Feedback From Our Performance Footage

Today, we received some feedback about our footage taken at Fenwick Colliery. It was made clear to us that contrary to what we originally thought, we need to re-shoot our band again. This is due to a few different reasons, mainly the fact that our shots weren't zoomed-in enough on our band members and the quality of the performance itself.

In terms of the shots we used, a lot of it was taken from far too low of an angles which made our singer in particular appear extremely tall whereas we should have adjusted our angle better to suit the stature of our band members.

Where the band members themselves are concerned, we have made more changes and are moving away from using the girls like we did for the rough cut. We thought this would work really nicely in the beginning however we have now decided that we would prefer to use two of the original band members.

We are now planning our performance again and we hope to be filming this coming Monday.

Performance: Before and After

Upon hearing our criticism and feedback of our rough cut, we have decided to significantly change our performance. This means changing some band members, location, lighting, costume and camera angles

For example, it was apparent that the bassist in the rough-cut had no idea what he was doing and so quite simply, he had to go. He will be replaced by someone else for the final cut without a doubt and the recruitment for a bassist is currently underway.

Next, the setting must be changed to somewhere else. Currently our main idea is to use something abandoned, which looks run down and is covered in graffiti. There is an old colliery in Earsdon which we think may be perfect for what we want to shoot. Our main focus is making sure the location matches the mood of the song and the persona we're trying to create of our band. A problem we may run into is the transporting of the instruments and camera equipment as it is a lot to move.

The outfits worn by our band need to create the correct image. In the rough cut there was no type of look which could be identified from what the band members were wearing and so we need to establish a clear style for the band. To decide this we have researched Fall Out Boy and looked at images of them. From this we have gotten a clearer idea of what our band should look like and will use this to ensure our band have a similar style.

So taking these factors (amongst others) into account, we should be able to build on what was a very basic performance in our rough cut to something which looks like it belongs in a music video.

New location

Rough cut location

We asked our target group what they thought about our new location vs. our old location for the band footage and this is the overall response we received:

This has really boosted our confidence as a group that we made the right choice when we decided to use an edgy, outdoor location for our band footage because everyone we asked thinks that so far it looks at least a little bit better, if not much better. We are going to work on this when we are editing through our footage and deciding if this shoot was good enough.

Looking Through What We've Filmed

After having returned our equipment and encoding our files, we were able to go through the footage which we had filmed at Fenwick Colliery. In general, we were very happy with the footage, having re-shot the rough-cut angles, changed some angles as well as adding new shots entirely.

Immediately, we noticed how much better our shots looked for being shot outdoors with bright light as opposed to filming in a drama studio which appeared very amateurish and too dark for what we were going for, this location looks far better on screen.

Unfortunately, in retrospect, some of our footage appears to be slightly out of focus which isn't the end of the world as much of what we have recorded is usable, however, there is the odd shot which we have found which we may have to leave out as a result of this.

Also, due to Alex being 6 foot 5, many of our shots of Alex appear to have been taken at a very low angle which makes him appear extremely tall. So to counteract this, James, took some high angled shots of him which lessen the effect of Alex appearing like a 'giant'.

All in all, we're all extremely happy with what we have recorded and the majority of our filming from this point onward should just be narrative rather than much more performance.

Editing In Our New Band Footage

We have now made a start on adding in some of our band footage from our shoot this week and to do this, we decided that the best way to go about it was to save a new version of the rough cut and start directly replacing the new clips where the old footage was. From here we can see how much band footage we have in and we can add in and take out as we wish. Doing it this way also makes it easier to match up the footage so that it is in sync with the song but more importantly allows us to retain the structure of the video. Had we gutted the rough cut and started again, we may have lost something, whether it is the order of the clips, certain shots or even whole scenes entirely.

Equipment Used On Performance Re-shoot

Now that we have had feedback and re-shot our band footage, we have sat down to discuss how well we used the equipment available to us.

The first time we filmed our band footage, we booked out things like the dolly, heavy tripod and shoulder mount as well as the big studio lights however, we didn't use them to the best of our ability, resulting in average quality footage and shots. 

On this band shoot we booked out the following equipment:

• Dolly

We were really looking forward to getting some really good moving shots using the dolly like we managed to do in our last band shoot. However, due to the floor at our filming location, we weren't able to use it because it was too bumpy. We tried to clear the floor of rubble but the floor was very uneven and it was just impossible to create a smooth shot using the dolly.

• Heavy Tripod

The heavy tripod came in really useful for us on this shoot because the day we chose to film ended up being extremely windy and so having the heavy tripod made filming in the wind so much easier. We were able to use all of the different spirit levels to ensure that all of our shots were straight and it was generally so much easier to film with especially for pans, tilts and any other camera movement we wanted to include.

• Shoulder Mount

The shoulder mount also came in very useful, particularly for getting shots of our main singer as he is over 6ft tall and getting a tripod to his height is very difficult. Using the shoulder mount made this much easier and it also allowed us to create much cleaner shots and still include smooth camera movement even without the dolly.

• Crane

We took the crane with us to our shoot because we thought we could get some really interesting establishing shots by using it. However, due to it being so windy we decided against using it and just used the shoulder mount and heavy tripod to create some of these shots instead. We didn't feel it was 100% safe to use the crane in those circumstances but we are confident that we managed to create good quality shots nonetheless.

Filming For Our Final Cut - Day 1: Band Video

At our shoot today we also took a short video clip of the location and our setup to help communicate a better idea of the space we decided to use in a way pictures can't really show.

Filming For Our Final Cut - Day 1

After submitting our rough-cut, we immediately began to plan our filming locations for the final cut. After just a few days since we were given feedback on the rough cut, we had organised our equipment (camera, equipment, instruments etc) and transport to get everything to where it needed to be for shooting.

So after finally transporting everything, we set up our set, consisting of the drum kit, the guitars and the microphone stand. It was at this point that we realised that we only had enough people for a 3 person band rather than a 4 person band as some people were unable to film at the last minute and so Alex was in fact promoted to being the singer and the guitarist which although didn't cause us a problem, meant that our band had decreased in size since the rough cut.

Due to our casting changes at the last moment, our band had also changed from an all male band to a 1/3 male band. This ultimately did not make a difference as Alex remained the singer, although, if he were to have changed role, it could have been a female given a male voice which would have looked strange.
We have thought about how we are subverting stereotypes by doing this and we are going to be going into more detail on this on the blog to explain why we actually thought this was a really good way to have our band.

In the end, we have filmed for around 2 hours today, including setting up and packing away. In this time, we have filmed a great deal of our video and it should be interesting to see just how well this footage has turned out.

Here are some photos taken whilst we were filming.