As Live: Old to New VT Shoot
Today was our VT shoot day for 'Old to New'. As a shoot I found this was very successful given the three hour period we were permitted to film in the UCA Rochester shoot space. There was a last minute change of plan as the previous models got were given the wrong shoot date and they couldn't make the aural day. This meant finding new models to take part on really short notice. Luckily we managed to get tow people willing to and free to take part which was really lucky and we can't thank them enough.
We had a photographer with us to help with the story telling of the shoot. Unfortunately they couldn't get theirs or Alex H's DSLR to work which was had a really low chance of being the case but fortunately George Nicholls brought his along as a backup.
The first thing I did when I reached the location (art studio) was to refresh myself with the shot list and start setting up the shoot space. I wanted to film the photographer setting up the shoot lighting etc so it had an element of realism to it. It also meant the video has something proper to open with rather than it jumping straight into filming a photoshoot. Shot lists are important to follow because "It forces you to make choices." (Raindance, 2015)
In order for things to be less confusing I decided to shoot everything in order. I felt that this would really allow me to see how the footage would flow. This meant starting the lighting rig, which I got to be filmed as a quick montage and it didn't take long to do so. This was inspired by the director Edgar Wright who has a very stylised look to much of his work. "The actual clips that are used are very short, almost too short to really understand what is happening without enough context." (Perno, 2013).
For each decade I wanted to have different lighting, just to keep what wa son screen each era different, distinctive and maintain a certain look from each period. For example, the projector with different our of focus 90s music videos fitted the 90s look and the blue hue light on 80s gave it depth and color (color were very vibrant in the 80s).
I had also prepared some props to match each decades trend which really enhanced the quality of the shoot. So for 70's I sourced a record player and some vinyl records.
The first trend was from the 60's. The model sat on a stool so that the framing would match that of traditional 60's era photos. The model wore a mod style outfit that I had looked in to.
60's
Next was the 1960s look where our male male model showed off the "mod look". I wanted to make every single shoot as interesting as possible and keep them different if I could in terms of its photo-shoot setup and its edit style to indicate a change in era and clothes. For this shoot I positioned him on a stool. I wanted to give the look of the model being calm but elegant and sitting on a stool was a good way to covey this. It also meant I was able to do a tilt pan down so text could be added to show the price of and where each item of clothing was from.
The 1970s look was inspired by a lot of music from the era. Because the look is flares I had this image in my head of The Jackson 5 waring such outfits and it made me think how iconic the 1970s was for music. A way to show this was through the use of vinyl records and a record player. For this I wanted an opening shot on the record spinning so we could put the title there in a circle in the edit and have it eventually spin with the record. This was a style I had previously practiced with my project The FIRM Awards, where I had text spinning in the coffee:
As you can see this worked very effectively and is something I would like to incorporate
80's
For 80's we had a simple roll neck jumper look paired with a bump bag. We also placed an old style space heater to help emphasise the era which gave it a scene and sense of depth to the shots and made the shoot look like it had some advertising purpose of the era.
90's
For 90's we had the models sporting double denim and camouflage jackets. For this I helped set up a projector to play 90's related videos to make for a cool background.
We had to dim the lights and blur the projector focus to get this to be effective without drawing attention from the models or causing copyright infringement. But I think it worked really well, especially for an improvised new idea.
We covered a variety of camera angles and I made sure we covered all the ones on the shot list before seeing if we had time to experiment. This allowed me to have control over footage and meant if I could get the basic ideas down first we have the content to play with then any extra experimental shots/setups would be a nice addition to the piece. This was purely because we were so limited for time.
Both Alex's had great control over the camera, and although we didn't have a dolly we were still able to achieve decent movement and effective pans thanks to the Panasonic's OIS(Optical Image Stabilisation. Thanks to our mock up VT we knew to leave space for graphics and pop ups. We also were sure to get a close up on each individual item of clothing so we could create a tag for them in post. Although we had a different location to our mock up VT, we were also still able to get some great high and low angel shots by utilising the space around us.
References
We had a photographer with us to help with the story telling of the shoot. Unfortunately they couldn't get theirs or Alex H's DSLR to work which was had a really low chance of being the case but fortunately George Nicholls brought his along as a backup.
The first thing I did when I reached the location (art studio) was to refresh myself with the shot list and start setting up the shoot space. I wanted to film the photographer setting up the shoot lighting etc so it had an element of realism to it. It also meant the video has something proper to open with rather than it jumping straight into filming a photoshoot. Shot lists are important to follow because "It forces you to make choices." (Raindance, 2015)
In order for things to be less confusing I decided to shoot everything in order. I felt that this would really allow me to see how the footage would flow. This meant starting the lighting rig, which I got to be filmed as a quick montage and it didn't take long to do so. This was inspired by the director Edgar Wright who has a very stylised look to much of his work. "The actual clips that are used are very short, almost too short to really understand what is happening without enough context." (Perno, 2013).
For each decade I wanted to have different lighting, just to keep what wa son screen each era different, distinctive and maintain a certain look from each period. For example, the projector with different our of focus 90s music videos fitted the 90s look and the blue hue light on 80s gave it depth and color (color were very vibrant in the 80s).
I had also prepared some props to match each decades trend which really enhanced the quality of the shoot. So for 70's I sourced a record player and some vinyl records.
The first trend was from the 60's. The model sat on a stool so that the framing would match that of traditional 60's era photos. The model wore a mod style outfit that I had looked in to.
70's
The 1970s look was inspired by a lot of music from the era. Because the look is flares I had this image in my head of The Jackson 5 waring such outfits and it made me think how iconic the 1970s was for music. A way to show this was through the use of vinyl records and a record player. For this I wanted an opening shot on the record spinning so we could put the title there in a circle in the edit and have it eventually spin with the record. This was a style I had previously practiced with my project The FIRM Awards, where I had text spinning in the coffee:80's
For 80's we had a simple roll neck jumper look paired with a bump bag. We also placed an old style space heater to help emphasise the era which gave it a scene and sense of depth to the shots and made the shoot look like it had some advertising purpose of the era.
90's
For 90's we had the models sporting double denim and camouflage jackets. For this I helped set up a projector to play 90's related videos to make for a cool background.
We had to dim the lights and blur the projector focus to get this to be effective without drawing attention from the models or causing copyright infringement. But I think it worked really well, especially for an improvised new idea.
Both Alex's had great control over the camera, and although we didn't have a dolly we were still able to achieve decent movement and effective pans thanks to the Panasonic's OIS(Optical Image Stabilisation. Thanks to our mock up VT we knew to leave space for graphics and pop ups. We also were sure to get a close up on each individual item of clothing so we could create a tag for them in post. Although we had a different location to our mock up VT, we were also still able to get some great high and low angel shots by utilising the space around us.
References
(Raindance, 2015) https://www.raindance.org/5-reasons-shot-lists-are-essential-for-successful-filmmaking/
(Perno, 2013) http://www.cinelinx.com/movie-stuff/item/4451-directors-trademarks-edgar-wright.html
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