Shoot Day Evaluation

 1. What did you do the day before, to get ready for your shoot day?

The day before the shoot I had practiced and made the final versions of the voodoo dolls that we would burn for the end of the music video. Also on that day we confirmed what roles each of us would take the next day I was assigned to do the clapper board and Chris was the main director and Tara helped with the camera work. We had gotten our cult member actors measured for their suits and shoes so that they would be ready on the day of filming. 

2. How did you feel when you woke up on the morning of the shoot day?

On the morning of the shoot day I was quite nervous and slightly panicked as I was overthinking about anything that could go wrong such as running out of time for shooting, lead singer not knowing the lines well enough etc. But that became less and less of a concern as the morning went on and we had everything we needed to begin the shoot.

3. How well prepared were you when you arrived for the shoot, what did you have to do before you could start shooting?

As I arrived at school I had bought in the props that I had been in charge of getting/making e.g. the voodoo dolls and the mask. The first thing that we had done as the group is check we had all our props and made sure that all our band members had their costumes on and knew what they had to do. We then went to find Matt, Fran and Chris in the studio and were told what we needed to do to make sure that the shoot went successfully. Immediately before shooting however we had trouble finding/getting in contact with our drummer this was a slight inconvenience that put us behind schedule but we quickly sorted it out once we began shooting. 

4. Describe what the studio/location looked like when you started to shoot, how well do you feel you managed to create the look of your concept? How did you help set up?

The main location in where we filmed all the band sequences was a shipping container which we were able to empty out and set up the instruments and place all the lighting. When we arrived at the set (shipping container) it was already emptied so all our group had to do was fit in the drum set and the amps in a way that our lead singer would be able to move around without hitting anything such as the light bars we had balancing off the sides of the containers. I mainly helped with the set up of the lights and figuring out which was the best position to have them in.

5. How did you divide the roles on your shoot day, what role(s) did you play? What were the key responsibilities you had?

Throughout the shoot we did not have strict assigned roles we mainly switched roles being between camerawork, clapper board and directing the band/cult members. This allowed for us to share responsibility for each section we took part in I feel I had done some hard shots when I was on camera, trying to get high shots so that all the band members could be seen and very specific angles of the drummer. As for when we started shooting I mainly did the clapper board/timing which I had quickly gotten used to after a couple tries.

6. What do you think that you personally did particularly well?

Personally I think I did some of the camerawork pretty well as I did have to get some very particular and just generally straining shots, such as getting a slight over head shot of all the band members this meant that I had to hold the camera over my head without any support for my arms or the camera. I feel that I had also made the voodoo dolls well with what I was able to use and not a lot of practice in making them.

7. What problems did your group have on the shoot day, how did you solve them?

The biggest problem we ran into on our shoot day was probably the fact that we did not have masks for all the cult members this meant we had to find a way to shoot their scenes in a way where it only showed one of their faces at a time, this was actually very successful and we managed to make the shots look as though they all had their own masks throughout the scenes they were shown in.

8. Which part of the shoot do you think was most successful and why?

I believe that the scenes we had shot in the shipping container were the most successful part of our shoot because we managed to get a wide variety of different shots of the band together and each individual member at some very had angles, we also filmed a section where we needed to fill the shipping container with fog and we managed to film and get everyone out of the container with no accidents or damage to any equipment. 

9. Which part of the shoot do you wish had gone better and why?

I had wished that some of the band sections of the shoot day had gone better in terms of our lead singer knowing some of the lines for the song better and our bassist being more engaged while filming. If our lead singer had know the words better we would not have had to cut and shorten as many shots as we had done during editing.

Group Blog Post

As my groups shoot day is on the 17th of November we have been finalising everything that we need before we begin building our set and shooting our music video. We ran into trouble earlier in the week when we were trying to buy the masks for our costumes we were hesitant at first to buying them as they were quite expensive and were sold in a bundle where we just wanted the masks by themselves. We resolved this however buy finding alternative and cheaper masks which we hope will work just as well as the masks we wanted previously. For our costumes we wanted dark/black suits so instead of purchasing the costumes ourselves Tara had sent an email to the head of the costumes department in Hurtwood asking if she had any that we could use for filming. As for shooting location we will still be shooting the performance section of our video in the shipping containers and the cult/narrative section in the studio. As for the last of the props I can gather all the materials needed to make the voodoo dolls so that they are ready before the shoot date. 

Matt's Camera Workshop

Last week Friday we had a camera workshop with Matt, however this workshop mainly focused on new lenses and different types of lenses that we could use to shoot our music videos. The new lenses that we were shown were Prime lenses and a combination between a normal zoom lens and a prime lens. Matt wanted us to have another quick run through of how the regular zoom lenses worked so he showed us the WB(white balance) again and how to focus the camera properly. Then we moved onto the Prime Lenses.

Prime Lenses:

Prime Lenses have set distances which make them much clearer and focused rather than normal zoom lenses, this allows for better quality camera shots and more stabilized. These lenses are mainly used for when you want to get shots of the band as a whole or specific close ups of each band member most likely the lead singer.

 

White Balance: 

White Balance is a feature on the cameras that we were refreshed on how to use in this workshop as it is an important tool to use when filming on our shoot day. Using White balance ensures that when shooting the colours throughout filming look more natural and are less effected by artificial/natural light when filming in different locations with varying degrees of light.

Focusing the lenses:

To focus the lenses properly Matt showed us the best way to focus is to already have the camera zoomed in all the way on the subject you are currently filming this means that when you focus on the subject once you are able to zoom out it will stay in focus until you want to change the subject of our filming.

Group blog post

In terms of progress our group has been spilt for quite a extended period of time but we have managed to get almost if not all preproduction sorted. We know what we want for the costumes and we have allocated who in the group will be taking on what tasks such as Chris doing the editing and me and Tara handling the digipaks and Instagram and general design of the social media along with the props. The main things we have left to do are a couple more rehearsals with our band members so that we can see just how we want them to perform on the actual shoot day and to make sure that out lead singer knows the lyrics well enough. The other important component we need to complete is buying/finding all the costumes and props preferably having them ready by next week so we do not need to worry during the course of the week if we had forgotten to get anything. As for our lighting and final set design ideas we have explained what we wanted and how we want to go about them on the actual day of the shoot but if we do need to change how we go about it we have plans in place. 

 

The impact that streaming sites & social media have had on the film industry

Social media has had a massive impact on the film industry as a whole spanning from marketing and campaigning to normal everyday people being able to produce and distribute their own films for free and by themselves without having a massive corporation to back themselves. Marketing is a major change that has happened which has benefitted both big studios such as Warner Brothers, Disney etc. but has also benefitted smaller and independent studios such as Belstone Pictures. Social media has allowed these companies to market all over the world for free meaning that they get more people to consume their media which they could never get if not for social media. However, giving audiences the use of social media means that they can create and share their own films which can sometimes be original but most of the time are parodies and remakes of big franchise movies for example Harry Potter, Marvel movies and Jurassic Park. This can lead to piracy problems where the big companies can lose out on money from the fan films and illegal use of their characters this cannot be stopped just because of how rampant social media has become over the years making it nearly impossible for companies to take down every copyrighted fan film. 

Streaming is another form of media that has and is currently having a massive impact on the film industry. Streaming sites such as Netflix, HBO Max, Prime and even Hulu are now in direct competition with cinemas with most cinema releases now being conjoined with streaming releases cinema ticket sales have gone down drastically as audiences just find it more convenient to watch the films at home in their own time. Though streaming sites are a good opportunity for certain films to get more popular if they were not watched enough during their initial run time in the cinema this can make the films revenue become higher than it was originally. Smaller studios can even pay money for their film to be put on a streaming service for a period of time so that it is more accessible to watch for others who may not have been able to purchase it for varying reasons.

Group Digipak Design

For our final digipak design me, Tara and Chris combined some of the ides that we had liked from my previous digipak sketch and added changes or enhancements based on Becky's feedback as well. The first major change that I had made to the digipak was the logo that we would be using on the back cover I created another idea for the logo which is much simpler and has a better visual representation of what we wanted, I also wanted it to be simpler so that it then becomes easier to draw them onto our cult members for the shoot day. The front outside cover is the same as the original sketch I had drawn with the plain white masked man with the small new cult logo on the forehead of the mask. The majority of the mask however will be covered in shadow to give a more sinister/dark effect that we want for the Digipak, another idea that Tara had come up with is that we can have fog on the digipak flowing from the front and circling round to the back of the pack to where the song list would be. This makes the cover seem more minimalistic but effective in what we want to convey with our social media and merchandise which will be promoting our band/music video. 

New Logo design for the cult and digipak 

Group social media Instagram page

For our Instagram page we decided to mainly focus on showing few pictures of the actual band together and have more of a mystery as to how the band will portray themselves in the music video as well as how they show themselves publicly. Their page will however consist of new instruments, band photos from set and set photos for the music video etc. We have agreed that we will not show the identity of the band members in the actual social media posts  and that with any images we do show they wont be to revealing of the bands personal lives until the music video releases. I had done the sketches for both the Instagram page and the sketch and final drawing for the digipak with Chris and Tara helping confirm what we wanted in these final drawings. 

This is currently the sketch we have for our social media/Instagram page I have kept the ideas which we planned to have such as pictures of our band members instruments and pictures of the possible graffiti we will have on the inside of our shipping container the graffiti being of a rubber hose like devil showing the overall vibe we want for our music video. Typical things that would also be put on a bands social media page are tour dates and locations and the names of soon to release music or albums.