Filming - Rough Cut 1 Alternate

Rough Cut 1 alternate from Luke Tiplady on Vimeo.
This is the 1st rough cut of my music video with some changes. I've added the paint bucket effect on shots when the protagonist begins to play the guitar, giving the impression of him being infused by some sort of 'lemom-stone roses' inspired determination to essentially become the band. Additional edits have been made to 'a, hey, hey, hey' part to make it more tighter and to-the-beat.

Filming - Rough Cut 1

Rough Cut 1 from Luke Tiplady on Vimeo.

This is my first rough cut for my music video of 'The Hardest Thing in The World'. Towards the end of the cut there are some gaps in the footage that I intend to fill, however didn't have time to do as I wanted an edit on my blog showing the footage I have so far. The greatest difficulty I currently have with editing is timing the footage with the audio, especially with the drum beat at 00:30 and the guitar strums at 01:00. However, I feel as if this could be easily improved on with closer editing. I am also concerned whether I have 'overdone' the use of superimposition or not, as this was employed as an ode to the 80s/90s era music videos, particularly The Stone Roses.

Shooting - 2nd Session

Yesterday I shot a majority of the footage for my music video; I found to be challenging as I had to alter some shots on my storyboard to accustom the lack of transport used in the video. This, however, was overcome easily as I decided to take a different direction in shooting and the narrative as it now followed the protagonist looking back at the Stone Roses concert he attended and essentially looking up to the band and wanting to be them. This is reflected in the various shots of him suddenly deciding to go back to his house and pick up his guitar and play one of their hits. Furthermore, I exemplified this idea through the use of concert footage I captured myself, as this enabled a real sense of him looking back onto this concert. I captured a variety of shots of Liam practicing the guitar with the addition of superimpostion to not only appeal to the 80s theme, but to also suggest passage of time or a brief look into the time he spends practicing. Though Liam does not actually know how to play guitar, I found it easy to capture footage of him playing as the strumming looked fairly legitimate. On the close-up shots and more difficult guitar sections, I took the guitar and played the parts, such as the solo seen in the video. Shooting the video, overall, proved to be unproblematic as we were often within radius of our house so we could take breaks to charge the camera etc.

Shooting - Christmas Filming

Over the Christmas period I was able to carry out a filming session with my actor, despite the busy festive schedule. In this filming session I was able to consolidate on the shots I would definitely like to see in the first half of my rough edit; this includes such shots that are seen on my storyboard plan, as this was what I primarily used to follow a pre-determined structure. However, I did something with the shots I hadn't done previously, I made stationary shots longer. This was done so that when it comes to the editing of my shoot I have plenty more footage to narrow down so I can get the best shot I possibly can. Furthermore, shooting three or more takes of each shot provided useful as it allowed experimentation with the mise-en-scene and lighting. Yet I did find difficulty in the recording of the guitar shots that would be used in superimposition, the struggle primarily came from trying to get the background right so that the superimposed image of me playing guitar wouldn't create clashes with the original image it is superimposed upon. I found the best way to tackle this issue was to use a standard white background as this would cause little distraction form the original shot once the opacity of the superimposed shot has been toned down. Additionally, attempting the play the guitar directly in sync with the song itself proved to be difficult but can be easily solved. The weather was also proven to be a difficulty as it was usually either raining or very cold so the actor slowly lost the will to perform to their full ability. Overall, I felt as if I did all I could do in the Christmas break given the busy nature of the holiday, but I am pleased with the progress I made in the development of some of my shots.