First Day Of Filming For The Music Videos

28th November 2016

The first day of filming for our music videos began with what should have been a warning sign from the start. I got up at 6 in the morning to get the half 6 bus to arrive at college for around about half 7ish, but instead got to college at around quarter past 7, which was mildly annoying. I started waiting for everyone else in the group to get in, but decided the best course of action would be getting breakfast, so I trudged off to Sainsbury’s to pick up a meal deal. When I got back Andrew was there waiting for everyone else to show up, so we sat and waited. After a while Logan arrived and we set off to get the maintenance guys to open the green room for us so we could get the gear we would need for the days shoot. We got in only to find that the cameras where all gone, turns out the second years still had them from shooting over the weekend. So we couldn’t start preparing until they got in, because we had nothing to prepare. So we sat and waited for them to show. By this point Amy was also here with us, she got stuck in traffic and was held back a little. We started to set up what we could in the conference room and waited eagerly for the guys to get back with the cameras. Amy and I were waiting in the green room to see if they would come there first, while Andrew and Logan were in the classroom printing paperwork needed for the shoot. After a little while the second years arrived for their lesson, cameras in tow. After they got there recorded footage off the SD cards we stole them back to the green room where we began proper preparations for the days shoot. During this time a few of the acting students had showed up and were now sat around waiting for us to finish preparing the room for them to use. We were finally ready to begin filming for Andrews’s music video! But the hard times had only just begun….

One of the acting students didn’t show up until it was too late to be in the video, and didn’t bring the correct clothing required for the scene. Andrew sent him off and we were immediately down an actor, not a good thing. We started filming and got a few shots done before disaster struck once again. And they say lightning never strikes twice. One of the higher ups in the college turned up and started to knock on the door to get our attention, only we were in the middle of filming a shot. As his knocking turned to banging we thought it might be a good thing to see what he wanted. We opened the door and found that the room was already booked out for the principal, not gonna argue with that. So, once again, our plans were scuppered. Andrew decided, as the director, that we should call it a day and try and re-record the footage in a different room, on another day. We sent the acting students off with a smile and decided to begin preparations for the shooting of some scenes from Logan’s music video. We brought Dylan to the little interview room were we had planned to record Logan’s scenes and began re-organizing it to look right for the shoot. We had also brought some of the red-heads from the green room to help with the lighting of the room, and it got incredibly hot in there very quickly. We finished filming the scenes that only had Dylan in them, during which time Beatrice turned up and was ready for her scenes. We rearranged the room to suit our needs and got recording the next scenes. After this we sent Beatrice off to get her clown makeup done and sat around waiting for her to get back. After a rather long time waiting Amy messaged her to find she hadn’t even gone to makeup, so Amy and Andrew went off to ‘escort’ her to makeup to make sure she made it there. Eventually she got back with her clown makeup fully done and we began work on the next scenes that had her in. once we finished these scenes we were finished with the acting students so we sent them home, thanking them for their time as they left.

Once we had finished tidying up the green room and all other rooms used, we took the SD card out of the camera and headed for our classroom to retrieve the footage. And this is where the lightning strikes a third time. Since Logan had the SD card he was the first of us to begin taking the footage off the camera. Andrew decide that it was a good idea to just scrap the footage we took from the morning shoot in the conference room, as we were going to need to do it all again anyway. Logan began to delete the footage from the SD card when Kelly told the whole class that all members of a group needed all recorded footage, regardless of whose video it was for. Fortunately Logan had only deleted it from the SD card and not from his hard drive so we were in the clear, only when he went to go to his hard drive to get the footage and transfer it to us, it was gone. It was gone from the SD card and his hard drive; this day couldn’t go any worse. After a brief talk with someone from the IT department of the college we deduced that it would be best if we gave the SD card to a technician to see if they could drag the deleted footage back from the aether or wherever it was. The next morning Logan and Andrew where already in before I got in. They were in the LRC trying desperately to get the footage on the SD card to work. But it was too little too late, it was corrupt, and there’s no saving that. It was a terrible shame that this footage was lost, as it was some really good stuff. But its ok, every failure or mistake is a learning experience. It might have been a wasted day, but we will learn from this day and use this knowledge in the future.

Writing Brain Training

Five Things You Wish Your Parents Had Never Told You

1. ''Were starting to do Slimming World''. This actually really scared me when I first heard this, because I'm a very fussy eater. The fact that Slimming World uses all kinds of weird ingredients in their food, regardless of how good it actually is, is a very offsetting prospect for me. Things like aubergine, courgette and even mushrooms, which I have a long standing hatred towards, are all things which are either strange, unusual or just plain taste horrible. The texture of theses weird foods and the way they make the plate look wrong is all wrong to me. Now, I'm not gonna knock Slimming World, because it does work, but maybe they could come up with a few newer, nicer recipes for my parents to try, maybe?


2. ''Were moving to Canada''. Now this might not sound like a bad thing to begin with, and it isn't. I would love to live in Canada, it’s a great place, but I think that the only reason they said it is because it was in the wake of just having been there on holiday. We went to Canada to see what it was like, just for a bit of a holiday trip, and really enjoyed it. The problem from moving there comes from the fact that, not only is it a French speaking country some of the time, it would also mean that I would have to make new friends, find new things to do and even change the way I think. Now we never actually moved to Canada, as you can guess, but the threat of a massive life change was very big at the time.


3. ‘’Were going on holiday to America’’. Without me. That’s the important part of this statement, they didn’t take me. They went on this nice, big fortnight long trip to the great US of A and didn’t bother take bring me. Now some people would relish this opportunity to have a free house for a full week, but not me. Mainly because I don’t have any real reason to need a free house. I don’t hold parties or have loads of friends to bring round, so I ended up just being sat on my own most of the time. I would much rather they didn’t tell me where they were going and just disappear for a week. That would have been better than knowing where they were and not being able to go with. But oh well.


4. ‘’Were getting two cats’’. Now again, this might not sound like a massive deal, I for really like cats and so do many other people, but, as it turns out, I am also mildly allergic to cat hair and stuff. So it wasn’t all that great an investment. Now I love both cats right now, they’re great, they can be annoying, but so can I. Maybe that’s why we get on so well, who knows. We have had these cats for a number of years now and the allergies have proven to be very minor, but at this time of year when the cold is about, it only serves to heighten the effect that the cats have on me. It’s not very nice.


5. ‘’Get a job’’. Now again, this isn’t an inherently wrong thing to say, but it was more in what was meant by it that bothered me. This is something that I will stick by to the day I die, and that’s that you should never settle for mediocrity, middle-class average. Why aim low? And this is what they meant, and still mean, when they tell me to get a job. Live the life we do. Get a job. Get a car. Get married, live in an alright house, have kids. Grow old, retire, die. That’s the life they will live and that’s the life they want me to live. Because they think it’s what’s ‘’good’’ for me. It’s what’s best. It is a steady, slow, ultimately boring, life to lead. When they say they want me to get a job they say it because it will get me a nice steady income, somewhere to go if things go wrong, a backup plan, but that’s only if you think things might go wrong. And that’s not the kind of attitude I have.

Writing For Film And TV

Six Word Micro-Fictions

A six word story with the title: Happiness is.....

Happiness is knowing she wont give you up.

A six word story about exercise is.....
Exercise is good for your body.

A six word story, that tells a real story is.....
She ran to escape from him.

A six word story with the title: When I grow up.....
When I grow up the world will know my name.

A six word story with the title: The best thing about this week will be.....
The best thing about this week will be that we can start making progress.

A six word story with the title: A message from someone you have not seen in years.....
A message from someone you have not seen in years is like being given free love.

A six word story with the title: They can take my life, but they can never take my.....
They can take my life, but they can never take my giant bag of hot, cheesy nachos.

A six word story with the title: The perfect Christmas......
The perfect Christmas involves more than just your family.

A six word story with the title: Christmas is.....
Christmas is that sad sense of loneliness again.
Christmas is a commercial. It is not real.
Christmas is the barrage of adverts you get.
Christmas is the biggest night of my life.
Christmas is when I bring people to justice.
Working with Logan to make the prior six word stories more story like.

Happiness is....
Knowing she wont give you up.
''What happens, when things are happy?''

Exercise is....
''Exercise is good for your body''
"At least it made me exercise"
''I walk to college. That's it!''
She ran to escape from Him.

How Does 'Cant Stop This Feeling' Make Me Feel

Justin Timberlake
'Cant Stop This Feeling'

This music video mainly makes me feel alive and happy. The collection of different people dancing and enjoying themselves evokes the feeling of happiness regardless of how you feel at the time. The combination of this and the lively pumped up music really makes for an exciting song. It also puts the film 'Trolls' in my mind because of the synergy within this video. The song was written for this movie and the music video features some of the characters too, on the TV screens in certain shots.

Where I Am So Far

Where I Am So Far

So far my music video production has come to a halt as we have decided to film and edit it after the Christmas break to make it easier for the acting students as this will hopefully have less clashes with timetables. We are going to be filming Andrew and Logan's music video instead. The planning has also come to a halt, but I do still have permission to film in all the places I would like to, so it shouldn't be an issue in leaving it for so long. We are currently in the process of finalizing the planning for these other music videos and will hopefully begin filming them next week, starting Monday. This is as exciting as one would expect it to be, as we are finally going to be able to make some progress. It is also scary, as an entire quarter of the music video rests on my shoulders, as with everyone else involved. personally I am just waiting for the filming to be planned out for my music video so we can begin filming it. So far I have planned out all the different shots I will be getting and I can always add more if they are needed. I know who will be the main actors and who will be the extras in the different scenes. I am in a pretty good spot with the production for my music video aside from it coming to a halt entirely. hopefully it will look as good as I hope it will.

Aldi Christmas Advert

Aldi Christmas Advert 2016

The Amazing Christmas Carrot

I think the Aldi Christmas advert for this year is by far my favourite one of the year, mixing humour with the joy of Christmas and a little bit of product placement on the side. The advert revolves around a little baby carrot as he quests to meet Santa Claus on Christmas eve. His journey takes him across the dinner table covered in what is presumably Aldi's own foods. He starts by trekking across a sea of mashed potatoes acting like glue, then finds himself face to face with his brothers and sisters in one of the more grim shots of the ad, as they are all cooked. He then bumps into a bowl of roasties, knocking a few of them over and running from them, a clear homage to the Indiana jones death boulder trope. He jumps to avoid them and lands on a cheese grater, shaving a little off his back. He walks across a bucket of ice, akin to a frozen wilderness to a little carrot like him, this is coupled with some obvious product placement of the champagne Monsigny. He then bumps into a candle and knocks it into the Christmas pudding, lighting it on fire, as is tradition, for some reason. The fire of the pudding lights his ''hair'' on fire and he runs in panic, jumping from the table and onto the Christmas tree. He wipes the sweat from his brow and collapses onto the plate with Santa's mince pie on, falling sound asleep. He wakes up tied to the front of Santa's sleigh like some sick Mad Max ritual and Santa flies away into the night, off to perform more nefarious carrot kidnappings no doubt. The advert ends with the obligatory Aldi logo and the motto, Everyday Amazing. Also the carrot is called Kevin which is incredibly cute.

All of this is accompanied by a rather humorous narrator reciting a poem about the little carrots journey through the terrors of the dinner table. This adds a sort of light hearted feel to the whole video and makes it a bit more family friendly. I cant help but feel that the advert was sort of pushed in certain creative directions by the need to have some product placement in there. This would normally spell disaster for an advert like this, but it seems to only serve as a way for it to be more relatable, as we all have champagne on Christmas, right? One of the most annoying parts about the whole video is that it is set at night, why is this bad you ask? Well, nobody sets up the whole Christmas dinner the night before do they? And it has been cooked as you can occasionally see steam coming from the foods. But that's probably just me nit-picking a good advert. Who can truly say.

My Music Video So Far

Work Song

I have been working quite hard so far during the pre-production side of making my music video. Most of the planning for my music video is quite near to completion, I have just to meet the acting students for rehearsals yet, and then we should be good to go. I am hoping to meet a lot of different people and really hope that some will be perfect for the roles that I need. Filming will hopefully only take a few days to complete, the rest of the groups videos should be the same too. After that it is just up to editing it to finalise it and then it will be done. I will more than likely be filming the latter parts of my music video first due to the constraints of the church we are filming in. There isn't much makeup needed in my video, but we can send the actors away to get that while we film other parts. The props are easy to come by and so are the costumes. I have made up a short story board for the video, along with a comprehensive shot list and a shot schedule so that nothing is forgotten. I am quite nervous as to running the whole operation on my music video but that only means I will have to try harder to nail it on the first go as we only get one go.

Music Video Roles I Have Been Given

Music Video Roles I Will Have

For my own music video I will be the director. This will require the utmost precision to pull off this video properly. As the originator of the idea for my music video, it is my responsibility to make sure that everything goes off without a hitch and the video ends up looking the way I want it to. It will be my job to make sure that all the crew members and the actors are on set or wherever they are needed, when they are needed. It will also be my job to make sure that everyone is motivated enough do actually dot he work, as it will no doubt be cold on the locations I am shooting at the song I have chosen is slow and sad so they will probably get bored of it quick, so this will need to be addressed and circumvented to keep them up to the task. It will also be my responsibility to make sure that nothing in the church gets damaged and that no one who is there is offended by what we are doing and saying. As the director it is up to me to make sure that everything is shot to the highest quality it can be. It will be a tough task to complete but it is something I am willing to do to better learn how to do this in the future, so I am excited to do this.

On Andrew's music video I am the director of photography. This means that it is my responsibility to make sure that the cameras are in the places Andrew wants them to be. It also means that I can be a little experimental during some of the more weird scenes in his video, allowing for some peculiar shots. This job also entails making sure that everything is recorded properly and as Andrew requests. This is a big responsibility on my shoulders, and is something I cannot mess up, as then there are 2 people going down. I will do everything I can to make sure that Andrews video is recorded and captured just the way he wants it to be, whatever it takes, as this too will be a great way to learn for the future. The cameras are completely in my control during the shoot, so if anything goes wrong it is all on me, which is something that I wont let happen. It is definitely making me nervous, this much pressure, but that also means that is an exciting prospect, and I will do whatever it takes to make it perfect.