All of the band members were present - Altu, Jack, Paul and myself - so filming involved shooting from the audience, with the stage and band in frame. Filming was carried out by Jeremy and Dan was in charge of lighting.
The shoot itself took about three/four hours to complete as we had to set-up not only the stage but also the drumkit. Moreover, directing everyone was a little time consuming and keeping accurate to the storyboard was too.
We used the camera, tripod, track and dolly, and Dan's DSLR camera for some photography for the digipak. All other equipment were used as props; the three guitars, leads, amps, microphones, drums and sticks.
My role during the shoot was to perform as the lead singer/protagonist. I was present in most shots, singing and playing rhythm guitar. I had to act in the earlier shots where I enter the stage and meet other band members, but other than that I just had to lip-sync accurately and appear as a convincing, confident artist.I did film a little; some close up handicam shots of the other band members' instruments and facials were filmed by myself.
The storyboard was certainly very useful. It allowed us to place every actor correctly on the stage, as well as the location of the drumkit. We filmed in chronological order, too; this was possible because of the storyboard.
As with our AS piece, we did have to stray from the storyboard a little. This was not for any particular reason but more because of practicality. Some parts of the location were not the same as they were during the recce, as a play had been on recently. We did not make any major changes to the shot list; we did some tracking, some long shots from the audience and close ups of the band members.
My personal favourite shot from the first shoot is the first shot in this montage; a handicam shot following the protagonist entering the stage area. I really like the smoothness of the actions in the shot, and the lighting. It could have been nicer as a tracking shot perhaps, but this may have made it less significant.
We filmed the whole song as performed by the band while tracking, but a fair amount of this footage is quite shaky and so cannot be used. There are small parts that appear quite professional though, at a low angle just in front of the stage.
The lighting of the theatre made some of the shots appear grainy. This is to be expected with low lighting and so there is not a lot that can be done about this.
Some CUs of the band members' instruments were problematic to film because the cameraman's shadow can be seen; a production of the lights in front of the stage. We overcame this problem by filming at a slightly different angle.
Another challenge was the set-up of the whole stage. This occupied at least an hour of our time there. There was nothing we could do about this but as soon as everyone was at the location, we managed to work quickly and efficiently as a group.
The size of the stage was not ideal; more space would have meant we could shoot more CUs and a greater variety of camera angles/movements. We adapted to this by filming all shots of instruments from a higher angle and spacing the band members further apart from each other so that the cameraman could access more places.
As Dan had already been to the location a lot - and had carried out a thorough location recce - we knew where we would take photos. There are a few photos we actually took to be used elsewhere in the film, but these have turned out to look really good and so we will probably use one or two for the album digipak too.
One problem we encountered in this department is not having enough time to get a photo of all the band on stage together. A similar problem occured in Brighton, where we only left with one photo. This was not such a problem there, as we only needed one pane for the album. However, here, we need at least four photos for the panes.
As I have just mentioned, we definitely need to plan how we will get more photos of the band for the digipak. We left with a few shots for the internal panes, and possibly the back pane. Nevertheless, the front pane is vitally important so capturing that is a priority on the list of tasks yet to be completed.
In relation to filming, the next step is filming the narrative section of our music video. This will be taking place at my house on Wednesday 28th October.
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