Equipment

Here is the list of equipment we will require when shooting our video:

• Sony Handycam Video recorder
• Camera Tape
• Hand held lamps and lighting
• Digital Camera
• Toshiba laptop
• Speakers
• Music player
• Extension cable.

The actors in the video will be bringing:

• Cello
• Guitar
• Violin
• Drums
• Microphone
• Amps

Filming

To the left is the checklist we used to make sure we had all the right equipment on the day of filming and to make sure we didn't lose anything whilst filming.


The filming went smoothly and a warden from the church was available to help us with lighting the church and setting up the equipment. Upon arriving at the church, we began setting up the equipment in the corner of the church with the most space and windows, allowing the most light into the area where we were going to film. Our priority for the first two hours was getting shots of the band as a whole, and the lead singer. This was because Dan, our lead singer needed to leave early, and after he had left we could focus on individual instruments and their close ups.

Throughout the filming, Elliot was controlling the lighting, Alfie was making sure the right shots were being filmed and was also playing the violin, and I was filming the video. Before we began the filming, we set up the instruments in their correct places, showed the performers the animatic we had made, and set up the song on a music player so that the band members could keep in time with the music.

Once we began filming, we took a variety of close up shots of the lead singer along with some medium close ups. We also took longshots of him and the band as a whole so that we were not missing the lead singer in any shots after he left. We took some short clips, and also allowed the band to play through the song twice whilst is continually filmed the band. This gave us a variety of shots over a small space of time and we didn't need to keep repeating certain lines.

After the lead singer left we focus on the instruments in the video. This was an easy aspect of filming as the chords and beats for each instrument were the same throughout the video so could be repeated easily unlike the singing. We took long clips of each intrument from different angles, for instance, with the drums we filmed the cymbal crashes, over the shoulder of the drummer, and close ups of his hands and feet.

As the light through the church windows became dimmer we needed to rely more upon our own lighting. The warden was happy to let us use more powerful lightbulbs and these helped us get a nice glow on instruments such as the cello and violin. We knew from the day of filming that we would need to schedule another day to record the lead singer.

Shooting Schedule

Filming Location

Here are the maps and the location for our church where we will be filming the music video. The church is accessible for everyone in the group and we will all be able to make it there easily.

Holy Trinity Church

Risk Assessment

Change of Plan

Originally, we were planning on shooting our music video at St. Michaels and All Angels Church on the 30th of December. However, a few days prior to our shoot the vicar told us that the church would be under construction from the beginning of the new year and we would be unable to film in there again. This meant that we would have to change church because we knew it would take more than one day of filming to complete our video. We decided to go to the church anyway in order to practise using the camera, but when we arrived no one was there to let us inside.
We then had to look for a new church. Alfie contacted another local church in Dartford called the Holy Trinity Church, and they agreed to let us use the church on the 15th January.

St. Michael's and All Angels Church Slideshow

Church Options

St. Michaels and All Angels Church

After our e-mail back from the church St Michaels and All Angels, we visited the website to see if they had any images of inside the church.
We found this:
Our first impressions were that the setting was ideal, and we all particularly liked the large window as we had planned for this sort of church. However Alfie said that he was unsure of the space below the window that we could use to film, so we e-mailed the church back asking if we could visit and look around for ourselves.

The image of the stained glass window that we found proved to be very promising, as it was the type of window that we were looking for.










Stone St. Mary's Church, Greenhithe

This is the church that Alfie's friend Ollie can gain access to, but there were now pictures of the interior on the website. We then arranged with ollie as to when we could go and taken pictures of the church and ask a few questions regarding the filming.

Both churches have many perks and it will be difficult to chose. St. Michaels is a 10 minute walk from school, so an ideal place to film and a place that is local to the entire group. However, the problems we are worrying about at the moment are that there will not be enough room or objects may get in the way of filming. This is only based on the picture we have seen from the website, so we need to visit to make sure. We would also have to check specific dates with the church which may become a problem if we need to re-film some parts, but the vicar seemed happy to help us in his e-mail. Stone St. Mary's church is further away from where we all live, and may pose problems for actors getting there. However because Ollie can get keys to the church, it would be ideal as we could film almost whenever we wanted to.

Finding the Actors

We began to look for people that could play the desired instruments in our video. The most tricky role to fill was the cello, as it is quite rare that people play it. We began to ask around and see who is reliable to perform in our video.
We decided that the band members should be wearing smart/casual clothing, ideally blazers and shirts or shirts and ties. This formal look will fit better with out video and also with the church setting.
Here are some examples of how clothing changed with the setting of a video:

We began to fill the roles of our music video and came up with this list of actors:

Mike-Drums
Dan-Lead Singer
Ollie-Cello/Violin

Luckily, Ollie can play both the cello and the violin, and also knows people who play the violin. This was very handy because it means that we had a choice of who to cast, something we didn't think we would get with the violin and the cello. Ollie also knows a church in Greenhithe that would be happy to let us use the church as a setting, and Ollie could get keys, so gaining access when it suited us best wouldn't be a problem.

Finding The Right Setting

We began to look for an ideal church to set our music video in. We need to find a local church, preferably with a stained glass window, and we need to ask permission to firstly look around the church and whether we would be able to perform inside the church.

We would have to ask what day would be best to film on and whether everything we want in our music video can be filmed there.
We decided to email a few churches local to us and see what their responses would be to our ideas.

We decided that the churches needed to be local to us and easy to get to. The e-mail above is to a church near to Alfie's house, which made it ideal because it was so close.

The church close to Alfie's house was our first reply, and we decided to ask whether we could look around and see whether it was an ideal place to set our video.

We looked at our timetables and decided that the most convenient time to go would be on a Tuesday afternoon, and we could all meet after lunch at school. The church is only a 10 minute walk from our school so this made it easy for us to meet.

Thankfully, Richard e-mailed back saying that this was a good time to meet, and that he would see us on Tuesday. When we visit the church, we will take pictures of the setting, and ask various questions about setting up in the church.

Pitch Two

Our second pitch stemmed mostly from the idea of a church and the religious aspect of our song. We thought that a church, particularly one with a large stained glass window would be ideal to shoot our band in. We still wanted to keep a partial narrative to our video, but decided that it would be better if we devised a narrative that wasn't to far different from our performance. We thought the best idea would be a confession box within the church were the band are performing, featuring only the lead singer as he 'confesses'.

We had many ideas for the beginning of our video, for example:
A close up of the stained glass window, then a pan down to the cello as the song begins to play
A tracking shot of the lead singers feet as he walks up the aisle towards the rest of the band at the beginning of the song
A long shot as the lead singer opens the door to the church in slow motion and enters

The main instruments that would be priviledged are:
The cello
The violin
The drums

There will be many close ups of the singer throughout the song, and many of our camera shots will onvolve movement as the pace of the song picks up. We could imagine a shaky camera focusing on the violin as the speed of the song picks up.

Song Themes and Ideas

The strongest idea we had for a music video was based on the idea of confession within the song. We thought that a church originally was the best place to set the music video as it a place people go to for confession and redemption. We liked the idea of having a stained glass window behind the band as they performed and as we studied the song closely we thought that shots of the lead singer sitting inside a confessions box would be ideal. We studied the lyrics in more detail and jotted down some ideas and shots we would associate with certain lines:

'Something to get off my chest'

Ideas of secrets, lies, and confession, with the singer appearing upset or guilty

'Need something that I can confess' 

Would be an ideal line to say whilst inside a confession box, once again implying that the singer has done something wrong that he is ashamed of

'I'm gonna give all my secrets away'

 Relates to confession and being open about something, a shot could involve the singer gesturing strongly to show he is open about giving away his secrets

'Come by it honestly I swear'

 The word honest ties in with the themes of confession and secrets

'My God, amazing how we got this far'

 This line shows that the lyrics could have been talking about a journey of lies and dishonesty and now it is coming to an end, the confession box could be end of the journey.

All display religious or confession imagery and make a church setting even more ideal. Lines such as 'need something that I can confess' could be performed from inside a confessions box and would a way in which the video reflects the song lyrics. These ideas have added a small narrative option to our video which we had not previously thought about before, as we had originally decided to create an entirely performance video. However our ideas have changed the more we have thought about the song and setting.

Pitch One

Our first pitch of ideas involved more of a narrative style of video. We had already identified the theme of the song as confession and dishonesty, and then linked this to the line 'Till all my sleeves are stained red'. We then thought that this lyric could imply that a murder has taken place and perhaps the singer is feeling to guilty and emotional. We were going to have a narrative and performance based video, but concentrating mainly on the narritive part. Our teacher then told us that a murder is probably to powerful to display in a music video, and is rarely seen. We knew that controversial videos like 'Smack My Bitch Up' did include involve these sorts of narratives, but the peaceful nature of our song compared the the song by The Prodigy did not make it a good narrative for our song. We then began to plan a more performance based video.