The following blog notates how the production and shooting took place. The discoveries and successes of the overall process. Upon grouping up with Luka, I suggested we make a Music Video for a guy i’ve met through the local music scene, Willy Dynamo. I established a Egg Hunting Google drive with sub folders labelled; Clips/Footage, Inspiration, Location Scout 2, PB3 Presentation, The Shoot (which Russell allocated for Call Sheets). Hoping this would streamline our processes and provide some much needed accessibility to files.

 

A production schedule was also created as a centralised document, which notated due dates, contact numbers and key communications. The schedule wasn’t utilised as much as I initially hoped, and most/if not all communications ran through a group facebook message. This often led to confusion as to who were allocated which specific roles and at what period of time, as nothing was written down in a binding contract. In future groups I will stress that binding clauses be set down into production schedules for more accountability.  An excerpt of the the production schedule can be seen here;

Week		Task / Item Due	Date
1		Orientation
1.5
2		Lock Down and Confirm (with Willy) direction of Video.	Due: 14-11-17
2.5		Story-Board & Shot List	Due: 16-11-17 A dot point narrative worked out – Russ
3		Collate all Information into Presentation	22-11-17 Willy Dynamo Album Launch
3.5		PB3 (Part 1) Pitch Presentation (15%)	Due: Sean introducing concept, Melody story, Russell locations, Luka doing visual styling/storyboard.
	25th	Saturday – Shoot?
	26th	Sunday – Shoot?	Russell can’t do shoot this day
4 –	27th	Monday	DAY FOR LOCATION SCOUTING/LOCKDOWN. Russell not available (working).
4.5	30th	Thursday
DEC	2nd	Saturday
	3rd	Sunday	SHOOT CANCELLED
5	4th	Monday	SHOOT CANCELLED
5.5	6th	Wednesday
5.5	7th	Thursday	SHOOT (CONFIRMED – BE AT ROSE STREET CAR PARK BY 9AM)
5.5	7th	Thursday	Edit Rough Cut (Afternoon/Evening)
5.5	8th	Friday
6	11th	Monday	ROUGH CUT DUE TO PRESENT
6.5	14th	Thursday	SHOOT IN ST. KILDA, BIKE SCENE/INFINITY POOL (NOT CONFIRMED)
	15th	Friday	FINE CUT DUE TO PRESENT
6.5	14th	Thursday	OVERNIGHT EDIT PROCESS
7	18th	Monday	PB3 (Part 2) Video Submission (30%)

 

My initial ideas were surrounding a main music video, complemented with some sort of interlude. I felt it would be a good opportunity to switch up the standard music video form and do something slightly more experimental. I hoped we could have the protagonist and 4-5 supporting actors for a blaxploitation style short. However Russell was somewhat against the idea, contemplating that it may end up being too much work. Which now in hindsight was completely correct and would have ruined us in the long run.

After the pitch presentation, we ended up on choosing a much more stripped down version of the initial conceptualisations. Luka and I went to a inner city fitzroy location, suggested by my housemate. We ended up finding very appealing car park and alleyway locations shown below.

Due to weather and commitment complications, I knew on the shoot day we needed to get enough footage to put together a full video. Most of the first few hours were situated with setting up and deciding on establishing shots.

I told Willy to bring two different outfits so we had some form of contrast. Opting for rapping directly to camera was ideal as it could provide fill between the narrative. However as the day progressed the artist was less eager to start shooting in character. So a striped down version of the narrative was contextualised.

Learning from this shoot, my approach to directing in the future will change substantially. Confidence and surety of script/shot list must be on the forefront of my mind. I found I was too bogged down within the production side of things and lost focus on the shots at hand. Directing can be overwhelming but completely manable with the correct tools in place.