Filmimg at Southend

On Monday Andrea and I went up to Southend to finish off our filming as Southend is one of the main locations in our music video. We have now finished all of our filming which means we can now focus on editing our music video and spending time getting all the lip syncing to fit in time with our chosen song.

Before we made our way up to Southend we went into Enfield Town to get some balloons for our 'Don't let me go' scence which is where we let the balloons go as we walk by the sea. We bought two packets of balloons one pack blue and the other pink but we only got eight of them blown up with hellium which meant that we had two trys at filming them.

When we got to Southend we put our wellies on amd took all our equipment and set up by the sea. We shot our balloon scene first in order to get that out of the way. First we set the camera up as we were both in this scene and then we filmed the balloons drifting off. I also filmed Andrea sitting on the rocks by the sea with the bubble machine on which looked really cool.

When we previously filmed in the snow we drew a heart in the snow but when it came to filming it we didn't really like the look of it as it doesn't stand out enough so we tried this at Southend which was our original idea. We drew the heart in the sand and waited for the sea to wash it away and luckily we managed to get a couple of shots of it and I think it looks much better and more interesting than our previous snow attempt.

After we finished filming everything by the sea we went for a stroll down Southend to see what else there was for us to take advantage of. As we were walking down we came across lots of arcades and thought it would be a good idea to go in get some shots as our music video is about having fun so we thought that an arcade would be a good place for us to express this. We went in and got some shots of different games, funky lights, shots of us messing around etc.

We also came across an area of little fountains which we also took advantage of. We set up the camera and just messed around for a bit, ran through the fountains and just filmed us having some fun.

I also got some shots of funky shop signs such as 'Adventure Island', we did this to express fun and also to show what we've been up to and how we may be going through a break up but this won't bring us down whcih is what our song is basically about.

We managed to film loads of different shots and are happy with the amount of footage we managed to film. Now we are excited and can't wait to upload everything onto our MAC and get editing.

Below is one of my favourite songs but i never really took notice of the music video and as i was watching today i noticed the shots of the shop signs so i thought i'd put it on my blog as it is something similar to what we done at Southend.

Filming Day

Today I am going over to Andreas house to do some more filming for our music video. We're going to be filming a studio shot as Andrea's parents have the equipment for us to do so. Our songs original music video has a studio shot in it already and I think it works well with the lyrics, we're going to play on this idea and come up with something maybe in a similar style but with different and more interesting elements.

On Sunday Andrea and I got some great footage, we filmed more than we needed to so that we have a lot to work with and choose from. First, we done our petal scene which goes with the second verse of our song, Andrea done the first verse so this time i done the second verse as we are taking things mainly in order. The petals look really pretty and we're glad that we chose to buy real petals rather than fake ones because this may have looked a little tacky and unprofessional.

After we completed filming our petal scene using different camera angles and shots so we have a vartiey we can work with we had a break whilst my camera charged and then we took my camera and tripod outside so we could get some shots in the snow. We filmed eachother and also set up the camera so we were both in the shot so we could get some scenes together. We particularly like the footage we got in the snow because it's natural and not staged like the first and second verse. This is good because it's the look we wanted in our chorus. Our chorus is about us having fun, being silly, girly and natural and the footage is exactly that.

In yesterdays lesson we uploaded all of our footage onto our iMAC with my camera SD card. It didn't take extremelly long to upload so we were able to play around with some of our footage in our Final Cut Express tutorial lesson. The main skill we wanted to learn was how to create a split screen effect. The visitor who came in talked us through how to use the software to create this effect. Andrea and I both experimented with the software and finally we managed to create an even split screen.

After the lesson we both stayed in the media room because we were really excited about our new footage and wanted to get some more editing done. We stayed through our frees and managed to get quite a lot done which we're really happy about. I think it looks really good so far!

I will be uploading our video so far on to YouTube in Friday's lesson after we show our teacher what we've done so far so we can redo or fix anything we haven't done.

SNOW!

Today Andrea will be coming round mine so we can do some more filming for our music video. We were hoping that it would snow and luckily it has so after we get our second verse (petal scene) done we will be going outside as i live right by a forest/park to do some filming in the snow! This will look really good in our choruses and also in the verses where we were hoping to film at a forest.

All we are going to need for our second verse are some petals which i already bought off eBay (dried rose petals to make it look more realistic), my camera and tripod and also a white sheet to use as the background. Four our choruses we are going to set up the camrea so that we are both in the shots and have a snow fight, build a snowman and try out different things that will look good and fun for us to use as part of our music video.

I will also be taking some photographs throughout the day to show you what we've been up to!

Music Video...

Today Andrea and I have had a very eventful day, we not only managed to edit the opening of our music video we also did some more filming for our clock scene. We've had a lot of fun working on our music video so far and I think we're keeping on track well. Furthermore we have also added a date to our schedule of when we will next be meeting up which will be on Friday 13th to take some studio photos for our digipaks.

Below is the footage from our music video, enjoy...

Filming

Yesterday Andrea and I met up and went to Enfield Town to buy everything we needed for the parts we were going to film and went halves on it all. Once we finished buying all the things we needed we went back to hers to start organising. We bought six clocks for our clock scene which is going to be at the beginning of our music video, glitter, diamante heart stickers which we placed on the logo, balloons and a cake. I brought along my camera, tripod, clothes and petals.

We decided to use the logo i made for our 'band name' because we thought it worked best with our theme and also Andrea and others really liked it too. However, we incorporated Andreas idea of the cupids and added them onto the logo i made in order to have her idea and input in it too. We're really proud of our logo!

We wasted no time and started setting everything up. I set up the camera and done all the camera work mainly because i do photography which helps quite a lot and am quite good at filming. We started off with our intro which is where our logo is going to appear. We printed it out, stuck diamonte pink stickers on top of the pink hearts in order to make them stand out more and poured a mixture of pink, silver and purple glitter on top of it until the logo was covered and then Andrea blew it all off with a hairdryer. We done this a couple times just incase but we're both really happy with the outcomes. However, the process was not easy at all! We had to reposition the camera and logo several times until we got it to look perfect, plus we has a lot of cleaning up to do because the glitter went everywhere!

 I took photos of what we were doing throughout so i can upload them on my blog and give you an idea of what everything looks like.
This is what our logo looked like when we stuck the diamonte heart stickers over the original hearts to make them stand out. And the two cupids on the end of the swirls of my design is Andreas incorporated idea.
Overall i'm really happy with the way it turned out. I might upoload a little clip of our introduction where we reveal our band name but if not you're going to have to see it in our draft or final music video!

Once we finished filming our 12 second introduction we moved on to our cake scene which involved smashing a cake. This goes with the lyrics 'except for the fact it was my birthday, my stupid birthday'.
Below are two photos of what the cake looked like before and after!

We're so happy with the outcome! We only had one cake which is why it was quite risky but it turned out excatly how we wanted it too. Andrea stood on a chair so that the cake smashed better when she threw it. I set up the camera and filmed, but before we filmed we had to get rid of the shaddows, we had a lot of issues with shaddows getting in the way of everything but we managed to work things out. We just pushed Andrea's chair back a bit so she lent forward instead. I think this is going to look really good in our music video. The funny thing about this is there's a little face in the cake if you haven't already noticed... two cherry eyes on the top and a cherry tongue sticking out :D

Here are some other photos i took in our clock scene which is also at the beginning of the song (first verse). This is Andrea's part where she sings 'It took to long x3 for you to call back and normally i would just forget that, except for the fact it was my birthday, my stupid birthday'.

 This is what the layout of our clock scene looks like. Our original plan was to hang them up on the wall which we tried several times but a few kept falling and one clcok unfortunately broke as it fell of the wall and landed on the marbel floor :(
But it wasn't a massive problem because luckily we bought a good amount of clocks to work with. When the wall plan didn't work out i told Andrea that placing the clocks on the stairs would look quite quirky so we tried it and it does look really good in the clips.

Here are some photos of Andrea during her part, we went over the same thing several times in order to get a good amount of footage we can play around with.

Stop Animation Practice

Here is our practice stop animation:



We will not be using this particular stop animation because I don't think it looks professional enough and also because the layout/ theme doesn't go with our song. However, we will be redoing it in a different style.

Stop Animation Practice

On the 1st of December Andrea and I met up outside of lesson time to do some filming for our music video. In this time we focused on the introduction of our song. We are planing to create a stop animation for the intro in order to introduce the name of our song and the artists. In Mondays lesson we made a list of everything we would need for our stop animation. We created our stop animation by taking photos. I bought in my camera and took the photos whilst Andrea moved around the props (shells and paper balloons that we drew and cut out). The layout looked very nice but when we uploaded all the photos onto our mac and put it into imovie in Fridays lesson i noticed that the props were moving far too slow and it wasn't very clear, although i did say that we needed to move everything around faster. I guess this was a good way to practice but i do think that we need to do it all over again. I am planing on meeting up with Andrea in our next free period so we can do this again, faster this time so that it's more choppy and clear.

I will be uploading the first one we made so you can see exactly what i am talking about and when we've redone it i'll post that up too so that you can see the difference between both stop animations. 

Andrea had a Halloween party at hers on the weekend so i brought the Flip along to take some footage. We took advantage of the decoration, costume, make-up we had that day and made the most of it. First lesson back today we uploaded all of our footage to the computer and made a video with the best bits. Think we done quite well to be honest, took us ages to do cause we're both quite perfectionists!

ENJOY!!!

Outtaks From Prelim



Finished Prelim!

Yesterday afternoon (Thursday 14th July) Andrea and I went up to the media room to upload our prelim off the camera and see how much of it we could get done. We managed to get it done in the afternoon and stayed a little bit longer after school which was unintentional but we didn't realise cause we were caught up with our video. We timed the shots in the Lily Allen - Smile video in order to get our timings right. Both Andrea and I done the editing together to make it fair. I'm happy with the work we've done and the preciseness of our timing and lip syncing.

Filming Preliminary Video

Today was a long but extremely fun day. Andrea, My Boyfriend and I came back to mine after school to film our prelim in my room because that is where Lily Allen spends 30 seconds of her time in the video. We previously made a storyboard for it which Andrea brought along to make it easier and more organised for us to do. We had 16 shots to film in total and managed to get them all done. Andrea done the filming and I was Lily Allen along with a bit of my boyfriend in it. We made sure that we took our time and made it look as similar to the actual video as possible. Andrea and I even went out shopping today to buy some props for it. I bought gold earings, a gold necklace and a gold ring to go with the Lily Allen look and Andrea bought the chocolate and crisps that i had to eat several times during the filming process. We filmed the same shots several times till we got the best one. It's now ten to ten, Andrea left about twenty minutes ago... That's how long we spent on filming for our 30 second prelim video. It was fun to dress up for it and eat all the junk food! but most importantly it was good practice and fun for us both.

Lip Syncing Practice

In todays lesson both Andrea and I practiced lip syncing to the prelim song i'm going to do in order to get used to it and see if we can manage to do so. Andrea and I are both going to be in our actual music video which is why we decided to have a little practice together. We filmed two videos today and edited the first one because the second one was something we decided to do for fun and also to practice a bit more.

Here's our practice prelim (not the real prelim):


The next one you're about to watch is really quite embarassing but funny and was a bit of fun for us too :)
Here it is, ENJOY!: