On Monday, we were instructed to go to the theatre, as this is where we'd be filming and producing our rendition of "HAVOC". Our morning began by watching this production and we were all super excited to put our own stamp on it and create our own. It all began with head tutor, Tim, giving us an introduction to the set-up of our project, choosing the production team and picking our own individual groups of four. Myself and my colleagues; Naomi Doddridge, Charlie Baylis and Sam Shaw all decided spontaneously that we would work together. It began with us not really knowing what to do, but we had 3 hours to plan before we filmed our segment of the video at 12.15 so we had a while.
After we went for a quick tea break, we watched a couple of videos of slow-motion techniques on YouTube and began falling in love with a few ideas that we thought would look amazing. As we all wanted to go for something different, Sam and Charlie went with a 'shaking head and body' technique, whereas myself and Naomi decided to get some party-poppers, as we thought the confetti effect would look really illuminative slowed down.
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| Our group in the filming theatre |
When it came for our turn to film, it didn't take as long as I thought. My colleague's; Liam Woodridge, Abi Cannings, Sam Sheard and Nick Bennett were the production team and Tim, Billy, Neil and Wendy were there to observe and direct. With Liam and Abi operating the camera dolly, which would ensure a smooth running circle around all 4 of us. It only took us 2 takes to get it spot on, with the first take being a practice run. I really enjoyed filming this as I was in the same boat as everyone else, which meant my anxiety wasn't as bad as it normally was.
After we finished our individual group shot, we had about 2 hours to kill again. When it was time to film the second production which involved everyone in our group, we all gathered in the studio theatre to take part in the final production which would be the main attraction for the project, the main course if you like. This part involved getting into pairs, with one person standing behind the other, and the camera dolly would then continuously loop the attractions until it had gone round a total of 3 times.
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| Behind the scenes pics - Camera Dolly on the left |
The logistical side of this whole production was that our tutor, Tim, was the main director. Having done this over the years with a number of different classes, it was easier for both him and us if he directed. Throughout the day, things were very organised and that's why I think I enjoyed it so much. The first part of the afternoon class productions was to rehearse the layout and content of the clip we were about to shoot. In pairs, we had to stand behind one another around the 'clock face', and perform our individual set actions, which would look amazing in slow motion.
It took a few rehearsals before we could get it absolutely spot on, but I think considering there were 50 of us, we did pretty well with the timing's and synchronisation of the whole thing. The second part of the class filming was the 'switch'. This was quite similar to the previous segment, except when the camera came past us on the dolly, we would switch places. I personally found this one to be trickier than the first film, as it involved us having to be spot on, and if one person was too early/late, it would look totally fallen through and rubbish.
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| The switch from Emily in front, to me in front |
We filmed two segments as this would give us a lot more to play around with in the edit. The whole point of this production was to learn the importance and simplicity in the effect of the 50 frames per second (fps), instead of the default setting of 25 frames per second (fps). This was slow down the footage in the process of editing so it was 50% slower than what we originally shot it in. As we had the freedom of doing our own thing within the edit, it was a real eye opener for me as I was really looking forward to doing some real creative things with the footage.
For the edit, there was only one 'rule' we had to follow, and this was to make sure our footage meet the total length of the soundtrack, which Neil Rose had produced for us. We had to play around with the clips of all the individual groups of four, and the 2 class videos we filmed in the afternoon. Speeding up, slowing down and mirroring the footage was the sort of thing I wanted to go for, and I really wanted to match the video with the correct sound of the soundtrack. Similar to a soundtrack Neil had produced before, it was in almost two halves. The first half was quite calm and reserved, yet the second half just went mental and meant we could really go to town with our editing.
With editing, I started at 9.45am on Tuesday and didn't finish until 3.15pm the same day. It was all going really well. I had began with the shot of our class 'switching', and then gone into a montage of the individual groups of 4 shots which would match the beat of the soundtrack when the bass-line dropped about 1 minute in. I then began to fill the rest of the footage in by switching it round, mirroring, rotating the frame so it was the same thing but upside down, and making it really quirky. The final cut was absolutely incredible in my opinion, and it was one of my favourite productions I had edited as it really made me think about the soundtrack and footage we had to expand to fill the time.
Unfortunately, that edit is nowhere to be seen. This is because Premier Pro decided to crash on me whilst I was exporting, and it hadn't saved the original file either. I was/am absolutely gutted. I had put so much effort into it for it to just disappear in seconds. I had spent a lot of time making sure the sound effects during the 5 minute long soundtrack were synchronised with the footage we had taken for the final production. As I physically had no time left to edit, my friend and colleague Sam Shaw managed to let me have his edit so I at least had something to play around with. There were a few bits I kept the same, but other bits I changed and put my own spin on it.
On the whole, I did really enjoy being part of this production, and I thought the directing and production teams did an amazing job with controlling 50 of us in a routine mechanism light and thought we all really pulled it off to the best of our ability. My favourite part of this production was the way we used the camera dolly to make the production very professional looking and almost making it look high budget.
I look forward to using the camera dolly again as I feel it really made a big impact to the production on the whole.
Cheerio. :o)
- Olivia.
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