Filming notes for Final Major Project.

I started out with ‘she’ as my ideas for that were extraordinarily strong and kind of
just spilling out of me and I thought it would be good to focus on them one at a time
and get all the footage I needed instead of simultaneously working on then as this
means I will be able to separate the filming process and not feel overwhelmed.
Early filming
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26 January: I started filming. I was filming raindrops on a window as I knew that I
wanted to include that in my music video.

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4 February: following the last shoot, I re-filmed raindrops as I didn’t like any of the
footage. The more I film a specific thing, the better the ending result will be as I will
be able to notice mistakes and improve my work.

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5 February: I filmed a cake as one of the lyrics is ‘she tastes like birthday cake,
story time and fall’ so it was an extraordinarily strong idea in my planning. This
project lasts for almost 5 months, so I have plenty of time to experiment which is why
I made an early start to filming. I also filmed some flowers that I have on my desk. I
am looking at using certain colours and items in my music video for ‘she’.

Today I also filmed the letter footage that I would like to include. The letter is going to
be a main prop so I need to make sure people notice that. I can include it more than
other props.

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6 February: following the experimentation of items I filmed myself with a warm
drink. The song to me has this feeling of safety and warmth so using a warm drink is
a way to communicate this visually.
Sunset filming
‘She'
I wanted to try out a few various locations for the sunset, so I had a variety when it
comes to editing. Obviously, I can't control what the sunset looks like but ideally, I
would like it to be a Pinky orange sunset as I find that relates well to the song. I think
doing the filming multiple times will help me develop my filming skills.
My first sunset shoot was February 10th, and the location was uphill hill. I made the
mistake of leaving my house late and therefore didn't quite catch the sun on its way
down. I only got footage of it when it was close to the horizon. Even if the footage
doesn't end up in the final music video I still benefited from this shoot as I got more
use to the camera.

Sunset shoot 2- February 12th

The next shoot I did of the sunset was the 12th and this time I made sure to leave
with plenty of time to get to the location (uphill hill) which meant I got to see the
sunset in its entirety. I was also able to capture more footage. As I had previously
visited the area at sunset, I had a very clear picture in my mind of the kind of shots I
wanted to get.
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February 26 : I want to film things that have aesthetics and people view as pretty
because I want to compare everyday things to the female that I am falling in love
with. So today I filmed some clouds and the moon.

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March 1 sunset

Even though it had been cloudy during the day I still decided to go out and film the
sunset. First, I went to Cecil Road but due to the placement of the sun it wasn’t very
aesthetically pleasing, usually that road overlooks the beach, and the sun is over that
way too but tonight it was too far right. A quick decision to drive down to marine lake
made this shoot better as I felt as though the aesthetic was better there. I used the
canon c200 with the 50mm-250mm Lens. For the sunsets I knew I wanted to try out
a few locations and due to the time of year I don’t think Cecil Road is an aesthetically
pleasing place to film the sunset because of the location of the earth in comparison
to the sun and as much as I like how you get an almost birds eye view of the beach
but obviously, I can't move the sun. This means that the location isn't good for what I
would like. Marine was a much more pleasing area for this shoot. I also got some
other shots that I could use in the film as I was out and looking at the area. A lot of
time during lockdown has been spent in my house so going to this shoot helped me.
Cake filming 2.
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March 8 : I decided to film the cake clip again but with a different cake which was
yellow, pink and white which I link to the song.
Using colour theory, yellow is happy, nostalgic. Pink has connotations to beauty and
the song is about thinking a girl is so beautiful. Brown, the colour of the original cake,
is more associated with the earth. It is also said to give the feeling of being at home,
falling in love to me feels like that. I wanted to film this scene again because I
wondered if it would fit better with the words, birthday cake. I wonder what people
think of when they hear about birthday cake. Also, my filming skills have improved
since the first shoot with cake. And that footage is dark, so I have decided to use a
light.

Video calling filming.

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March 11
Day one- slow start to filming only practiced one shot but had discussions with my
actress.
Filmed a clip that was over half an hour long but not all of it was the scene. I felt a bit
like a right noodle because there is no audio for me to use as an example of our
discussion. I should have recorded separate audio on my phone so that I could use
examples in my work.
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March 13
Completed all the shots I needed.
I wanted to add in the effect of different days while in reality it was all shot in one day
so to make it look like it was filmed across a period of time I had myself and the
actress change clothes, and I moved a few things on my desk.
Filmed stuff around the scene to get some behind the scenes even though the
camera doesn’t have audio.
Since there was no dialogue in the film due to it being a music video there needed to
be a hint of personality radiating through our actions while the call was happening.

Dance section filming

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Monday 29 March 2021
For this shoot I asked for assistance from two class members, we used the tv studio
on campus. As I was dancing, I needed a camera operator as I wanted the camera
to have movement. To communicate with them, I showed them an example of how I
wanted the footage to look.
I experimented with equipment, a track and a dolly. We tried out for a few shots,
reviewed the footage and due to the background being plain it didn’t really look like it
was getting closer to me dancing because of the background being flat so we
swapped to handheld.
The camera was a Canon C100, tried out different lenses but filmed with the 24mm
due to the dance having lots of movement and floor work. The first lens we tried the
10-22 was too wide and had the chairs in the corner of the tv studio in frame.
I also used three lights with one in frame, on one of the dance moves where I roll up
from the floor it catches in the camera and creates a green halo glare which I really
like. There was also One soft box- The brand was Dedo lights.
I think that this shoot went well. The blackout curtain at one point doesn’t cover the
table behind it but that is okay. We filmed it several times so when it comes to
editing, I can have a choice of which version to use. I wish I took a photo of the
set-up at the end as I only have photos at the beginning of the shoot. It would have
shown the position of the other two lights,
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March 31 :I re-filmed the letter section as I didn't light it well the first time. I used the
canon c100 with the 10-22mm lens.
Also, in the same evening I filmed the letter burning scene. I had trouble lighting the
fire. I also moved the camera while filming and didn’t put it back in the same place,
but I didn’t realise that till it came to editing later on. However due to the continuity of
the letter I'd have to film everything again and I really like the letter filming at the
desk. Even though the framing isn't perfect the premise of burning the letter is still
the same.

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1 April: flower filming. I brought flowers that I wanted to film as I think that they
would work well with the theming and mood of the video. Yellow is one of the main
colours I am using in the music video which is why I purchased yellow flowers.

April sixth
Filming the stop motion lyrics
Today I made the drawings for the animation well apart from the ‘fall’ and leaves as I
had done them a few weeks ago. As I had done the lyrics and drawings on white
paper, I wanted a brown surface to photograph them on so that they stood out
against the background, so I cleared the top of a cupboard in my living room and set
up there with my camera and light. It was a simple set up.
Everything was ready to go apart the light which was out of charge.I put it on charge
and instead of wasting time waiting, I decided to rehearse the choreography of the
paper so that when the light battery had enough power, I would be able to
photograph the lyrics without any delays.
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April 7 , 2021
From the beginning of this project, I knew I was making two music videos, but I had
focused all my attention onto the first one which took over two months to get all the
footage. I still want the second music video to be of a good standard but there is only
just over a month left so I will need to plan my time a lot better. With the music video
I made for ‘she’ it was made up with tons of little clips in a scrapbook kind of way
whereas with ‘rainbow’ I would like to film longer clips so there aren't lots of little
clips. This means that it will not take as long as the footage won't be made up with
lots of little clips.
Seeing as I have less time, I think it would be best to make a schedule and have a
date in mind to have everything done. Also, while filming I think I will play the music,
so I know that I have filmed up to the right lyric. Having the music playing will also
help me get into the role because I am going to be making a video to my past self in
a way. The song rainbow by dodie is about not feeling alright over being a part of the
LGBTQ+ community.
I would like to have a shot at the beginning where I look sad and then the same set
up at the end but be happy and feeling proud of who I am.
The song is 2minutes and 48 second long and has about 29 lines of lyrics and I am
going to plan today by writing out the lyrics and assigning shots to them. It will allow
me to see what shots would work well with each lyric.
Filming schedule- ‘Rainbow’

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7 April 2021
Plan of day:
Write out lyrics and assign shots to them.
Make all the art pieces needed for the music video ‘rainbow.’ I tried drawing a map
for one of the lines so I could make a stop animation but I am a bad drawer so I
decided to use actual maps and just draw big red crosses and cut them out for the
lyric ‘it's getting hard to navigate when every map was never made for me’.
● Think about continuity and decide what needs to be filmed on the same
day, for example where the outfits need to be the same.
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8 April
Film the two sections of drawing lines (3+4 and 9-12) - this original plan fell through
as I didn't have the maps that I needed so line 3+4 will need to be moved to another
day.
Film lyric line 24-25 with the glass charm prop that catches the sun and creates
rainbows. - this didn’t happen as it was cloudy, and the glass doesn’t make rainbows
with anything but the song, so I will have to film this another day when the suns out. I
tried using the torch on my phone to make the glass create a rainbow but it just
casted a shadow.
Decide on what to film for lyric lines 13-16 as that is the only section of the lyric, I
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didn’t choose what to film while planning yesterday, 7 April. I didn’t choose
something because it wasn’t as obvious to me like the other lyrics, the rest all just
kind of fit something I had in mind like the happy and sad shot.
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Notes from filming on April 8
Today I filmed line 9,10,11,12 and I think it went well. I had a simple set up at my
desk with just my Nikon z5 with a 24-50mm lens and a light. I filmed with drawings
that I had made for this song/music video. There were a few I filmed a few times as I
was trying out different ideas or something went wrong like knocking the tripod and
moving the camera because I was filming in a very small space.
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9 April 2021 –planning
Film sad shot for beginning and happy shot both with same framing. - Sad shot lyrics
‘i was brought up in a line but I seem to walk in circles.’ (Lyric line 1-2) Happy shot
lyrics ‘so say that I'm a rainbow and tell me that I'm bright when I'm so used to
feeling wrong well it makes me feel alright’. (Lyric line 26-29) location, the living room
of my house against the plain cream wall
Film beanie shot- pinning rainbow onto beanie. (Lyric line 7+8) location- living room
in my house.
Film jean cuffing (Lyric line 6) location- living room in my house.
Film flannel shirt button up (Lyric line 5) location- living room in my house.
Film the hidden pride flag scene, reveal the flag on ‘gasp’ and have it out of frame on
‘miss it’ (Lyric line 17-21) location- living room in my house.
Film confetti cannon (Lyric line 22-23) location- living room in my house against the
plain white wall.
Film map line with red crosses (Lyric line 3-4) location- living room in my house on
the floor.
Film rainbow light cast if sun is out (Lyric line 24-25)

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Filming notes from 9 April 2021
I started setting up to film around 2pm. Again, I used my Nikon z5 and a light.
I set up all the shots against the plain white wall in my living room.
I had my shot list along with the song lyrics so that I didn’t miss shooting anything.
The shots I found the hardest were the sad one because I could not cry on
command, so I had to pour water by my eyes, so it looked like I was crying, I had
done it over and over and things just kept going wrong. I almost gave up, then I got
the perfect shot. Another one I found hard was the confetti cannon one since it is a
one-time canon, I was reluctant to twist it just in fear something was wrong with the
framing. Being the camera operator and the actress, it was extremely hard to know if
everything looked all right. With the other shots I could try out what I wanted then to
and then check the footage for mistakes and redo it, but I really like the confetti
cannon shot, it worked better than I expected, a big mess to hoover up after shooting
though. There were two things that I didn’t manage to film today, it was cloudy, so the
glass wasn’t casting any rainbows and I still needed to get the map props.

Set up of light and camera:

Set up after filming the confetti cannon scene:

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10 April
Begin editing. I doubt that this music video will require me to spend a lot of time
editing together as I have planned each shot and how long I need to film each
specific thing for. I would like to add a timestamp around the edges of the video
which will display keys date that are important to my journey of being a lesbian and
coming out. This will take time to choose what style I would like the dates to be in
and getting the text boxes on all the videos in the same spot.
Also, at the beginning of the song there is a ten second instrumental and I would like
to have a blank screen but use graphics that are typing a letter which I have written
to my past self and the end of the song has a 15 second outro where the is no lyrics
just the music so I can type the end of the letter which I think will end the video
nicely. During this idea development I was going to have the letter being typed out
during the song, but I think the two different components (lyrics and letter) would
wash one another out even though the theme is the same it might be hard for the
viewer to grasp each part so that's why I thought it would be good to use the letter
when the song is just a instrumental because I couldn't leave the letter behind.
Obviously, I will need to ensure that it is of a good standard due to it being filmed
quickly.
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11 - April

I finally got the map props that I needed so I filmed this clip lyric line 3&4, I also shot
lines 9-12 today as I was struggling with what to associate with the lyrics but then I
chose something to film.

This concludes my filming for this project, and I have about a month to finish off the
editing.

I believe that my filming skills majorly improved over this project filming process.
There are a few things that I filmed multiple times which allowed me to improve skills
and learn things. There are things that I still need to learn and practice.