This picture is of the living room in my house where i filmed Syed doing his part in our music video. We chose this location as it is modern and goes well with the music video we are constructing and also to tie-in with the modern theme and some of the shots in the flat in Salford Quays. Syed represents Timbaland as in the official Cry me a river music video.

We tried many shots and angles and came up with different ideas that would fit in with the music video but because of lighting issues we couldn't proceed with our shots. As you can see in the picture there is lots of light comng in through the window. Because of these few drawbacks we took time deciding which angles to use for the final shots for what we could actually use in our video. Finally we decided on just taking a shot of syed puttin his jacket on and leaving the house as it goes with lyrics of his part saying " The damage is done, so i guess i'll be leaving".

After this we went outside the house and filmed his bit sitting on the car and lypsyncing to the track. Later we filmed again of myself lip syncing and a few parts at a pathway in Whalley range under a bridge.

This is a high angle shot of the room to show the room from a diferent point of view.

This is a location in whalley range and this is a picture of me filming the last shots of the whole music video which includes asaad jumping onto the wall and walking with lipsyncing. Asaad says "Oh" 4 times here for the end bit of the video where i say "The damage is done so I guess I be leaving" This goes before the bit I lipsync. We filmed at this location as this was like a walk-way which was quiet so we didnt get disturbed by people looking at the camera or lots of people walking past and it helps with the continuity editing so there is no movement in the background. However we did not envisage the difficulties with filming at this place.

We did not imagine that we will get bombarded with complications when filming at this location even though it was very quiet. For example we forgot to take the song with us so we had to lipsync by guessing what words were going to come up next. We had lighting issues as we were filming under a bridge and it was dark and you can see this in the picture even though we used a good camera, so we had to make sure we were near the end of the bridge but also in it, and this on camera did not look right so we had to continuesly take different shots so it looked right. All of these difficulties made us restricted on what we were trying to achieve on the camera so trying different techniques and styles was time consuming.

It was not all difficult even though we were distracted by thinking about lighting and camera issues as this location was looking good in the camera and I pictured this being in the music video and it looked superior to filming on the road or any other location so we stuck with it.

This is a picture i took of the bridge where we filmed although it looks scruffy and the mese en scene does not look right, but we still took the risk to film and see how it looked even though we could of filmed elsewhere and it did not go with the modern theme we are using in the music video. Luckily none of the road surface or the tatty bits of the wall was filmed or came in the video when i was filming.

What Friends Thought.

So this is a quick video I made of what some friends, also media/film students, have thought of our video so far.
We've pretty much finished the video, save the odd bit here and there. We had to cut down the song by removing the second verse completely, but it's all good.

Drawbacks.

We looked at all the footage we have last lesson and we've basically decided that we need to re-shoot most of it.
In the next three weeks we have to not only re-shoot pretty much everything, but we have to add in extra shots that we have been lacking so far, such as, low angles and panning.

Shooting Schedule

Sunday 15th November

1. Re-shoot flat scenes with Asaad
2. Bridge shots tracking Asaad
3. Lipsyncing throuout whole song
4. Syed and Asaad's Timbaland bit

Sunday 22nd November

1. Re-shoot Fatima's dance routines on bridge

Hopefully, lesson time will be sufficient to get the video done with, so we can start our media pack a little early.

Stills.

We have completed a basic frame with the footage we have so far, which has allowed us to judge which bits we need to go over and film again.
Some shots there's an issue with lighting and some it's just bad acting.
Next week we're going to go and get the rest of it done, so we can concentrate on editing.

Here are some stills from one of the locations we filmed in.


Media City



View from the Balcony



Sitting Area



The counters Asaad was forbidden to slide across.

Whoops.

Okay, so we've been a bit bad about this blog thing.

To catch up:

Since the last post, we've filmed a dance routine, which was actually pretty much made up on the spot. The shots themselves were inspired by a video I've seen. From 1.45 in the video, we see two characters dancing, with a mirror between them.



We have used this idea, but instead using a brick wall just off Oxford Road and instead of using two actors, we have used Fatima, who plays the girl in our video. First, she dressed like a boy and did a slightly more male routine and we filmed her from her right and then she dressed like a girl and did a different routine and we filmed her from her left.

On Monday, we captured the footage and we used a split screen to make it appear as two characters dancing with a wall between them. Towards the end of the routine and the song, we see female dancer Fatima sink to the floor. The idea here, is to have images of Asaad flash in and to end the split screen. This is to show that by losing Asaad, she feels as if she's losing a part of herself, capturing the essence of the song and also I think, adding a bit more depth to it.

Since we have captured all the footage so far, we know which bits need to be redone and we also have a rough idea of how much footage we may need more of. We missed Thursday's lesson due to college activities, but we plan to continue filming during half term next week.

0.00 - 0.12: Establishing shots of Salford
0.13 - 0.22: Asaad crying on balcony
0.23 - 0.26: Transition to lipsync
0.27 - 0.51: Lipsync
0.52 - 1.43: Journey to Fatima's
1.44 - 2.10: Asaad knocks
2.11 - 2.14: Walks to window
2.15 - 2.22: Sees Fatima and Lamia
2.23 - 2.47: Talks at Fatima
2.48 - 3.02: Argument
3.03 - 3.25: Asaad and Syed Timbaland
3.26 - 4.06: Asaad and Fatima dance
4.07 - 4.50: Asaad fade out with Fatima