2. Recording Day 1
For our first recording day Laurie and I went on location to the woods and
shot the opening scenes with Max (aka the capture scenes) we also
experimented with Max’s makeup, using dark eye shadow to enhance his
deep eyes and white powder to make his skin whiter and more ‘dead’ looking;
a generic trait of a vampire. We realised that some of the shots were difficult
to achieve and had to make some small changes to the shots, for example,
shot 10 from our original shooting script was difficult to achieve because we
couldn’t get the angle right and Max could get into shot in time for Laurie to
be captured looking effective so we changed the angle of the shot and this
allowed the shot to run a lot smoother. Laurie and I also filmed the
establishing shots of the woods for the opening scenes and took photographs
of possible location for shots to be filmed in the future. We recorded like this
because unfortunately Jodie couldn’t attending the shoot and as we are on a
tight schedule we needed to record shots that Laurie and I could do while we
had the chance instead of cancelling the day. Although Jodie couldn’t make
the shoot we still kept her up to date on all decisions to keep her input in the
loop.
3. Recording Day 2
On our second day of recording we filmed the close up shots of Max’s
fist/eyes, Jodie eyes and me pulling away from Max’s hold. We did this on the
stage as we wanted to use the lighting on the stage to create different effects
on camera, we went with a red lighting to reinforce the idea of blood lust and
vampirism. Unfortunately the fangs we ordered hadn’t arrived so we couldn’t
film the close up shots of Max’s fangs and Max biting Jodie’s neck.
4. Recording day 3
Today we recorded the dance sequence, we had a rehearsal the previous week to
create the dance to the correct timing in Delilah – Go song and planned to record it
the week after. We recorded the dance sequence in the drama room because we
could make the room completely black by using the black out curtains and we could
also utilise the lighting in the drama room to create and creepy effect, although we
could have used the stage again and it would have created the same effect there are
to many windows and to much light can get in, so when we came to film in the day we
couldn’t get the stage dark enough so we rearranged the shoot to the drama room.
We ran through the dance a few times before we began recording to make sure we
were all in time, and we also left the camera recording to pick up any changes we
made to the dance to reinforce creative construction and any issues that we had with
the dance we knew about from re-watching the footage so we could re-record the
dance if there were any faults. We all wore the pre-arranged costume for the dance
(black leggings and black top) to reinforce how we have been made all alike by
becoming vampires and submitting to Max’s power and influence. Looking back on the
footage there were some timing issues with the dance and we had work on these
issues a lot before we got the final cut.
5. Recording Day 4
Today we could finally film the close up fang shots and the lip sync shots because the
fangs we ordered came. We decided to record at Laurie’s house because there was a
great spot in her garden with tree’s that created the perfect amount of dark and light
to record our lip sync and close up shots in. We began the shoot by taking our pre-
arranged costumes (white dress/top black leggings jeans) and ripping them and
covering them with dirt marks and blood. We made the blood from blue food dye, red
food dye and golden syrup, this gave the fake blood a high quality look and made it
edible so we could it anywhere on our face to create effective looks. We also did our
hair and makeup by making our faces extremely pale and reinforcing the ‘dead’ look
by taking purple and red eye shadow and creating dark circles under our eyes and
taking black eye shadow to create a shadow and a deepness in our eye sockets. We
also added a purple tint to our lips to reinforce the ‘dead’ look, unfortunately when we
came to put our fangs in we couldn’t get the consistency of the sticky putty correct
and it wouldn’t stick to our teeth so we had to hold them in our mouths using our lips
this still looked effective however it did make it difficult when it came to bearing our
fangs to hold them in place effectively, but we managed well. The filming went
extremely well today and we got all the shots we desired done.
6. Recording day 5
Today we mainly focused on the fillers shots for our music video, E.G. tied up in a circle, hand covered in
blood dragging across the wall, jump cuts of Jodie coming closer to the camera. We did these shots on
stage because the drama room was unfortunately the drama room was in use, so we used the stage,
although the natural light on the stage was an issue we could black out the stage because it was an
overcast day and we could pull the black out curtains on stage so the stage was incredibly dark which
was perfect for the shots we needed. We also utilised Jodie’s torch app that she had on her phone to
had a little amount of light on our faces for certain shots, we used rope as prop to tie up Jodie’s hands,
we wanted to create an effect that the rope was tying itself around Jodie’s hand so we shot it second by
second inching the rope closer into a knot each time and this appeared to work effectively. We also shot
the scene where we are tied up in a circle back to back but because we are all in the shot we had to ask
the help of another media student to film this shot for us, we described exactly what we wanted to him
and he did a sufficient job. I went outside with Laurie and filmed the shots were my hand was dragging
across a wall covered in fake blood, we also experiment with some shots that we came up with while
outside, E.G. hand covered in blood hitting off the wall/window, hands dripping with blood hanging
dead and limp (this allowed the camera to focus on the droplets of blood that were dripping from my
fingers) While on set we also mind mapped a few more shots that we could do and planned some close
up shots of Jodie’s fangs, Jodie staggering towards the camera and jump cutting closer, we also did a
shot that was an extreme close up of Laurie’s finger going to her mouth making a ‘shhh’. We did these
extra shots so we had more filler shots to play with when it came to editing, we know that the more
jump cuts we have at our disposal the more effective our music video will be because we have more
shots to play with.
