Ellie Latham documents her group's four days of filming for their music video production. On day one, they filmed the lead singer in front of a simple brick wall at a village hall. Day two involved filming in Bristol, including shots of the singer on top of a parking garage and in a bear pit, as well as filming local skateboarders. Day three consisted of setting up a time lapse camera in a shopping center. Day four had them film a friend dancing at their school. Later pick-up shots were taken at a house and lake to fill remaining gaps in footage.

1. Production Days
Ellie Latham

2. Day 1 – Filming at Bishop Sutton Village Hall
Our days of production started by filming our first lot of footage at a village hall. As it was a familiar
location to us, we knew how it looked and thought the grey brick wall on the back would create a
perfect shot as it was simple yet effective.
We filmed Ceara in front of the wall for the duration of the whole song so that later on we could pick
bits out and cut them ready to edit into the video. Because it was quite a simple task, we were able to
film it a few times through whilst getting used to using different lenses and shooting it from different
angles and shots including long shots, close ups and even crabbing. However due to this being our
first official shooting day, we did experience a few difficulties but each one of them was quickly
resolved as they were just minor problems like getting the tripod equal and making sure both Ceara’s
feet and head were in the shot.
To help us with the lip syncing for our final edited video, we played the song from a portable speaker
connected to our phone so that Ceara was able to sing exactly in time with the music which would
make it easier for us to match up when editing the footage together.
Once we got back from the village hall back to school, we imported all of our footage onto the
computer we use for editing so that we definitely knew it was somewhere safe.

3. Day 2 – Filming in Bristol
As a group we organised a trip into Bristol where we could film footage of the dance part of our video
and more of Ceara singing. We chose two different locations which were relatively near eachother and
what we thought would suit our video. The first was the bear pit and the second was on top of Cabot
Circus car park.
We first of all filmed on top of Cabot Circus car park as we parked our car in there and could walk to the
bear pit after we had finished. Our aim for this day was to film the dance sections of me and Ceara and to
film more footage of Ceara singing for more performance pieces in our video. We spent quite a few hours
on the top of the car park filming Ceara singing the whole song from different angles, making sure we got
the perfect angle where you could see the back drop of the city. We took a risk as our camera wasn’t on
full battery before we came out, luckily it lasted long enough for us to film as much as we needed on top
of the car park and we had low battery when going to film at the bear pit but luckily it lasted. Because we
knew exactly what we were filming at the bear pit, we got it shot straight away with no fuss and we were
extremely impressed with the natural lighting in one of the graffiti shots from in the tunnel.
Whilst we were filming at the bear pit, we noticed some people skateboarding for fun. We thought it
would be a good idea, after asking permission, if we could film them doing some tricks as it would be a
perfect addition to our music video as the whole idea is about being active/having fun with friends. I
politely asked if they didn’t mind us filming them and they were happy to do it as coincidentally they
were in the process at sixth form of filming their own music video.

4. Day 3 – Filming in Bristol
For the start of our music video, we knew we wanted a time lapse of
lots of people. We came up with the idea of filming from a high angle
of people shopping in Cabot Circus.
I took the responsibility one Saturday of sitting in Cabot Circus for
about half an hour with the camera on a tripod recording. I spent this
long filming the footage as when it would come round to editing and
turning it into a time lapse, there was a long enough footage. This was
simple and easy and was convenient as I was working in Bristol that
day.

5. Day 4 – Filming in school
To add to our theme of dancing and happiness in our video, wed agreed with
one of our school friends; Lenny, for him to take part in our video and do
some dancing for us. We knew he had great body popping skills and we
thought he would be perfect to add in with the existing disjuncture footage
of me and Ceara dancing on Cabot Circus car park.
We filmed this footage in a free lesson during school outside the sixth form
block against a plain wooden background. We chose this backdrop similar to
the one of Ceara in front of the wall so that the audiences attention was on
Lenny and his dancing only. To help himself, he asked if he could listen to his
own music through his headphones whilst dancing as our song didn’t really
fit his dancing style. We agreed to let him wear his headphones in the shot
and it turnt out better than we thought, him wearing the headphones added
to his look and definitely fit with our video.

6. Other Production Days
After editing all of our footage together on premiere pro, we found that
we had just a few slight gaps where we needed different footage. With
time still until our music video had to be finished, we drove to a few
places which were close in order to shoot a bit of footage to fill the
gaps which we had. We decided to film more shots of me and Ceara
together as there was already a lot of performance of Ceara on her
own.
We went to Laurens house and to Chew Valley Lake in order to film
footage of me and Ceara together and hopefully fill the gaps. We were
happy with the footage from Lauren’s house but not that from the lake
as all of our other footage is based around the centre and busy towns
therefore images of greenery didn’t fit with our idea.