Evaluation of Shoot Day

Helen doing Kemi's makeup

They day of the shoot, Thursday 5th November, went really smoothly and was a positive experience for everyone involved. We finalised all casting choices and final wardrobe and set adjustments the day before, making sure it was clear what time everyone was meant to be at the shoot to ensure a smooth run of filming. 

Makeup

We began with an underground club set, Tyler and    Ollie began putting up posters and arranging the                                decks and keyboard. Lit with coloured disco lights . While Elisa and I picked up our actor, Kemi. Jacky, Rob and Henry then began performing on the decks, while we shot and shot in wide and handheld held, getting canted angles and other interesting shots. With Henry and Jacky on the decks and Rob with the boom box on his shoulder, paired with the lights and set I feel we achieved the perfect 80's look. 

Make-up

Jacky

As we began shooting this, we shot the whole sequence twice in wide, as well as a canted angle looking up at the boys from a canted angle on either side, followed by hand held, allowing us to get close ups of the boys and the decks.

We then introduced the girls into the scene and encouraged them to dance round the boys, interacting with them whilst also engaging with the camera. We shot this again in wide and then achieved more intimate shots using a hand held camera.








We rapped this set and let the actors take a break whilst we took down this set and, built the next one. We took down the flats and added new ones, as well as adjusted the lights and swept the floor. Once our new set was ready to go we bring in our three dancers, and let them begin rehearsing. We realised as they rehearsed that the light was spilling around the sides of the coloured background, and we were very limited in what we could film as anything either side of the flat wouldn't look good on camera. To address this we used the black curtains surrounding the studio in addition to a black flat either side of the coloured wall to make the rest of the farm black, coincidently sharpening the coloured background. This allowed us more variation to shoot and the girls could move more freely.

We began to shoot the girls, starting from a wide shot with no light on them apart from that which was coming through the backdrop, creating sillhouettes, then repeated it all with the girls lit. Which we will hopefully be able to create a strobe lighting-esque effect hen we edit the video. 

We then moved onto individual shots of the girls each holding the boom box in different and interesting ways. Loa held it on her shoulder, Molly carrying it in front of her, by her knees, and Steph swinging it at her side.

We shot the girls once more, this time from the floor, with the boom box in the foreground and the girls in the background, out of focus. We then broke for lunch before getting the three main girls back in to touch up they hair and makeup and shoot them on this set. 

We repeated similar shots, starting off in a wide and then used a handheld camera, to capture some 80's looking angles and different close up shots. After having the girls lip-sync to the song in this set, we then shot the same shot as before with the boom box in the foreground and girls in the background switching the focus between the two. We even experimented with Kemi sliding right down to the front of the lens as she lip-synced several lines. 

The final set we used, was our rooftop with a green screen background. We had a the dj boys, swell as to extra boys. The green screen will eventually be edited as a London skyline at night. Everyone on the sofa looked like they were having a great time, which looked great on camera, an made the scene really come to life. Once again we began in a wide and then additionally shot close ups of each of the girls and some of the boys. The boom box was placed on Kemi's lap and we shot a close up of this swell. 

I felt the shoot day went really well, and am extremely happy with the way we communicated as a team and towards the actors, with some outstanding footage which we can't wait to begin editing.