Filming!!

On Friday 17th, as planned, Danni and I filmed at the first location for our music video. As explained before, we did this as it was the last day of term and we therefore had half a day at school.

We decided in the end, after looking at both locations, to use Nowton park. The reason being was that it was more problematic for us to use Ickworth as it would be harder and involve dragging the equipment further. A friends brother had kindly let us have his drum kit to use and we wanted to make sure it got pulled about as little as possible. So we found a nice area not to far from the car at Nowton.

We had planned exactly what time we were hoping to arrive and therefore how long we had to film. We planned to arrive at 2.30 and get as much as possible done before A) it got to dark and B) before Danni had to leave for work.

So, after a bit of confusion over Will (Drumer) forgetting and getting the bus home (Panic!!), we did get everything set up by about 2.50 ish. So with everything set up (lugging the drum kit to a nice part of the park), we were ready to go. The good thing about Nowton was that it was very quite and as its public we didn't have to get permission. Mr Morrison had previously told us that students had filmed there before without permission and had no problems. Despite it being VERY VERY cold the day we filmed we got really lucky with the weather. We hadn't had great weather all of that week (rain, snow and cloudy/foggy). But when it came down to the day, we got clear sky's and no more snow (than what was already on the ground). We didn't want it to obviously rain or snow at the time because of the equipment. We liked the idea and picture of having snow on the ground with them playing in the country side. It made it look a bit different... in a good way! :)

Things however didn't go smoothly. We placed an iPod in Danni's speakers and found that she had run out of Battery! (MAJOR PANIC!).

So we played the iPod out loud, but no one could hear it over the drums. It was looking really bad. The next idea was to give Will (Drumer) some head phones and he listened to the song via the iPod and then Kris and Ben (who had learnt the song) just played in time with Will's drumming and then George actually sung when the lyrics come in. This too, was looking really bad. The boys found them selves out of time with one another really quickly. Time was now getting on. So we made the decision to move everything back to near the car, where there was this area we could set up and then play the song through Ben's iPod adapter in his car. ... Basically ... Ben saved the day!

We moved everything really quickly and set up again and this time played the song through Ben's car, with the boot and doors open. Luckily he has some good speakers and it was nice and loud and all the boys could easily hear it over the drums.

This then was an easy process. We shot the video 3 times all the way through, from different positions, without any stopping or mistakes (I think the boys were to cold to mess around or lose concentration at this point! They wanted the ordeal over with!) We then shot pacific bits that we needed (E.g- close up of guitar) - This didn't always require all of the 'band' so they would sit and warm up in the car with a flask of coffee!

We fortunately were done before the lighting altered to much. However, now that I have uploaded it from the HD camera, it seems that some of the last close ups we got of George singing, the light does change, so that is something we will have to look into when editing when we get back to school in January.

Using the HD camera and Dolly worked really well and we were pleased with the results. Using the dolly also enabled us to use high angle shots, as it goes higher than a normal tripod. Also when watching the footage back, it is annoying that we had to move locations (due to not hearing the music) because the first spot did look better. However, the quality of the band itself is A LOT better in the second load of shots!

Here are some pictures of us setting up: