Reconstruction
Task
Evaluation
Our task was to re-create in groups 30 seconds to
one minute of an existing music video from one of our storyboards. My group was
me, Danny Williamson, Sam Shaw and Adam Harrison. We chose my storyboard; the
song ‘Sliver’ by the American rock band ‘Nirvana’. The music video is typical
to the rock/punk genre, and featured a small cramped room with the band
performing in close proximity to the camera, so we tried to re-create that
close and chaotic feel for the video. After taking images of and considering
various locations around the college, including different classrooms and the
equipment room in the sports hall, we decided to use the green room for its
accessibility and size, as well as being able to insert a similar background
into the video.
The first shot included a baby and a different
background, so that was the shot we did first. We looked around various
classrooms to find a toy of a baby so we could shoot the first shot. We found
one and recorded it in front of a wooden background. Unfortunately, when it
came to transferring the clips to the editing suit, it had been accidently
deleted. This showed me that handling the taken clips carefully is a priority. The
rest of the sequence was filmed in the green room. Gathering and arranging the
props went generally well. To replicate the instruments used the band members
in the music video, we borrowed a bass guitar and microphone from the music
department in college, and created a drum kit out of a chair, stool and plastic
and cardboard boxes. I attached the microphone to a camera tripod with gaffer
tape to make it look like a microphone stand. We created the shot of the symbol
monkey by dressing Sam up in Danny’s bear costume, as we couldn’t find a real
symbol monkey. I was going to use the same jumper as Kurt (the singer) in the
music video had, but it was too late when I asked. I know time management is
important, but I assumed I could acquire that costume at any time, so I now
know to pay more attention to costume earlier in production. To make sure the
shots were in sync and matched the music video, we had ‘Sliver’ playing on YouTube
on a nearby computer whilst we filmed.
This was the first time I had used the green room
to film a whole sequence, and so I came across a couple of problems. Firstly,
the lighting was fine, but we hadn’t taken how clean the actors/performers
would look against the edited background, so the final result had the
performers looking rough on the edges of their bodies. Secondly, there was a
dolly in the green room that we didn’t pay any attention to, and as a result it
was in the group shot of the band. To overcome these problems, next time I will
propose doing a text shot and seeing how it looks on the editing software, so
that any issues can be identified and sorted. In one shot in the music video,
there is a lamp close up in the foreground at the top right of the shot. We
couldn’t acquire a lamp, so to overcome this we used an aftershave bottle and
hovered it in the same place in the shot, acting as the lamp. We should’ve
planned and thought about the actual background more as the final product used
the same background in each shot, even at different performer camera angles.
This is the greenroom. I used the tripod in the
bottom centre as the pretend microphone stand and some of the boxes on the left
in the drum kit replica. The dolly stand in the middle was the dolly that we
didn’t move out of the room when recording.
I have learned that planning each step of every
element precisely is very important in film production, not just generally
having an idea on what is going to be done or assuming that for example ‘we’ll
find this prop when it comes to filming’. When making my film extract, I will
take the elements of this film that we had problems with, and concentrate in
making sure everything is planned and to good quality. I have also learned to
handle the clips better when transferring them onto a computer. I will also
produce contingency plans for certain things in pre-production of my film
extract, for example a backup source of lighting or maybe another location to
film altogether. After making this video, I am more aware of the practical
processes of making a video. Consequently I will focus more on the props and
setting in my video. My video will not use any visual effects or green screen,
so the graphical problems we encountered in this reconstruction task will not be
a problem in my film extract, as I am more focused on the quality of the camera
shots. I am pleased with the editing. In particular the drum beats and singing
in almost perfectly in sync with the video.
