Friday filming was sucesssful

Francesca and I had a successful shoot on Friday the 4th December. As we could not get hold of a third boy, we used another girl to be in the group of three who are filming and bullying the beggar. As I finished school early, I headed home to set up all the equipment while waiting for the rest of the actors to come back to my house to start filming.

Francesca arrived at my house at around 2.30 with four of our actors (Two boys, and two girls) Another actress was waiting at my house with me - the girl to be abandoned by the two boys. Before leaving my house, Francesca and I handed our copies of our pre-production storyboard to the cast and actors to look over. Most of the acting would be improvised however I wanted to show them that there was a structure to the day. Once they read through the storyboard, we put the equipment in our cars and drove to our first location in East Finchley. The location is a walk-way and path near a park, It was a five minute drive away.

The first shot involved the three teenagers appearing to tease the tramp by filming him on their mobile phones. The actor who played the tramp who we had filmed the week before was unable to attend the shoot so the actors had to pretend that he was there.

The shots of the three teenagers went quite well even though it was shot in only 20 minutes. Numerous shots were taken and this was definitely beneficial when it came down to the editing.

As no dialogue was present during the shoot we could direct the actors while they took the parts. This helped us is if they were doing a shot wrong we could speak over the camera and tell them what to do. When editing the shots we would simply remove the audio bars from the video footage in the editing software. This helped us direct the actors while filming which was much easier than telling them what to do then film in silence. After the scene of tormenting the beggar, we walked up the path and set the camera at an angle to film the teenagers walking along towards the camera. We did this in one shot as it was very easy to conduct and there wasn't much directing involved.

After this scene we are then introduced to the two promiscuous girls of whom are sitting on the bench. This is the shot where the group of teenagers walk by. What we wanted was for the group of teenagers to walk by them and start chatting them up. This shot was executed very well, just how my partner and I had imagined. The lonely girl would there therefore be left on her own - this continues our portrayal of isolation. Over 10 takes of this scene was needed so we could gather a range of angles and viewpoints. These shots also went quite well. My partner had taken a very good close up shot of Chloe's face while she turned away from her betrayed friends.

As this shot took quite a while to do, we didn't have long to finish off the rest of the shots as it was getting dark which would ruin the consistency of the shots. The final shot was of the boys flirting with the girls. This again was quite time consuming as we had to make the conversation look as natural as possible. What helped was that the group were already talking so the laughter we captured was natural. After a while we then see the group of teenagers walk back with the girls. The viewer can see that each of the individuals are 'drunk' as one of the girl characters staggers and stumbles as she walks. This is in relation to underage drinking which is common with alot of the youth today. In the editing process, we found that the darkness gave the shots a gritty and grainy look to them which emphasized the fact of depression and unhappiness.

Once we had finished the shots in the park, we all got back in the cars and traveled back to our last location which was my house. The entire group then had a small snack and tea break which was provided by me. Although this gave all our actors a well deserved rest, it did infact distract them and we struggled to get their sense of concentration back.

After 20 minutes of trying to get them to focus I thought what might be a better idea was just to film them in their natural state which was joking around and drinking. This came out very well and made the scene look completely natural. The house lights that were already within the living room, were used as the lighting to ensure the characters could be seen on camera and in high quality. Using the red-head lights that our school offered us would make the scene look staged and unrealistic - we wanted to create a realistic scene using 'real-life' lighting.

After these shots of 'flirting' and socializing were done, we then had to shoot the two girls arguing. This was achieved by the girls running upstairs and then they would start pulling each others hair. This looked very amateur even after putting it in the music video. We then decided just to add effects to the shot and blurred it out and cut the fighting into small segments. this made the scene look much better and professional.

Francesca and I then filmed the actors in their individual shots. We would ask them to first of all stare directly at the camera and then mime the lyrics to the song (so we could later synchronise it to the music track). This came out very well in the end and complimented the music video as a whole.

The afternoon as a whole was successful, even though we didn't have a long time to film outside, we did the best we could in the short amount of time. Even though the actors were great and did as they were told, it would of helped if they would of co operated much easier opposed to us having to keep on telling them to listen. Due to this we had to ensure we numerous takes for every single shot, as we had to make sure that we filmed correctly and successfully.

Fridays Filming

We have arranged transport from school on Friday to film the left over footage for the music video. By creating an event on 'Facebook' we are now able to contact the various people and actors that are involved in the filming.

We have two boys and two girls definitely attending, we are still deciding which boy to invite along to star as the third and final boy actor.

Please see below a screenshot of the event on Facebook:

Schedule for tomorrows filming

We plan to shoot all the outside shots first as it gets dark at around 16.15.

(12.00 - 12.15: Planning with Francesca at my house)

Outside Scenes:
12.15 - 13.15: Shooting shots 6, 8, 9 & 10 (Boyfriend's scenes)
13.15 - 14.15 : Shooting shots 11 - 15 (Boyfriend and beggar's scenes)
14.15 - 15.15 : Shooting shots 16 - 20 (Beggar and boys' scenes)
15.15 - 15.45: Shooting shots 21 - 23 (Boys meet girls scenes)
15.45 - 16.15: Shooting shots 28 - 35 (Profile shots against wall)


16.15 - 16.30: Break from filming

Inside Scenes:
16.30 - 17.15 : Shooting shots 24-27 (Boys and girls socialising in house)
17.15 - 17.25: Dismiss all actors apart from boyfriend and girlfriend
17.25 - 18.00: Shooting shots 1 - 5 and 7 (Boyfriend and girlfriend scenes)
18.00 - Finish and clear up!

Yesterdays filming

On the day of the filming, I had various disappointing telephone calls and text messages. All the actors had let us down apart from the couple at the beginning, and the beggar.

When Francesca arrived at my house, we realised the positive sides from the negative occurances. We were able to film shots 1 - 15 as we had the first main three characters.

We set up the camera on the dolly and we were ready to shoot. A few shots from the boyfriend and girlfriend scene were filmed (shots 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7) We then also shot the beggar on the floor outside a shop along East Finchley highstreet.

Even though we did not shoot the whole of the music video, we still acheived various shots. We have planned and arranged transport and actors for after school (as we finish at 13.30) on Friday (4th December) for more filming with more actors.

First set of filming

After being let down last weekend by the weather (22/11) we decided to start filming in the afternoon of Friday the 27th of November. Yet as our two actors (boyfriend and girlfriend) were unable to get to the set, we had to ensure we filmed their scene (and all the others) on Sunday (29/11).

As we then found the two actors (the boyfriend and girlfriend) were unable to attend on the 29th, we have managed to secure two people stepping in for their part on Sunday. With the boyfriend and girlfriend fight scene sorted, the actors for the beggar, three boys and two other girls needed to be concluded.

With asking a last minute boy to act as the beggar, we managed to also find three boys to act as the bullies towards the beggar. We are still short of the two girls (near the end of the music video) yet we hope to ask some friends today and tonight who are willing to take part.