Filming Day 1: Evaluation

Yesterday we filmed the first part of our music video. Here is the evaluation of the day, including good and bad points along with any improvements that I think we could take into the second day.

We were able to start earlier that usual, we left college at roughly 3:20PM which gave us extra time for traveling to our locations and organizing both the actors and crew. As the hotel was booked for 5PM, we decided that we would try to film some shots for the instrumental section down at the river. We got several shots here, including some more intimate shots of the couple that could be used towards the end of the video. I found that we knew what we wanted to do, yet we were not exactly sure how we were going to do it. Therefore, this extra time at the river was a great advantage as we are no able to visual the location and have a better idea of the ideas which will and won't work.

After this we went to the hotel and were given our room. It took us about 30 minutes to set up the room, and organize the lighting which we haven't used before. The room was suitable for what we needed, and was realistic enough for the narrative. Whilst filming we found the lighting to be a great advantage to us, the effects it created were very artistic, especially for closeups on the Adele actor. The lights were very bright though, and sometimes they could have been seen in the mirror or back of a shot. However, we were able to overcome this. If we had the opportunity again we would defiantly use the lights, and perhaps some gels/filters if available.

It took two hours to film inside the hotel, this was an hour quicker than we had planned. This was good time management, as we had left plenty of time for the filming we needed. Although, this has made us realize how long and difficult the outdoor scenes could be. It will be important to have a thorougher plan in advance, looking over the shot list and break down will assist this.

After filming we decided to take some photos for the DVD cover and magazine cover. I brought my DSLR camera and knowledge from Photography AS to take some photos. Again we used the light to create a dramatic and theatrical look. I will upload these photos onto the blog, and also posts about the editing process of the photos. We will discuss this later.

The good points about the first filming day were that we were efficient with the time, well prepared with costumes, and had effective equipment. Whereas we need to improve on the clarity of ideas/shots before shooting, and perhaps brush up on the lyrics before tomorrow.