Prelim Music Video task - Shoot Reflection

Creative arts evening

For the evening we planned to shoot a large majority of the final video including the main boxing scene and the lip-sync section and instrumental elements to the final piece however soon found this would be more of a challenge than we had originally hoped. 

We ran into a large number of problems whilst trying to shoot the video and many more problems I think will occur in post production. Firstly we had a limited green screen space so getting wider shots such as 2 shots and mids was very difficult and also meant we didn't have a lot of space for camera movement as the environment was so small which was a big problem as the video revolves a lot around handheld camera. To resolve this we had to limit our movement and increase the movement of the talent in order to replicate a similar effect.

My roll for the task included a large variety of elements but in essence I saw myself as the director and set manager for the shoot, ensuring everything ran as smoothly as possible and that all shots needed were captured in the most efficient way possible to maximise the time we had on set. I spent a large amount of time on the camera being the most knowledgeable camera operator of the group it was far easier to explain my desires through physically setting the shot myself. We had a monitor on set which was a huge help in explaining what I wanted to people as I could just point. I had also brought along a smoke machine which I thought would help enhance the lighting colours and give more drama to the shot and feel this worked very well. 

The next problem we faced was time limitation. We only had access to our talent for just under 40 minutes so we had to re arrange the order in which we got our shots to maximise the shooting time with our boxers and ended up working completely from memory and abandoning the script and shot list we had created purely due to time limitations. This was a group decision and we thought it would be best to capture as much action as possible from a range of angles as oppose to copying the existing video. This on reflection was a good idea as we are now sat on a larger range of footage which gives us a greater flexibility in post meaning we are more able to replicate the mood and story of the music video with the same editing tempo which will hopefully lead to a similar overall feeling and thus match to the original video.

Our lighting effect was limited to one light on the night as we needed 2 lights to backlight the green screen and eliminate shadows to allow a cleaner key. This meant we could only use one colour at a time so we were limited to our desired colour effect meaning the lighting was not as impactful. Thankfully we had access to some great gels which made the footage look great in my opinion allowing us to achieve somewhat of the characteristic look we sought after which would make the video.

Organising talent was a lot easier than expected and we had a lot less problems with confidence and actor ability than I had thought so we ended up getting a lot more done than id hoped and with a last minute gather of props ended up making a video I thought looked very aesthetically pleasing and visuals which would compliment the song very well. The beat of the song was a huge element I focused on the theory of in order to achieve perfect timing and I based all my camera movements off this beat in my head which hopefully means the camera movement looks rhythmic in the final piece.

The final issue we faced was knowledge of the lyrics as I don't think we were able to get all the lip sync shots we wanted however this is not a major issue as we can easily pad out lip syncing with the extensive amount of footage we got of the boxing and other story elements. 

A main feature of the video is a background which is covered in bokeh like light elements and I quickly became aware of the fact the environment interacts with the environment so to help achieve this in post I had the idea to place track points onto the green screen which would move like the environment however this meant the crosses had to be in shot at all times. 

Overall I feel shooting the prelim music video was a large success given the amount of time we had to plan and shoot the video its self and how the group worked together in order to achieve what will be the final video and I look forward to working in post in order to replicate the largely successful music video creation of the song Believer by Imagine Dragons.  

After creating a first render of the video I was able to reflect on post production and the issues that arose. The first job in post was the key each shot. For this we used the Luma key tool within final cut pro which removed the background of each shot allowing us to place different environments behind the subject. This worked very well until we encountered camera movement within the green screen shots as the background would not interact with the movement of the camera. To amend this I pre placed black crosses on the green screen as tracker points. After pre rendering the keyed shots we exported them into an after effects composition where we created a Null object layer and tracked the motion of the crosses to the object. We then linked the Null object layer to the environment before making minor adjustments manually. Unfortunately we were unable to track all shots due to time limitations however the outcome of the shots we did track was greatly successful.

Another issue we faced was having to contrast background colours to the lighting of the shots. Unfortunately abandoning the shot list lead to not knowing the correct lighting for each character meaning in some cases we had to contrast the background shot with the coloured lighting in order to maintain the different environments for each character vital to the storyline.

A final issue I identified was the smoke machine interfering in the keying of the shots. Unfortunately the particles of smoke were too fine to be registered cleanly within the screen its self leading to a poor key in the smoky areas which ruined some shots. To fix this next time I would overlay fake smoke on top of the shots in order to retain a clean key throughout as I priority.

Overall the video was a huge success giving the time limitations we had and if we had more time in post we could have evolved it into something almost professional looking. I have learnt a lot from this video mainly green screen techniques as it is not something I have worked with in the past.