Unit 4: Critical and Contextual Awareness in Creative Media Production - Tasks 1B, 2A & 2B: Pre-Production Diary - Music Video

Tuesday 7th January 2020

This was our first and only day of being introduced to the production of music videos before starting on our big project. As we all got into college that morning we were put into small groups by our tutor Danniella and given the task of recreating an artist's music video. 
I was put into a group with Sam Liddell and Joe Mitchell (Joe hadn't arrived just yet so me and Sam started the work together). We were given a brief and lyrics to a song and also asked to watch the original music video to this song. The song was Jessie J's "Who's Laughing Now".

We were first asked to read through the brief and understand what J's requests for the video were. J made it clear that she wanted it to link back to the lyrics of her song, which discuss about her adolescence and when she was bullied at school. She mainly wanted her video to show a younger version of her to rise above those who hurt her and didn't stop her from making a successful career in music. 

Our task was to only recreate, or create our own version, style or concept, of the first twenty shots that are seen in J's music video. In J's video, there are many fast-paced shots used in the video, filmed from a variety of angles that all keep linking back to the lyrics of the song and create a story. Though, when me and Sam read through the lyrics of the song we decided to create a concept instead of having a story-driven video. 

We both decided on a concept that would present body positivity and embracing oneself as J discusses in her song that people would mainly mock her for the way she looked. We thought about having extreme closeup shots of different people's body parts, such as eyes, mouths, arms, noses, hair, etc. We also just wanted to have closeup shots of people smiling or looking neutral as we wanted to show that everyone is equal, no matter how you look or what your ethnicity is. 

Before getting onto filming our video, we first helped out with one of the other groups (that included Amiliyah Ashraf, Tom Swales and James Foster) as theirs was a narrative based video and needed to have as many people as possible to help out on it. Their video was similar to J's as they set their video in an educational environment, having students in detention, but throughout the video the main focus (James) is being bullied by one of his peers (Joe) and they end up having a massive fight. I was in the video as a student who doesn't really care to be there and Sam played a student who tried to stop the two students from fighting. Though we were acting in the scene, we also had the music played for us in the background so that Tom and Amiliyah knew how long certain shots would be, and also when editing they would know where to fit those shots with the lyrics and melody of the song. So, this was very useful for us to understand and a good technique to use for when we moved onto our actual projects. 

After we had finished helping the other group with their video, we then moved onto filming ours. We did get a little bit of help from the other group but a few members had to go back to our main classroom and start editing their video. We did get a wide variety of shots to use of many different people and getting the closeups we needed. We did also play the song in the background for certain shots, for example, there is a lyric in the song that says "They pulled my hair" and we had a shot of Amiliyah laying on the floor with her hair sprawled out, playing the song in the background helped to determine the length of that particular shot. This is also so it's easier for us when we edit the video and have the right amount of time for the lyric with the shot in the video. 

As we finished and went back to the classroom to start editing, we had a bit of a problem as some of the shots had deleted and we ended up having less footage to be able to complete the video. Though, Sam did his best to try and use as much of the footage that was luckily saved to try and stretch the video out for a bit more but we had to make do without some of the footage in particular areas of the video. This was fine as this was only a practice before moving on to our actual projects but this also made us learn to have multiple SD cards when filming, so one can act as a backup and store the rest of the footage onto the backup SD card. This also taught us that we should definitely overshoot rather than film less footage as some of the shots could be usable and fill up wasted space in the video.

Wednesday 8th January 2020

The day after doing our music video practice, we then moved on to being assorted into our groups for the big project. Danniella placed me into a group with Amiliyah, Tom and Sam. This was ideal for me as I know we are all really hard-working people and are very passionate about the course and always come up with creative ideas. I also thought this was a great group as I have worked with Amiliyah on all of our past projects and we both get along very well, and being placed with Tom and Sam was different as we had never worked with them before and this was going to be something new and exciting for us as we both had a really stressful time working on our Christmas advert. So, this was something that I was really looking forward to and excited about challenging ourselves for this project.

As we were placed into our groups, we were already working ahead as Tom had already found a song that we could use. The song Tom chose is "Free Falling" by 'Leuk' (Luke Godfrey) who is an up-and-coming artist from the North East and is also a good friend of Tom's. 

Me and Amiliyah were then shown the song by Tom and we all agreed that it would be a really great song to create a video for and we all also really appreciate Luke letting us use his song for our project. So, Tom then got in touch with Luke to make sure if it was alright for us to definitely use the song and that we would get back in touch with him to consult him about our ideas for the video. Luke didn't really have any preferences about what he would like in the video and allowed us to have free artistic license to create the video for him, this put less pressure on us as we were able to go in any direction with the video but also had a little bit of pressure on us as we wanted to make sure the video was good enough for Luke and his image as an artist.

After finalising the song with everyone, Tom then told us about his ideas for the storyline and what he would like to be the main premise and theme of the video. Tom mainly bullet pointed ideas as he hadn't fully fleshed them out but we were all there to help him with embellishing them and also to go away on the night and think about more ideas for the next day. Tom's vision was to have the story centred around a fight between two people, one being the main focus of the video, and the fight being symbolic to fighting ones mental health and becoming out of control for certain situations, whether that be heartbreak or a tragic loss or struggling to cope in the real world. We all thought these were bold and great themes to place in the video, especially when listening back to the song and looking at the lyrics, as the song really discusses conflict and loss of love. Notably, Tom said he wanted the video to be in black and white, which we all agreed on, so we could challenge ourselves more with the use of lighting in our video and also to create an intense and dark atmosphere throughout the story. As the lesson was almost coming to an end, we all decided that were going to meet up the next day before going into college so that we could discuss more about what we think the song is about and how we can present these ideas and themes into our video through visuals, effects and narrative.

Once I got home, I listened back to the song many times and started to write down ideas and what the song means from my perspective.

I kept in mind about the black and white aspect of the video and the types of visuals we could present throughout the video. The notes above mainly show my thoughts of the song as I listened to it and the themes that could be involved in the story. Tom also sent us all the lyrics to the song so that we were able to analyse them and develop more ideas for the video.

As I read through the lyrics, I could see that the song was very much about heartbreak and the persona not understanding what they have done wrong and how much of a toxic relationship they were in. The lyrics also link back to mental health as the character in the song is grieving about their loss of love, but also they have a lot of anxiety after this split as they keep blaming them self for the breakup and is only understanding now that they are not the one to blame for the separation. I remembered Tom saying that he would like to have symbolism and visuals that link to mental health and struggling to maintain it to be presented in the video, and when trying to come up with more ideas for the story, I definitely kept that in mind as I think it's something the group wanted to explore and represent well and also it was part of Tom's original vision for the music video. 

After looking through the lyrics and listening to the song continuously to try and create some more ideas to present to my group the next day, I then looked on YouTube to get some inspiration from music videos that are also in black and white, mainly to understand their use of lighting.  

The only music videos that I looked at were The 1975's as I was familiar with them and always really liked the way they used lighting and presented a story throughout their videos, only the ones that are in black and white.



I first looked at their video for their 2016 song "A Change of Heart". The video follows the lead singer of the band, Matty Healy, as a clown in an empty amusement park with another clown, who is a woman, showing their growing relationship to then ultimately failing and the clown to leave Healy by himself. There are many different intertextual references to famous dancers, the likes of Bob Fosse, Michael Jackson and Gene Kelly, as well as the film "I clowns" (1970) by Federico Fellini, but what I was most focused on was how Tim Mattia, director, still made the video interesting and exciting in a black and white filter. This is mainly due to the lighting of the video, as it is set in an amusement park the attractions are still working as well as the many lights around the park, making the video brighter and more vibrant. The lights also brighten up Healy and the dancer, making it much easier to look at them throughout the video as they are both the main focus, this is also much easier as they both have their faces painted white and are wearing black and white clothing to stand out more in the filter. I also liked how the lighting from the attractions created shadows from the actors and also create shadows around the two, having light in the centre of the park and having it almost act like a spotlight as they both dance in the middle of it and putting on a show as they are both clowns. Nearer to the end of the video it gets much darker and rain is seen, I liked the idea of having rain or water in our video, especially at night, as you can see light reflect off of the water and in black and white it is much more effective. After watching this video, I definitely wanted to work around more with the lighting of our video and see how light contrasts with the black and white filter we were going to be adding to the video on Premiere Pro. 

The second video of theirs I looked at was "Settle Down". The video is also in black and white but is filmed during the day instead of at night. The setting is in a small, industrialised town (filmed in Redcar, Teesside) which creates a bleak atmosphere throughout the video. The weather also adds to the atmosphere of the video as the natural lighting is very dark and mostly covered by clouds which stops the exposure of light from the sun to be in the video. I thought this would be a great idea for our group as the giant fight scene that our video surfaces around would create a tense and violent atmosphere, and this would be presented well because of the contrast of the weather and the black and white filter. There are some shots of Healy walking down an empty street with the sun lighting the shot, this makes the video much brighter but also must have been colour graded in editing as the colourisation of that shot looks neutral to the rest of the shots throughout the video. So, I understood that when it came to editing our own video, colour grading is an option to make scenes much darker to contrast with the meaning and melody our song. 

The last video of theirs that I watched was "Chocolate" and this was the very opposite of what the "Settle Down" video. The video for "Settle Down", as I said before, is set in the day which makes the video much brighter in the black and white filter, although it is very cloudy which causes the video to not have much exposure from the sun in it. But for "Chocolate" it is filmed at night and is much darker to "Settle Down", mainly only being lit by lampposts, car lights, lights from buildings, etc, mostly natural lighting. The video shows many different effects and techniques that can be achieved from all of the lighting and having a black and white filter. Throughout the video when the band is driving around London in their car, it is seen to be raining and there is a lot of raindrops on the car, the rain is seen significantly in black and white as the light from buildings and streetlights, as they drive by, reflect off of the water. There is also quite a lot of exposure from various lights in the video as at one point the camera travels around Healy, first showing him in the darkness to then reveal only his silhouette as we can see the exposed light behind him, the silhouette is very bold against the light in the back of the shot especially in black and white. I also thought the use of smoke would be a good idea for our video as in The 1975's music video smoke is seen quite heavily throughout and is very visible due to the light that shines through it, and in black and white the smoke is seen very clearly. 

After watching all of these videos I then started to make note on a mind map of the potential ideas and effects we could have in our own music video, to challenge ourselves and enhance our creativity during the project. 

 

Thursday 9th January 2020

In the morning before college, me and my group met up at a Costa in town and started to hear each other's ideas and also elaborate on them. We all mainly discussed the technical elements for the video, various camera angles and shots as well as lighting as that was something we all mainly wanted to work on and get right for the video. 

We also mainly spoke about the cutaway shots we would have in the video as we had talked a lot about the centre of the video being the massive fight between the two main characters, and also their fight being surrounded by a gang. I had put forward an idea of a cutaway shot where we would see a TV out of signal, just static, with the main character staring blankly at it. This idea was mainly to link back to Luke as an artist as the cover art for "Free Falling" has static all around it. This was also to show that the main characters mental health was deteriorating more and more as he the TV has stopped working and is out of signal, this is symbolic to what is running through his mind and that his mental health is hard to maintain as he is now spiralling out of control. 

Sam had a good idea where we would have someone playing the drums in the video as there is a very heavy drumbeat that intensifies throughout the song. An idea of Sam's was to try and put water on the drums so that when someone played them, the water would come off of them quite violently and would look really good in black and white, especially with light reflecting off of the water. Tom had also thought about having cutaway shots that would show the buildup to the big fight in the video of the main character practicing punches on a punching bag and having it in time with the drum beat. When hearing out everyone's ideas, we also had to think about where we would be filming all of these shots, so location became another massive factor for the video as we had to think of more locations outside of college as we wanted to film in a lot of locations that are exterior. The setting for the fight was the main location that we thought about as we wanted to set it in a forest but needed to think about where would be best to film. We needed to also think about the weather in that type of location as we didn't want to film on a day after it had been raining, as it would be too risky for equipment and could also endanger our cast and crew. 

After throwing ideas around and thinking about how we were going to film all of these shots, we then started to think a lot about the actors that would be involved and how they would need to look. Tom had always envisioned only men to be in the video, both main characters (fighters) and part of the gang, as he believed they looked more rough and masculine. The rest of us didn't really mind whether there were both men and women in the video as it was mainly down to the acting and makeup that would make them look more rugged and violent. We did think a lot about having either the performing arts actors from college or Tom's group of friends but this was something we still needed to look into as we needed to make sure they would be free for whenever we were going to schedule our shooting days, once we had sorted them out. 

The last decisions we made before we left was what everyone's main job roles were going to be. Sam decided straight away that he would like to work more on camera, as it wasn't one of his strong points before and he had never tried it out on previous projects, and we all thought it was a great opportunity for him to try and become more comfortable with doing camera and to also improve his technical skills. Amiliyah said that she would like to work as the Producer of the project as that is also something she has never tried out before and she wanted to do something different to camera as that is the job she has done many times on previous projects. And lastly, Tom said he would like to be Director but also wanted to have some help as he didn't feel fully comfortable with taking control of how the video would look and asked me to be a Co-Director with him. I was fine with being a Co-Director as I have been Director on previous projects and I also really enjoy directing and wanted to improve my skills as I still get quite nervous to tell actors and crew what to do to benefit the production. We also cast Tom in to be the main focus in the video as we didn't know which performing arts actors would best suit the leading role of the music video, and we also didn't know if we would cast anyone from outside of college to be the main character. Tom also didn't know whether he actually wanted to be in the video or not just yet, so for the time being he was the lead role.   


Tuesday 14th January 2020

This was the day we started on all of our pre-production work and this was the day that we all needed to finalise the pitch (Sam briefly started it the day before), proposal and treatment, as we were going to be presenting out pitch the next day. Sam and Amiliyah made a start on the proposal, as me and Tom started to try and create a shot list. I think this was a hard task for us, as a group, as we hadn't fully discussed how the whole video was going to be structured and styled and didn't know what exact shots we were going to have, or try to get. But this was also a great time for me and Tom, as Co-Director's, to discuss more ideas that we would like to include in the video, as well as figuring out how to do certain shorts and elaborating more on the ideas we had already created before as a group. 

We started to think more about lighting, as we were having the video in black and white we wanted to be more creativity when it came to the visibility and exposure of light in certain shots, as well as how we would create that lighting. We also started to think about structuring the story throughout the video, from the main focus training to the intense fight. As the fight is the main plot point in the music video, we started to think about cutaway shots to have in-between certain sections of the fight sequence that still kept to the purpose of the story, and to also slow down the video from jumping into the violence and majority of the fight, as well as the fights end result.

After trying to figure out all of our shots and create our shot list, we only came up with about six different shots and then left the shot list for another time as we still needed to fully discuss everything about the video. Just for this time-being, our main priority at this point was to look at more ideas and work on our pitch, proposal and treatment. 

As Amiliyah and Sam had finished the pitch, Sam quickly did the proposal and then moved onto the treatment with Tom, and as they worked on that, me and Amiliyah started to look at more ideas and inspiration for out music video. As we now had Amiliayh as D.O.P (Director of Photography), it was good for me, as a director, and for Amiliyah to have a look at examples and ideas for shots that we had thought about previously. We did also show the rest of our group the music videos we looked at, so that they could also see what lighting and shots they would also want in the video.

I first showed The 1975's videos, that I had first looked at for inspiration, for examples of lighting and certain features in the video that enhanced the use of the black and white filter, as well as looking at the visual style of the bands. 

We then had a look at other artists who have music videos in black and white, like Panic! At the Disco. We looked at three of the bands music videos "Let's Kill Tonight", "Nicotine" and "Death of a Bachelor". "Let's Kill Tonight" and "Death of a Bachelor" are much more simplistic in their style, being very naturalistic videos showing Brendon Urie performing. The lighting in the videos are very bright from the stage lights and they are very exposed on camera. The settings are very different as well, as in "Let's Kill Tonight" it shows Panic! At the Disco going on tour and performing in front of many audiences, as for "Death of a Bachelor" it is still a performance but is set in an empty venue with only Urie singing on his own. These two videos were still really good to look at for inspiration as it still allowed us to understand what we would need to do for lighting, as in the video we did want to make it look natural. 

The other video that we watched, that I briefly mentioned, was "Nicotine". This is much more narrative driven as it shows Urie going through heartbreak and having memories of the girl who left him, it's only until the end of the video that the audience finds out that she actually passed away and it is unknown as to how. It was still very helpful to watch the video as we looked at the transitions for the video and different special effects, as well as looking at the lighting again as it is natural in the video and still makes a huge difference and emphasises the visuals in a black and white filter. 

After looking at those music videos, we then also had a look at two of Sam Fender's, singer/songwriter, music videos for his songs "Play God" and "That Sound". The video for "That Sound" plays around a lot with lighting, creating many shadows and also changing the exposure of the lighting throughout the video, making it brighter or dimmer or leaving the lights flashing to create a stop-motion effect on the actors and band. As for the music video for "Play God", it is also in black and white but also has an added grainy effect to make the video have a retro aesthetic. As it is a concept-based video, it presents what would happen if society started all over again and who would be in control of the world and having the grainy effect shows the restart of technology and restarting its advancements. We thought this would be a cool idea to have a type of effect like this on our video as it looks quite like static on a TV, and this links back to the artwork on Luke's single for "Free Falling". Again, the video includes a wide variety of shots, to keep the video entertaining and staying in time with the beat of the music. 

                         

After watching all of these videos and getting some ideas for our own music video, Tom also showed us a music video that he had looked at to get inspiration. The video is for Post Malone's, rapper, song "Better Now". This is another naturalistic video that shows Post Malone performing onstage, it is also in black and white and is visually much darker as it is colour graded to be much darker, and also has another effect placed onto the video. The transitions and shot types are also really clever and also keep in time with the beat of the music. 

After looking at all of the videos, we then created a Pinterest board to put down more inspiration and ideas for our videos into. This was a great way for all of us to see what we envisioned for the video, as well as looking back on them when we got around to creating another shot list and involving them into our ideas. 

This is the link to Cut the Shot Productions Pinterest board: https://pin.it/i42misgmehudpf

We also decided to stick with Tom as the main character of the music video and we also cast Kai Speight to be the character who Tom fights in the video. This was a good decision as we had talked to Kai quite a bit about our ideas for the video, so he knew a lot about it before agreeing to be in it. Now we just needed to cast all of our supporting actors. 



Wednesday 15th January 2020

Once everyone had arrived at college, we started to go through our pitch and rehearse what slides everyone was going to present and what everyone was going to say. 

The pitch was very successful, with our tutor Danniella really liking our idea, as well as the rest of the class. The only thing we needed to worry about most was locations for filming now, as that was also what Danniella said we needed to work on and find somewhere to do these big scenes. Another worry of Daniella's was the makeup, as we knew in our video we wanted cuts and bruises for Tom and Kai during the fight but we hadn't thought about the supporting artists. Danniella thought it would be good as the gang is around Tom and Kai, for them to look like a rough group of people, having very dark makeup on them to look quite gaunt and to emphasise their more hidden facial features. This was still something we were all deciding on as Tom wanted the actor's faces to not be visible in the video, whether only filming from behind them and only focusing on Tom and Kai, or for them to wear balaclavas over their faces. We still went for Danniella's makeup idea as it would be a great effect to make the gang members look more menacing, but also to work with the makeup department before as on mine and Amiliyah's, as well as Tom and Sam's, Christmas advert project we hadn't really worked with the makeup department before. So, this was a good opportunity for us to work with them and allow them to show their talent and understand what it's like to work on a set. 

After our pitch, Tom and Sam worked on the casting call sheet as me and Amiliyah worked on the makeup call sheet. Danniella then setup a Facebook group that included Film and TV Production, Makeup and Performing Arts courses. This was an easy way to be able to pitch our ideas to anyone that was interested and for them to understand what they could do to help on our production. We put out makeup and casting call documents onto the group and then waited to get replies from people who wanted to be part of our project.



Before we left college, we had all been thinking about the fight scene a lot and as it wasn't very long until filming now we needed to choreograph the fight as soon as possible, so that we were able to film much quicker on the day as well as understanding how the camera needed to move around Tom and Kai and where to get the best shots to still make the fight look realistic as possible. We all went to the studio and Sam started to teach Tom and Kai some stage combat, as we wanted the fight to look realistic but also wanted to make sure the two of them were safe when doing the sequence. As Sam taught them a few moves, Kai and Tom then started to roughly choreograph the fight. This was good for me, Amiliyah and Sam to look at as we started to elaborate more on the ideas for the fight, to make it look more dramatic, and to also figure out where to place the camera to have the best looking shots and to keep the fight looking realistic throughout. We also started to think about makeup during this process, as we started to think about where to cut the camera off at certain points to then have some cuts, bruising and blood on Tom and Kai. 

A lot of the fight was very fast-paced and was too quick for a three minute long song, so we started to look around ways of trying to slow down some of the fight, just so the ending of the fight is built up towards the end of the video rather than reveal the result of the fight halfway through the video. We still needed to work around the choreography more but it was also a great start for us to try and make it intense and stretch out until the end of the video and song.


Thursday 16th January 2020

In the Morning before college, we all decided to meet up at Preston Park and try to find a location in the forest that we were actually going to be able to film in, and a location that was still going to present a very intense atmosphere for the fight scene.

Me and Sam were the first ones to get there and we had a look at a few wooded areas in the park. A lot of the areas were very small and weren't fully covered by trees and leaves, which we wanted the whole area to be as we were going to be getting many shots from many different angles for the fight. Once everyone had arrived, we then had a look around the outskirts of the park and we were able to find a large wooded area which was covered from head to toe in trees and leaves. It was also a very large and wide space that we found, so that was more convenient for us as we would be bringing a lot of equipment and having many cast members within the fight scene. It was also an easy area to find with a footpath from where we would be filming, all the way back to the park, so it wasn't going to be hard for us to find the location again and also it would be much easier for the actors and makeup crew to get to as well. A lot of the space around the area, we would be filming at, was quite bare compared to our actual filming location and would be a great place for everyone to put their belongings and also get makeup done, as well as putting unneeded equipment there for the time-being, until we'd need it again. 




We then headed over to college after we were finished scouting out the area, and as we got there much earlier before out lesson started, we started to plan out the certain shots and angles we wanted for the fight scene, as well as trying to figure out how the fight was actually going to be choreographed. The fight scene is the biggest part of our music video as that is what the story is leading up to and we needed to work around the fight and how it was going to look on camera. We mostly needed to work out the continuity of the video, as the fight was going to be messy with having it in a forest, as well as the makeup that was going to be put on the fighters throughout filming, as they both are beating each other up and need to have cuts and bruises added after we see a hit on camera. This is something we thought we would discuss with the makeup artists on the day of filming, as we had given them the exact makeup we wanted and just needed to know the best way to work around the fight scene and the makeup being involved in that. 

But, we did now find it much easier to figure out what was going to happen in the fight scene as we had all been to the location together and could now visiualise, in our heads, what the outcome could possibly look like and what we would need to do to achieve that look. 


Monday 20th January 2020

We came in early to college as we wanted to sort out our shooting schedule and shot list for the next day, as it was our first big shooting day, and probably our biggest shooting day as we were filming the big fight scene that is seen throughout the video. Me, Sam and Amiliyah were on time and, as we were waiting for Tom, we decided to create a Facebook post to make sure that all of the makeup artists and actors were still fine to film, which we though they were as they had liked and replied to our previous posts, as well as to let them know the rundown of the next day. After finishing that, we then posted it from my account onto the group chat for all departments to see. 

As Tom arrived, we then all started to go through all the shots that we wanted tomorrow, as well as creating a storyboard and camera plans (drawn by Sam). Me and Tom had previously started on a shot list and didn't finish it as we were still creating ideas for our music video, and a lot of the time they kept changing causing us to scarp whatever ideas we had on the shot list and making it harder for us to actually stick with the shots we wanted. So, we decided in the end we would just stick to placing all of our shot types onto a storyboard. This was much better for us as it was easier for us to be able to visualise what we wanted our shots to look like, and as Tom and Sam had already been to the location it was easier for them to be able to draw the shots and explain in more depth of how these shots would potentially look like. We also mainly looked at where we would be placing the camera when we were at the actual location, mainly filming inside the circle of the group to get more shots of Tom and Kai fighting. We also tried to figure out the blocking for their fight, as we needed to get many shots from many different angles to make the fight look as real as possible and also to create a fast and intense atmosphere. 

To try and sort out how to film the fight itself, we had a look at a few different fight scenes from films, including 'Sherlock Holmes' (2009), 'Creed' (2015) and 'Fight Club' (1999). We mostly took inspiration from the fight scene in Sherlock Holmes as it showed the fight sped up and from a variety of angles, as well as showing a slowed down version of the fight. 

These were great examples to look at so we could understand how to move the camera around Tom and Kai fighting, as well as getting the best possible shots and trying to make the fight look more realistic. 


Tuesday 21st January 2020

This day was meant to be our first shoot day, as well as our biggest shoot day, as we were meant to be filming the fight scene at Preston Park. This didn't go to plan whatsoever.

Tom and Sam had come in much earlier to get all of the equipment, as I came in later to sort out the actors with their makeup and then we would all head over to Preston together, as well as with Amiliyah as she had a lesson in the morning. As I got to college, we found out that only one of the actors had turned up to film and that they had gone to the makeup department to get their makeup done, but they were turned away as they didn't know about our music video production. This was definitely a lack of communication from all departments, as we thought that once we had put the post on the Facebook group, and people had seen, liked and commented on the post, that they were part of our production. But, that did not seem to be the case. Me and Amiliyah ended up going to the makeup department to apologise to the teacher for the inconvenience, and as the post was from my account all the blame was put on me rather than the whole group, as we created the post altogether, which I felt very knocked-down and disheartened by. We then sorted out with the makeup teacher, Nina, about getting makeup for Friday, as we had been in touch with Tom and Sam and started to work around trying to film for Friday, as well as casting some of Tom's friends to be in the video instead of the performing arts students. This ended up becoming a great outcome as we now learnt that before we assume that certain departments will help us, we will get in touch with them first or go straight to them. We also created a new system where we have forms in front of the makeup room, and if we need to request makeup for future projects we put down all of our details and the makeup we would like to have for the project. So, as we sorted makeup out with Nina and four of her students, who agreed to help us out on Friday, we filled in the request form so that they would know what to bring on Friday as well as knowing what makeup they needed to do on actors. 

Me and Amiliyah had then created a Facebook group chat with the four makeup artists who were going to be helping us out, telling them about the project, what makeup we would like and all of the information and times for Friday. 

Obviously, this complication was down to us as we are the production team and it is our music video that we are creating and needed help from both the makeup department and performing arts students to bring it onto its feet. But, this also was the only day we were able to have the actors in as their teacher wasn't in and they said they would be part of the music video, but it turned out only one student showed up and the rest just decided not to show up. One of the students did contact me beforehand saying they weren't going to be able to do the music video, which was fine and professional of them to tell me they couldn't attend, but for the rest of the students we were disappointed as they didn't let us know and also weren't committed to working with us. It all ended up alright in the end as Tom had got in touch with some of his friends and they had all replied saying they were able to film on Friday. This worked out much better as the image for the gang we had, in the beginning, was to have an all-male gang and they suited Tom's original vision. 

I then worked with Amiliyah on sorting makeup out, finding pictures for the four makeup artists to get an idea of the type of makeup we would like to have. Once we had all of our makeup team and cast finalised, I then created a call sheet so that everyone then knew when to come in and what they would be doing, acting and makeup wise.

I then also created a shooting schedule for our group so that we could get an idea of timings for Friday and also to work around the makeup and filming throughout the fight sequence.

We knew all the shots we needed but still didn't have a shot list to work from as we were still working around how the video was going to be structured, we left putting all of our shots together and figuring out where to put shots closer to our post-production. 


Tuesday 28th January 2020

A lot of our filming had changed throughout the process of pre-production and production itself, finding it much harder for our group to keep up with all of the pre-production work that we needed to do. So, this was a day for us to have a break from filming and going on set and actually sorting out all of our paperwork. 

Me and Amiliyah helped each other out with all the paperwork that each of us had to do, which was much easier and was a quicker way to get all of the work done. Amiliyah was working on the costume breakdown, makeup breakdown and design breakdown paperwork and I helped her on them as we worked together a lot, during production, on makeup and production design. Amiliyah then helped me to do our next shooting schedule and then Me and Tom did our daily reports from our shooting days, as well as printing another one off for our next shooting day. 

Again, we should have had all of this done beforehand, but as we got closer to finishing filming our video and now had everything finalised for definite, it was much easier for us to work on all of our pre-production work.