Filming Diary: Session 3

Due to the incompetence of some of the footage I captured back in November, I deemed another filming session essential to improve my footage and overall video. Initally, me and my actress planned to film Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening, but due to a last minute change in plans, we were only able to film on the Saturday (8th of March). Because we only had roughly about 3-4 hours to film in four different locations, I decided to make a plan to ensure we got all the shots filmed that were required.

We picked Ellie up at 2pm and we got ready immediately, dressing her in the same costume as before. In the plan, I split my four locations in order so we went to Brantingham church first, then South cave cemetery, then the woods and finally back at my house. Planning out the day made the filming much more effective and on schedule.

The first location we went to was Brantingham church which was a five minute drive from my house. The weather was warm but also very hazy and misty which fitted the theme of my music video perfectly, it remained this way for the rest of the day. At the church, we took pictures for the ancillary texts and got a great amount of footage that is going to be used for the bridge section of my music video.

Next we went to the South Cave cemetery to take some more images for the ancillary texts. We went to this location in the previous session for filming and I think it fits the theme of my music video perfectly.

Next we went back into the woods to re-shoot a lot of the footage from the previous filming session. We had two locations within it, the trees and the field. A lot of the footage I got in the last filming session was unusable due to the shaky nature of it, so for the field shots I kept the camera on a tripod. For the walking section in the trees we found a flatter path in the woods to film on and I used the tripod as a steadicam. This proved incredibly successful as the footage ended up being incredibly smooth and professional. Also, despite it being a lot warmer than the previous filming session, the weather was very hasty and misty which created a great atmosphere in the footage.

We planned to film the fireplace and sparkler section at my house later on, but my actress had to leave unexpectedly so we decided we would film this small section after college on Monday the 10th of March. We also needed it to be dark outside for this footage, and by the time we finished the other filming, it was only 5pm so it wasn't dark enough.

I used the exact same equipment as before, the Canon 600d camera and the Velbon tripod, they worked very well. I also used the same technique for the actress's lip-syncing by bring both a copy of the lyrics and my IPhone so I could play the song on location so her timing was perfect.

Overall, this filming session was incredibly successful. I stuck to my written plan and we didn't go off schedule once. This demonstrates the importance of planning in advance for something important like a video shoot. After filming the shots by the fireplace tomorrow I will begin editing, I now have very high hopes for my music video.