The Great Belgian Egg Hunt aka. Music Video production has come to an end just in time to start semester 1 of 2016. Summer school has been quite enjoyable surprisingly. I only did this because I failed a class last year and I needed to make up the credit but I’ve gotten a lot out of it. I feel like by doing summer school I’m going to be mentally prepared for the semester ahead and start the year positively rather than just being in holiday mode.

The two classes a week worked perfectly with my part-time job and other commitments. I’ve had a busy but constructive and enjoyable six weeks. I found the pace and amount of content in this class ideal, there wasn’t too many reading etc that would distract us from our main project. I’ve learnt a lot, made friends, used the RMITV studios for the first time, had an avocado smoothie (thanks to Jordan) and most of all I helped make something. Many of my classes in my past have been very theoretical and it refreshing to have a class where it all evolves around us making something that we can call our own. I’ve gotten more experience in working with a group and learnt what its like to be a part of a production team. Furthermore I’ve gained some experience in lighting, something that I haven’t done too much of in the past. I aslo got to familarise myself some equiptment that I hadn’t had the pleasure of using.

I feel that this class has motivated me to just get out there and start creating content. I’ve kind of always thought I wasn’t good enough but now I realise that if I put enough effort in I could create some quality work. As well as creating I’ve also consumed a lot of media. It was great to watch all the interesting music videos in class as inspiration as well as the work of my classmates. I loved seeing the variety of work that the class produced and everyone individual creativity coming together to create a professional piece of media.

I would recomend this class to students in the future due to its practical aspect and the independent control you have over your project. You can really create whatever you like.

I really enjoyed watching everyone rough cuts. There was such variety among the class and the standard was quite high.  Tim’s group ‘Hawaii Five-Oh’ (I think they call themselves that) made a stunning video for Pockets and their single Ten Different Names. I was excited to see what direction they would go in when I first heard the song as it a genre of music that I’d listen to. I remember hearing that they were going to play with paints and milk etc to create a psychedelic swirl. It was a cool idea although I didn’t think it would turn out as well as it did. The swirls were absolutely beautiful and were of a high quality. Furthermore I liked their decision to use silhouettes and to keep them purely black and not create a pattern within the face, as I think that would have ruined the effect. The video surprised me when the silhouette of the singers suddenly started moving around the edge of the frame. It found it humorous but very effective and a great use of the onscreen space.

A section which I found really effect from such a simple effect was when the lead singers silhouette was constantly changing hats. The sudden changes to the beat were very aesthetically pleasing and I would have liked to see even more of this. Another great part was when there were two silhouettes of the lead singer facing each other singing. It was weirdly intimate and I half expected them to either kiss or for the silhouettes to cross over to create a butterfly effect. The two silhouettes were slightly out of time which made them feel like two different entities rather than just a mirrored copy which made it even better.

Hawaii-Five-Oh did a great job with their music video and I can’t wait to see the final cut so congrats to them. I might go home and listen to some Pockets now.

Over and out,

Luke

The third shoot was similar to the second as we captured studio footage of both the leads as well as a new group of extras. First we ran through Emma and Mo singing the song over and over in front of both white and black backgrounds. Personally I think the white dosen’t really work that well but the black looked good. By this stage as we had already shot two days the lead girls seemed tired and a bit sick of it all but they still performed well.

The second half of the shoot was spend on the tableau style shot of the extras. It didn’t really turn out that well. We didn’t give them enough direction and this resulted in an awkward looking group people just staring at the camera in front of a bright background. The lighting is a bit off too. I’m not sure if we will end up using this shot.

We had some fun towards the end of our shoot as we filmed Andrea smashing grapes onto face which actually looked weirdly quite good. It was good to wrap up the last shoot with a bit of a laugh.

Here is some research I did on lighting for a horror style music video. Unfortunately I feel like we didn’t take advantaged of some of the more stylised lighting techniques when we could have.

	In this image the subject is standing with the li ght behind him. Because the light is so low it casts long and ominous shadows. This creates a dramatic look that may suit our video.
	Lighting the subject with two different colored lights. The light can be moved around to create an interesting effect. Soft light can be used to further glamorise characters.
	We can use a cutouts or various objects to cast interesting patterned shadows on our subjects. These go between the light fixture and the subject.
	Furthermore we can use the barn doors attached to the light-fixtures to control the direction and focus of the light. In film noir the eyes and brow are often illuminated by isolated light to get a dramatic look. Barn doors can be used to isolate the light in this manner.
	Lighting like this should give pretty dramatic results, although some of the background may be illuminated which might not be ideal for the studio. By placing a reflector or another light-source diagonally adjacent to the light can give some nice hair light and sometimes create a halo-like effect.
	A three light low-key setup would look like this. This particular arrangement aims to keep one eye in full shadow dramatising the character.  The key light is the most important, this will be the brightest and most dominant light. The fill light compliments the key light on the opposite side to fill in some of the shadows created by the key light. The final light of the 3 point set-up which adds an outline to separate the subject from the background. For our shoot we don’t want the fill light to be very dominant as we wish to exaggerate the contrast and get that low-key look.
	We may also want to think about using practical light, which is a light within the scene itself. This could be particularly interested paired with the fog machine.

Our second shoot for our music video was a studio shoot. We split this shoot into two halves. The first half featured purely the leads and then second half included the extras. When we first arrived I started to set up all the equipment and prepare the projector for our planned projections. We ended up projecting some of the footage of torchlight illuminated moving leaves onto the places of the two lead girls. It ended up being quite effective, with the warm torchlight suiting the color of the singers bright orange hair. We did have trouble with filming the projected footage in terms of matching frame rate, shutter speed and frequency although we discovered for this particular shot it worked quite well, after some minor adjustments.

We shot a varied combination of shots with the two leads without the extras before calling the extras in. We were planning on using the smoke machine but decided it was impractical as we used it once and the room was smoked for about 30 minutes. Not to mention if any of the smoke escaped the room it could set of the Universities fire alarms. One of our best scenes shot with the extras was the dance scene in which we basically just told the witchy extras to dance their hearts out. It ended up being quite dynamic and worked well with all the girls wearing black with the black backdrop. I actually like how the girls seem to drop in and out of visibility as the move towards the back of the dance floor. When the leads Mo and Emma join in they stand out with the orange hair among all the darkness and it looks great.

In reflection this shoot was a success. Although In hindsight I think it would have been good if we got some tighter shots among the dance floor to quickly intercut that would make you feel like you were actually there, and not just a static wide shot. Furthermore, I feel like for the amount of time we didn’t actually shoot that much. There were lots of times were we were just standing around waiting, whether it was for makeup, cigarette breaks or because we simply weren’t organised as we could have been.

Over and out,

Luke

Last week we had the wonderful opportunity to shoot a live musician in a studio. We all really appreciated the time Gerogia took to perform for us. I found the exercise very productive. We were placed into small groups and each group set a camera around the stage following the 180 degree rule. It was great practice working with a team and in terms of thinking about framing and camera position. Furthermore, we had to keep in mind coverage, making sure we always had a couple of cameras on a static shot of Georgia for editing continuity. Jenny, Tim and I filmed some great looking shots. Most of all it was just good to get behind a camera and some some experience. Before even shooting we had to think carefully about lighting the scene so it would be lit well and aestetically pleasing from each camera’s angle.  Furthermore we thought about how the stage should look and where Georgia should be positioned etc.