After originally planning our shoot for Friday the 1st, the weather in Melbourne had very different ideas, flooding the streets of Coburg where we originally wanted to film. Luckily we were quickly able to regroup and set up to shoot on the following Monday.

So come Monday evening we were set up and ready to go in Daleen’s house in Coburg. We were able to work very effectively and efficiently during the outside scenes as we knew what we wanted straight away, as well as knowing that the possibility of a storm coming and washing away all our hopes of filming again. What I found really interesting throughout the whole shoot, in particular during the outside scenes, was that the most interesting and eventually became some of our best shots outside were taken during a mad rush to get a lot of shots in as short amount of time as possible before the battery in the camera ran out. We knew we could just change the battery but this sort of extreme time limit gave us a sort of rush (well for me anyway) and was forced to act on instinct and get as much coverage as possible.

Once inside we were able to go from scene to scene almost chronologically which flowed relatively smoothly. We had decided to improvise a lot more than block out every shot which was challenging in some areas but overall it was an enjoyable experience because everyone was able to have input   constantly throughout the shoot, so the more ideas we had the better the shoot flowed and led from one shot to another.

However, this brings me to what I feel was the most challenging part of the shoot; the time. Because of the setting and the narrative we had established we needed to film at night, which I had never really done before, and this brought with it a set of challenges I had not experienced before. As the shoot went long into the night, energy levels quickly diminished and I think we all had the same overall mood of wanting it to finished, which I think led to some rushed shots and aspects of the shoot that I don’t think we would have done if they were done first thing. Not having an established list of shots we wanted made this more difficult also as we didn’t have anything to lean back on, and by the late hours of the night our creative brains were well and truly fried. As difficult as it was at the time, I am really grateful for this experience as I guarantee I will learn from it and make sure things like this never happen again.

Overall, the shots we had collectively were good and I was impressed in how they turned out, which made me a lot more confident in how our music video will turn out in comparison to how I think we were all feeling at the end of a long, long night.

 

“Filming is a funny combination of having a good time and not being able to wait until it’s over.” – Nicole Holofcener.