Account of the Shoot Day

Painting and co-ordinating the set was done on Friday afternoon, the previous school day before actually filming the footage. Our set really came together at this point; the painting and attention to detail on the plastic space-craft like panels truly made the set come to life. To give an idea of the set it was made from three silver painted walls in a rectangular shape, with three vent looking panel across the back walls. We also have a controls box of about four foot with painted knobs and monitors, on the other side there was another panel with many different buttons on it. We left school for the weekend looking forward to filming the music video on Monday.
The pre-shot preparation of giving the actors costumes make up, giving the three rappers a couple of times to warm up and be given ideas of what to do started at 9:00 AM. Luckily through taking measurements and buying costumes accordingly, the outfits fitted the cast and props of hats and gold chain were available to them. Everyone was dressed and prepped so we started the practise, sadly after the second time one of the rappers who was previously very ill sad he could not continue with the shoot. I therefore had to step in and perform he song with the two other rappers, we could not ask anyone else as they would not know the lines and teaching them would take time we just didn't have. After a quick costume change I was ready to continue the practises. When we felt that it was time to start filming we arranged the camera at a mid shot distance, directly in the middle of the set. The aim of the first couple of shots was to give the rappers the confidence to come to a very close vicinity of the camera and say the words with expression and their own interpretations. Being in the video was good as I could perform in a way that me and Steph wanted for the video, but it hindered my ability to judge the shots and direct them a I was no longer spending all the time behind the camera. With the initial mid shots done after three takes of the rap part, the other performers and I started to do a sort of free style take including completely improvised and spontaneous movements. For example, we did the canoe, robot and tug of war all adding to one of the main ideas of joking around in the video. I feel because we included so much of these quirky and individual shots into the whole rough cut it has made promoting the band in a light hearted way.
For the majority of the morning we experimented with new shots of the rappers, for the scene where it looks as if the spaceship is breaking we used a smoke machine tilted the with one side of the ship to the other, in the frame was on of the rapper in the foreground and two in the background running from side to side in complete devastation and worry.
After the lunch break, we came back and started to film the narrative strand, all of this was done in the blue screen with exception to the doors opening and closing with the alien either leaving or entering. In these scene I felt more comfortable as I was able to direct with Steph behind the camera and give ideas while seeing how the shot looked on film. The door scene was very hard to get right in the way that the two people pulling the door did not know how fast to go and when to open and shut it though eventually after 5 or 6 takes we managed to get it right.
After this shot was completed, we had to dismantle the set and make room in front of the blue screen to film the scene. We needed to gather shots of the alien running away whilst looking backwards, walking around looking very shocked and spinning around very slowly on the chair in both mid shot and close up.
The day finished at around 4:30 PM and we were very happy with how the day went all considered it could have been a disaster with one of the main people dropping out.