Shoot Day 11/11/14

We had fully prepared ourselves for this to be the most challenging of all our shoots from a logistics sense; bringing in various people from outside our group, media and even the school. Prior planning was crucial if the day was to run smoothly. Luckily for us, everything went to plan, people turned up on time and we were able to stick to schedule.

Starting at 1345, Harry and I began to set-up for the club scene while Yssy and Matt were in lessons. Re-adjusting the lighting and gathering all of our props, these mainly being plastic cups and drinks. It wasn't long before our extras arrived along with Yssy and Matt. They were all asked to bring costume and prepare make-up before hand so we had a chance to brief them while Yssy and Matt got into costume, fortunately for us, everyone had done exactly as asked and we got straight on with the shots.

We wanted to create this whole club environment, something which can be quite difficult if you have a small number of people. However, we had planned the shot so that you get the effect of a full and busy club, whilst still only having 8 or 9 extras. We decided that the best approach to the shot was to have fairly close framing and have the camera constantly moving so that you get a sense of a club environment.

We tried out various scenarios to show Yssy and Harry as a couple:

Dancing with close framing

Meeting friends in club

The club scene's main purpose other than to introduce the couple, is to show the progression of the bad times in their relationship, made worse by Harry looking at and talking to other women in the club whilst the two of them are on a night out together.

We had one of our actors, Esma, walk past Harry whilst he is in the club. His eyes follow her as she leaves, inciting Yssy to make it known that she has seen this.

However, after looking at this, we thought that we could make the scenario much clearer audiences and leave much less for them to infer. So we did another take this time with Esma and Harry talking and laughing with one another right in front of the camera. This time, Yssy sees him doing this, confronts him in front of the camera and very visually shows the audience that she has had enough of him.


Yssy visually telling Harry to leave her alone

We were all happy with how the footage turned out and what all of the actions conveyed, so with it hitting 1545, we let all of the extras enjoy the rest of their afternoon.

Next on our list was the back shots, however since we had already completed them on the previous shoot, we began setting up for the Silhouette Dance shots. The dancer we had organised to be in our shot, Tasha, was scheduled to arrive at 1630, which was perfect for us as it allowed us time to change the set and clean up.

Filming the dance shots was a really easy process, having sent Tasha the track a couple of weeks before, giving her time to get a feel for the song and choreograph a piece for us. As soon as she arrived, we gave her a quick brief of what we wanted from her and had a look at what she had prepared; both seemed to match up very well, so we got straight on with the shot.

      

Initial takes of dance

After dancing through the song twice for us, we then asked for her to make her movements much more fluid, especially for the slower parts of the song where we intend to use a lot of cross fades and slow down the pace of a lot of our footage. Ever the professional, she got started right away, this time being much slower in her movements and bring out that fluidity that we needed.

Movement much more fluid and controlled

With all of us pleased with the dance sequences and Tasha happy with how she looks on camera, we moved on to our next shot; the drumming with water.

This shot was very simple to do, changing the lighting set-up to one we had programmed previously, setting up the drum kit and tarpaulin to catch any water and getting on with it. So that no water leaked through the skin of the drums, we wrapped them in cling-film. We did it in such a way that it isn't noticeable to audiences, only to those who know it's there and actually go looking for it.

Drums being hit while covered in cling-film and water

Matt was really keen to be the drummer and we had no objection, the rest of us took turns on camera and making sure the drum kit is topped up with water. Getting really good splashes from the drum kit required all of us to work together; with Matt having to hit it as soon as we stop pouring water, a few seconds after and all you get is a drum or symbol being hit.

Hair flick set

Our final shot of the shoot and probably Yssy's most enjoyable, was the hair flick shots. Matt got straight on lighting, setting up the turret light in the back and changing the lighting set-up, while Yssy got into costume and Harry and I changed the set. We had to pull the tarpaulin right to the other side of the studio, so that none of the water from this shot got onto the flooring in the performance space.

The footage we captured looked stunning, the way the water shoots off from Yssy's hair and then falling back into shot, glinting in the light. None of us had anything to say after the shots other than how much we loved the footage. The perfect way to end our shoot; on a high and nearly an hour ahead of schedule, finishing at 2000.

Hair flick footage