, because the song name is 'Shimmer', I got more shots of the sun reflecting off of the water, one was intended to be a 'filler' shot and the other was the final shot of the video. I am unsure on the lens flare shot, however, the shimmer shot turned out really clear.

12/03
At around 5pm, just as the sun was getting low, I took my filming equipment up to Burley-in-Wharfedale's Nature Reserve: Canon 70D, fig rig and a tripod. I set my Canon 70D on the fig rig and took shots of the sunlight coming through the trees on the way in to the Nature Reserve to get a few lens flare shots. I stopped at a few locations to get theses lens flare shots but I did not use them all. I was walking up to the bench at which I filmed my actor and I saw some flowers that were perfectly positioned facing slightly away from the sun so I could get a panning shot with the sun behind them. I eventually got to the bench and set my camera up on the tripod and attempted filming my original plan of filming a medium shot of me sat on the bench lip-synching. But in reality it did not look the same as I imagined so I zoomed in closer and had a medium close-up of me lip-synching on the bench (also in the first third of the frame). Finally, just before sun (my only source of light) went behind the trees I took an extreme close-up shot of the barley that was growing near the bench, blowing in the wind and with the sun in the background.

21/03
I began my filming in my house where I got push focus shots of fairly lights set up on a large mirror.  I then filmed the horizontal medium shot of me lip-synching on the sofa. I did not use any natural lighting as I wanted it to have the effect of being in the evening. That night I took the Canon 70D and a tripod out to the location of the 'cobbled street' but there weren't any suitable local cobbled streets so I settled for a regular paved street that was well lit with street lights. I filmed a few shots, the first being the close-up of my feet walking from left to right across the frame. Then across the same location I shot medium to long shot walking down the road and then a different angle of a long to medium shot walking up the road. After this, I moved to a wall that was lit by multiple high angle white lights. Here I shot a medium shot where the focus was me in the final third of the frame looking pensive, smoking a cigarette. Finally, the most difficult shot was a lip-synching shot that involved smoke. I shot my mouth at an extreme close-up attempting to lip-sync while the smoke slowly flows out of my mouth. But instead I may change the shot to slow motion of the smoke leaving my mouth without the lip-synching depending on how it appears in post production.

04/04
To finalise my production process, my actress and I went to the Cow and Calf car park at 9 o'clock on a clear night. I faced my car towards any light to make sure there was no light behind it and therefore the silhouetted effect would appear much clearer. I set up my tripod around 10m away from the car to make sure it was a long shot and got my whole body in the shot. Then I set the camera on auto focus so when I moved around in the dark, it would perform a push pull focus effect. I placed my amp on the ground and plugged my guitar into it and did a few test shots to make sure it was framed right and to view the lighting. I shot it twice, once with fog lights and headlights, and one with just the headlights. I decided to go with the one with only the headlights as they projected more light and was therefore better for a silhouette.