To-Do List

Ok, we have lots to do and not much time!!!

- album cover, get it sorted and take picture
- press release - exactly the same
- get everything ready for the shoot on saturday in oxford street to get our introduction done. this includes camera-bag (2), tripod (2), gorilla and banana costume, finding a location near oxford circus.
- for our shoot on sunday we need camera-bag (2), tripod (2), gorilla and banana costume, costume for the band, all of the instruments
- need to take photos at the house in hammersmith for the album cover and press release. Get this sorted.
- start drafting the 3000 word essay :(

Real Shoot 3

Basically, this is where we reshot all of our awful footage from Hammersmith. We actually knew where to find it this time, so when we arrived we were quick to set up our instruments. We had to carry all of them upstairs onto a floor that was practically rotten and at one stage, my foot went straight through the floor.

- We made sure we were tight with our camera work and got plenty of close-ups on the band members and their instruments.

-We also had wide establishing shots of the band and this really showed off the location to the camera.

- NO GREENERY IN OUR SHOTS WHAT SO EVER













- Creative filming - shooting frames within frames of the band (i.e. through a wall that was destroyed by a bomb 15 years ago)

Real Shoot 2 - feedback and changes

Today we sat down with Mrs B to talk about our shoot at the abandoned house near Hammersmith where we'd gone for our second shoot. Although i was feeling positive about our shots, mrs blackborow wasn't.Although she really liked the location, she said our shots were awful.

- There was too much greenery in the shots which we couldn't use. We're supposed to be in an abandoned house where there's dirt and grime everywhere, not somewhere thats growing plans.

- She also thought the greenery detracted the viewer from the band.
- Some of our shots were taken from obscure angles but for no real effect. She said they confused the audience and that we could have some better shots.

- We showed her the side of the building and she was annoyed that we hadn' used the windows high up in the house.

- When she saw inside the house, she nearly flipped her lid. She said the inside of the house was absolutely awsome and had so many great textures. Not putting the band in there would be a stupid idea as the shots would look great and we could achieve so much more!!!!

Real Shoot - Thursday 27th September

Ok last night (wednesday 26th september) i got a call from Josh who said that this mysterious burnt down house plan was going ahead. Apparantly another group who had tried to book it hadn't heard back from the owner quickly enough so moved to a different location. We however were desperate for a place to shoot our band shots and we pounced at the chance.

The plan was:

• Get the band and instruments
• Pick the band up at 10
• Drive to the location for about 11

What actually happened:

• Get our band - we called round frantically to all our friends to see who could be the band. Fortunatly two of my friends who are in a band with me agreed to come and play drums and bass guitar. This was brilliant because Josh could be main singer and then we're done. I managed to rustle up some instruments from them and we were due to meet them at their house to pick them up at 10.
• We get to there house at about 10:30 and leave almost immediatly after. We were making good time and although our directions were on a map which was on the screen of a digital camera, we had high hopes. However, the camera started to lose batteries and our two cars got seperated along the way, setting us back 30 minutes.
• We finally arrived in the area of the location but it was so carefully concealed behind some houses that it took us and hour and a half of driving round in circles before we finally found it. It was hidden up someones front drive and although we were in constant contact with mrs b who was feeding us directions, we were totally lost for what felt like days.

However, when we got there it was worth it (i think). The place was beautifly destroyed by fire and there was ash, brick and glass everywhere. Brilliant! Although most of the roof was destroyed and we were practically outside, this gave us natural light and we hardly had to use the light pack we were given.

We were quick to shoot and set up the instruments and leads around to make it look like the band was actually playing. I'd informed the band members who could actually play the instruments they were using to learn the song to make the stage look even more authentic. Our only set-back was that none of us had printed the lyrics sheet and we spent some time listening to the song on the i-pod speakers before we were able to shoot.

I think what we shot was quite good. We got in nice and tight on both the instruments and the lead singer's face and repeated the song over and over to get as many possible, usable shots as we could. I think we'll be able to cut them together successfully in the edit suite to make it look good. Two camera's was once again a good idea because it makes continuity editing so much easier, as we found with our first shoot on sunday. Once camera was static for most of the time and the other one was zooming around the different band members and going in close on their instruments. What helps us i think it that our actual performance shots aren't the main focus of the video and we will probably only be using little snippets in our actual thing. Therfore the footage we got doesn't have to be that great.

One problem is that we are unsure how to link the band shots to the action. Fortunatly the woman who let us use the house said we can use it anytime and we should definatly come back to finish the shooting. Our teacher suggested that we make the gorilla chase the banana into the house for a climax and we're going to discuss this option. However, today we were too frustrated from the journey and tired from shooting to continue much past the band performing and although we had the costumes, they didn't leave the boot of the car.

ALSO, THERE WAS A DEAD CAT IN THE GARDEN WHERE WE WERE SHOOTING. ROB PICKED IT UP WITH A STICK!!!!!

Real Shoot - Sunday 23rd September

This shoot went so incredibly well i was actually amazed. We all worked really well together and managed to get alot of stuff shot which we were definatly sure wouldn't need re-shooting and which we could you could use in the final edit. We went down to oxford street with a plan to get the following done:

• Many shots of the banana being chased by the gorilla. These were to be done in the locations we'd checked out in our test shoot.
• We also planned to make mini sequences in the locations we found. This means a 20-30 second long story of the gorilla looking for / chasing the banana in strange places and the banana managing to evade capture.
• Busy shots of the gorilla chasing the banana down oxford street around the oxford circus area.

We got the first two of these done to great affect with two brilliant little sequences of chasing which, when editied together in our edit suite looked fantastic. Unfortunatly we didn't get the shots at oxford circus done but we have both thursday, saturday and sunday to complete these shots for the video. The task seems more than dooable.

Still to do

We still have a lot of things to do before our video is even near ready:

• Film the band shots - we have a possible lead to a location where we could shoot the band shots. We may have got hold of an old abandoned burnt down house which could be awsome for some great band shots. We could also link these shots to the gorilla and banana (if we can somehow get them to come to the house) but we'll have to see.
• We didn't get the shots down oxford circus which is really important. This location is really busy and will be perfect for us. Farthermore it really completes the london look as it's the heart of the city so this is definatly something that needs to get done.
• We have to make the sequence where the banana and gorilla meet. At the moment our storyline makes no sense as it's all just a gorilla and a banana being chased. We need to show how they came to meet and the beginning of the chase to make the entire music video complete.
• Finally we need to actually decide on how the video is going to end. Is the gorilla going to die? or is it the banana instead? or both or none? We need to have a group discussion so we can decide on the best way to end the video.