Production - Rushes for unplanned filming day

These were the rushes for the unplanned, snowy filming day.  We managed to get a large variety of shots and I was very pleased with the outcome.

Feedback on film -Positive

First view of finished film

This is the first finished cut of my music video.  I am yet to ask for feedback on the video to see if anything needs to be changed.  If there is any comments on how the video could be improved I will make them and then release the video a a official final cut.  If not then this copy of the video will be put on my blog again as the final cut. 

Editing - Reverse

When looking at some of the smoking shot i have shot, I thought that it'd look good in reverse.  Using Youtube, I taught myself how to do this.  The outcome of the shot I have below, isn't the one I used in my video, however it gives a rough idea of how i approached it.


Firstly, I inserted the shot that I wanted to use into premiere pro.  I watched it through and planned where I wanted to make it reverse, and loop back to forwards.  This was something I thought through thoroughly as getting the wrong part of the clip would mean that the reverse wouldn't make any difference.  The smoke needs to be seen leaving and reentering the mouth.



The next thing I did was remove the sound from the clip, so that if this where to be in my music video, it wouldn't play over the music. This involved right clicking and choosing the 'unlink' setting.  This detaches the sound from the clip and then I deleted the sound.  It was important that I was only reversing the clip and not the sound.









I then cut off the parts of the clip which I didn't want to use.  This meant that the clip would be shorter, which is what i as the style of my music video is full of short clips.

After removing the pieces of the clip I didn't want, i looked through the clip and found where I wanted the reverse.  Then I cropped the section.







After I wanted to create a section where I wanted the reverse, I copied and pasted the section three times so that they played one after another.  This provided the ability to make the reverse stutter.

Then with the three new sections, I segregated the middle one.  With the middle, I right clicked and went into speed and duration, then reversed the clip.

This was the clip once i had finished with it.  It isn't as smooth, long or well carried out as the version I used in my actual video, however it shows a rough idea.

Production: Filming day 9 rushes

These are the rushes from the 9th filming day.  The shots which we got here are very graphic, which is why I put the restriction on the age of the music video. 

Production: Filming Day 9

On this filming day, it was the shortest one we have had.  This was were I got shots of drug use in the attic.  Ollie and I took the light and the rest of the equipment up to the attic in my house in Middleton Cheney. Here we used a fake needle to make it look like the couple were injecting drugs.  The female looks very different to the beginning of the video as she has lost her glamour through the drugs; lost herself.

Production - filming day 8 rushes

These were the rushes for the 8th filming day that I did.  It was a very successful filming  day, where we went to new bottle woods.  We filmed what will be the final shot to my music video; the female hanging.

Production - Rescheduled filming day

After I was unable to film at the reservoir and have the shot of the female falling back into the water, which would represent her falling/dying and drowning in the lifestyle she had, I needed to up with a new ending.  Before the ending was going to be representative of her death, but now I have had the idea of the female actually dying.  Throughout the video, you can tell the female isn't coping/ she s changing, because of everything she's going, which could mean that she could kill herself.  Not only would this show that she has been killing herself by what she has been doing to her body, but show that she can't cope.  There were two ways in which I thought I could do this.  One way was to show her standing over a bypass and making it look as though she is going to jump.  Another way which I thought I could do this was to have her hang herself in the woods.  

I have decided to have her hang herself.  This would tie in with the theme of woodland which runs throughout the video.  

I have rescheduled the filming day for the end shot for a different day.  On this day, we will be visiting New bottle woods, near King's Sutton to do filming.  

Production - Filming day 7 screenshots of footage

Filming day 7 consisted of gaining more violent shots of the male and more vulnerable shots of the female.  When displaying my video to get feedback from the class, One of the tings which they mentioned was that there needed to be a bigger build up of violence in the relationship, and if the women disintegrating.

Above shows the thumbnails of all of the pieces of footage I got on this day.  I got many shots of the female crying and being beaten by the male.  This footage was all shot in Greatworth at Ollies house. 

This shot shows a extremely low angled shot of the male. It is meant to be a point of view shot from the female lying on the floor as the male kicks her.  This is a fast moving shot and shows the male being very violent.  I was very pleased with the outcome of this shot and thought that it was very successful. 

I did the makeup for myself in this shot and I was very pleased with the outcome of it.  This shot is a close up high angled shot of the female looking up at the male. It is also meant to be a point of view shot from the male.  This shot is very moving as she makes eye contact with the camera.  I was very pleased with the outcome.  

Production - filming day 7 rushes

This is rushes for the 6th day of filming.  This again was a very successful filming day.  We filmed in Greatworth again, at Ollie's.  The video is made up of clips/shots taken from the day.   These shots were exactly what I needed to further the storyline of the video. 

Filming day 7 - Makeup

I was very worried about how I would do the makeup so that it looked realistic.  However, when it came to it, it was very easy. 

1. The first thing I did to create the bruises was use red lipstick and place it in the areas I wanted to look bruised; under the eyes, around the lips, down the cheekbones and on the forehead.
2. I then went over the top of the of the red lipstick with a brown eyeshadow.  The darkened the red in some areas.  
3. Once I had done this it meant that i could make the bruises really dark in the core.  I used a grey eyeshadow ub the corner of the eye, under the eyebrow, down the cheekbone, etc. 
4. To finish the bruises, I went over some of the grey with black.  This meant the that the bruises not only looked back, but it look as though they were all at different stages of bruising, so that it look like they had all been made on different occasions. 

Filming day 7

Filming In Greatworth 

•  When having class feedback for my film when it was nearly finished, one of the comments they made for improvement was to include more violent shots and deterioration of the woman.
• This is when the final filming day came around.  This was in Greatworth.  I wanted another location for the two to be relax in and more variation in location.  This is where Ollie said that I could film in Ollies house.
• Here is where we filmed a lot of the abusive shots.  This involved me doing my makeup to make it look like my face was bruised. 
• The first shot that I wanted to get was one of the female stood against the door and falling down crying.  This shot will show how broken she is and how the relationship is affecting her.  As she falls to the floor, the camera will track her movement.  I directed this shot and explained to Ollie how I wanted it to be filmed and he executed it perfectly. 
• The next lot of shots which I wanted to get were violent shots of the male.  I used different positions to film these.  The first position I used was lying on the floor.  From the floor I held the camera so that it was looking up at the male as he kicks forwards.  I used the focus to go make the shot look like it was the female going in and out of consciousness.  It was meant to be a point of view shot of the woman getting kicked on the floor by the man. 
• I then thought moe shots of her crying was necessary, to show that she wasn't coping.  To do this, I directed Ollie to film a close up shot of my face.  I then forced myself to cry and filmed it.  We also smudged makeup down my face so that I looked more of a mess.  This showed a contrast between the perfect celebrity at the beginning of the video and the mess at the end. 
• Another comment made by the class was that it wasn't clear enough that the male was influencing the female to take the drugs.  This is when a second hand shot became necessary.  This time I made it look as though the male was making her take the drugs and closing her hands with the pills inside of them. This showed his influence more clearly.  We again used a tripod to angle it downwards towards the hands and left it filming.
• The final shot I took was of the woman lying in bed getting upset again, to add to her falling apart.  I think that it was important to get as many of these shots as possible.  I again directed Ollie on how I wanted this shot to look.

Planning - Change in narrative

Originally, I had planned that the female would fall backwards into water and it would represent her dying; her actual death was never shown, however the falling into water would show her 'drowning' in the lifestyle.  This was going to be filmed at Banbury reservoir, but before filming our permission was taken away.  This is where I had to come up with a new ending to the video.  Luckily, I still had gaps in my video, which meant that there was room for a change in narrative. 

It took me a day to think about a different ending and what I came up with was the female killing herself.  The lifestyle she has is something she doesn't think she can get out of; she loves her boyfriend, but their drug heavy relationship is killing her.  I also think, in order to drive her to kill herself, there needs to be more hatred from the male.  In order to do this, I think more abuse needs to be shown; from the male.  All of this will need more filming days to complete.  One day will involve going to a woodland and filming her death, and the lead up to it.  The other filming day will involve collecting more abuse shots.  

Filming at reservoir - cancelled

Filming at Banbury reservoir

I wanted the end shot of my video to be very dramatic.  What I had in mind was a mid-close up of the girl as she falls backwards into water. This shot will represent her dying; shes falling to be submerged in the drugs and sadness.  In order to film at the reservoir, I needed to get permission from someone with authority there.  I emailed a man called Trevor to get permission.  The Image to the left shows the email in which I sent the man to gain permission.  Trevor did reply and gave me permission to so.  We agreed to film on Sunday 25th February at 9:00 am.  However, when it came to the night before it was the morning of filming, I got another email from Trevor saying that the weather conditions meant that it'd be too dangerous to fall into the reservoir.  The conditions were too cold and he was worried that I would go into shock.  
In order to have the same sort of impact with the finishing shot, I began to try and think of an alternative.  This is when I came up with a slight narrative change and had the idea that she kills herself.  This lead to me having her hang herself in the trees.  

Planning: Test shots for filming at the reservoir

In order for the filming day at the reservoir to run smoothly, I did some test shots of what I wanted to do at the reservoir.  This involved trying out a 6 foot tripod so that I could get a high angle on the shot.  I wanted the shot to focus on the females face and as she fell, her face to go out of focus.  This would be a very difficult shot to get and we would only have one attempt to do so.  

On the day I also want to have two cameras, with different people filming.