Filming Day 1

We started filming today! we started at school at 9:00 without our actor because we needed to set up the common room to look like a flat. This involved putting up a lot of posters that Simran and I had brought from home to cover school photos for team building and things like that. We moved the chairs to look like two sofas and put a blanket and cushions over them to make it look a little bit more homely, we also had to change the items that were on the shelves that can be seen when Mossy walks out of the room, as there were originally folders and sheets. We changed this to mugs and books as well as an ipod dock. 

As we wanted to make it look a bit disordered and messy we put some plates and mugs out and packets of crisps on the tables. I had also noticed that we could see through to the room next to the common room in the practise shots which is full of desks and computers which would ruin the illusion of a flat, to combat this I found a large black sheet and hung this up on the other side of the door frame, hiding the room and its contents. To make the room look a bit darker and not very nice we also pulled down the blinds. 

Mossy met us at school at 10:00 and we went out to film in the woods first as we did not want to loose the light because, it being winter, it starts to get dark at around four. We started with the shots where he is walking and then swings the guitar which should go with the line "I see this life like a swinging vine
Swing my heart across the line". We filmed this whole verse with him playing the guitar and performing and walking with different shots, such as wide and close up. We had close ups of him playing guitar and of him lip syncing as well as him walking. 

We also did this for the chorus and second verse for security in shots. Whilst we were filming we tried to think of different shots that would make the video different and interesting, some of these were having Mossy kick leaves toward the camera, this was quite a close shot focusing on his feet walking towards the camera. We thought this would be interesting if we slowed the clip down when the leaves are kicked so the full effect of the movement of the leaves is captured. We also had Mossy stand and perform and then at a low angle (so the camera is facing up towards him) Simran filmed him and moved round him, whilst I pulled her along making sure the pace was steady and she didn't fall, allowing her to focus on the shot. We then filmed mossy lip syncing on a bench and where he moves to the camera and pushes it away; we had to do this shot quite a few times as it made the camera shake more than I had previously thought.

We then moved to the high street to do the busking shots, we used the steps leading to a church because we thought this fit with him losing faith and we felt it was a good setting. We tried two different shots one being quite wide so the setting would bee seen as well as Mossy and the hat (with money being thrown in to the hat) and we did a close up of the hat with money being thrown in to it. This time we filmed with two cameras so we could get two angles and switch between the two. All the shots we filmed outside such as in the woods and the busking shots we filmed with out a tripod and dolly because it made the shots flow more and was more practical as the ground was uneven. All the shots we filmed outside such as in the woods and the busking shots we filmed with out a tripod and dolly because it made the shots flow more and was more practical as the ground was uneven. 

After lunch we went back to school to film the shots in the common room, stairs and chapel. Although we had practised the common room shots quite a lot I found it quite difficult to film as actually filming as I found I was not fast enough moving the camera to match his walking and then in speeding that up it became a little bit more difficult to direct the camera with Mossy when he went to pick up the guitar off the sofa. But the more we did it the better it got and we ended up having one person looking and directing the camera and another directing them and the pace. We also were very aware of the tennis courts just outside the door that could be seen when the door was opened and through the window which would contradict our aim of having an unpleasant flat. To hide this we put black paper over the window on the outside, which actually added to the "rough" flat look and thought that to hide the tennis court when he opens the door would edit the shot and cut it where it is no longer seen. Through out these shots we used a tripod and dolly, the only exception being the shots going up the stairs. 

Throughout the day we made sure that we all swapped round roles so that everyone filmed and directed some shots.