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.
  

Test Shoot - Results

This is an account of our test shoot. Overall, we had a rather pleasing test shoot which has since given us inspiration to change our final idea.

Busy shots down oxford street - These shots went really well. As we were shooting on a sunday afternoon there were plently of people for us to use and we had no problem threading a gorilla inbetween them. What was better, we got mixed reactions from the crowd. Some of the people were terrified by the sight of a gorilla barging past them but other didn't even batter an eyelid. We had a range of different angles for this shots, some in which the camera tracked the gorilla through the crowd and other from a static high angle following the gorilla's journey.

Infact, these shots took the most part of our test shoot time. We spent ages shooting down busy oxford street and got some really great footage - some of which we'll be able to use for our final video.

Close ups of gorilla body parts - These shots we're also good. However we didn't get enough of them and this made it hard to link some shots together. For our actual shoots we need to get more of these so we can fill time in the video of we realise we're short of footage.

Problems
Although we got some awsome footage, we realised that there were some really crucial details in our filming and our actual storyline. We had a think about it in a group meeting.

• Our footage we're no where near tight enough and in the background in some of our shots there were other things which we didn't want, e.g. passers by, horrible buildings
• We really struggled with our match on action. We had shots of the gorilla running around a corner and then it cut to another angle. However, in one shot or gorilla was running on the inside of the corner and in the other he runs on the outside as he turns. Therfore the shots do NOT match up. To avoid this problem we've asked the media department if we can borrow a second camera which we can use and therfore not have to worry as much about matching shots for continuity.
• We realised that filming on the tube would be a tiresome, tedious and generally difficult task. Firstly there is no way of securing permissions for shooting on the tube and continuity is also a problem. We'd also be filming on one tube for a number of hours and the people on the tube. Farthermore i don't think our group has the patience to be stuck on a tube from cockfoster to heathrow filming in one go. We also need shots inside the station which will be hard to do - due to permissions again,

Test Shoot - Shot List

- Busy shots down oxford street
- Close ups of gorilla body parts and tracking with the dolly down the street.
- Oyster card on the beeper
- Esculator shots - different angles
- Wating on the platform - out to in focus
- shot from inside train pulling into station and seeing gorilla by the near doors. (hard shot - needs practise)
- Check the lighting on the tube - see if we get a clear enough picture
- Tracking shots with car (important) - we can try this in a location thats not as busy as oxford street. If it works then on the real shoot we'll go down to oxford street.
- Check out tesco's permission

Comic Value - The Crucible Moment

Thinking about our video, we thought that it would be really good if we had a crucible moment, something that the audience will remember and what to watch over and over again. When we came up with the idea of a man in a banana costume walking by the two gorillas after they'd fallen in love and the male gorilla can't resist the temptation of chasing the banana.

Although this was said jokingly, we didn't actually believe we could get it done. However, when browsing google i came across and AWSOME banana costume which we may very well purchase.

Banana Costume

Exclusive Web Price £32.99

This banana costume is made from bright yellow poly foam, shown here with models own black top and trousers. This is a one size fits most costume

http://www.fancydress.com/shop/product-view/118669

Narrative - continued

He then runs out towards the esculator, the camera scans around looking up the esculator, in the row of people going up we spot the female gorrilla, he madly runs up the stairs, but by the time he gets to the top, shes gone- there's no sign of her.

He then runs as fast as he can with desperation to find her through the busy streets of london; in and out and over obstacles, down stairs, round corners. we will use as many interesting camera angles and movements that will fit together nicely along to the fast paced music.

*As we cut in and out of the shots of the performance, the day is getting darker as the gorilla keeps running and finally he ends up at a bar - drinking himself silly. After a while he becomes very drunk and he stumbles out of the pub, a bald man barges him on his way out, as if to nearly start a fight, he stumbles along and collapses on a step..... then all of a sudden, a stroke of luck, his lady friend has returned.

*[Actually - i think that a better idea of this would be if instead of going to a bar, we cut to a shot of the automatic doors of a tesco and they beep open and the gorilla comes out holding an alcaholic beer which he can play with in ape-like fashion - purely because it would be funnier, a fight with a bald man would be hard to shoot as i've learnt from my previous media c/w, we'd have to find a bald man to use and getting permissions to shoot in a pub would be time costly.]

He jumps up, they get talking but then, a huge banana walks passed, his temptations cant resisit, he goes with the banana. (the banana possibley being scared as he doesnt want to get eaten, maybe it is as if he is being mugged, the banana maybe tries to give him money)