Music Promo – Evaluation of Shoot Day

1.    What did you do the day before, to set up for your shoot? We were quite unlucky that we were unable to set up our set the day before, as the previous shoot took longer than expected. We did however spend time getting all the props together and location all our final bits of costume. I did a final check in with the lead actors making sure that they had all the things they needed to bring in and was comfortable with what they had to do the next day.

2.    How did you feel when you woke up on the morning of the shoot day? The morning of the shoot I woke up really nervous, simply because we had so many scenes to shoot in the studio. I had a huge fear that we were not going to be able to get onto location and we would then have to make something up on the day that wasn’t going to look as good. 

3.    How well prepared were you when you arrived for the shoot, what did you have to do before you could start shooting? We were pretty well prepared for the shoot actually; we just had to print a few photos that we had forgotten to shoot previously for the bedroom scene. We then had to make up the bed sheets for this scene too. There was also the usual stuff of getting actors into costume and make up, which didn’t take that long.

Bedroom setup.

4.    Describe what the studio looked like when you started shooting, how well do you feel you managed to create the look of your concept? When we arrived, the tech team had set up the basis of our set, which was three black white walls with doors on either side. It was pretty much a blank canvas for us to begin working with. I was so happy with how we transformed the space, especially for the bedroom scene. We took photos from Ellie’s (Lead Girl) facebook page so it was more realistic, adding some posters and floral bedding. It looked really cosy and very realistic.

   5.    How did you divide the roles on your shoot day, what roles did you play? For the most part, Charlie Feeney was on the camera being pushed along on the dolly track. For a while I held the cables whilst the camera was moving along the track to avoid any damage done to the cart or cables. For the first set, I was on the lighting deck adding the flash effect for the camera. Other times I was in charge of getting the actors together and into costume. For the shots of the band, I was on the camera being pushed on the track.

6.    What do you think personally you did well? I think that I did well in actor management, although it’s not a part of the production side I think it’s vital to how smoothly the shoot runs. I was there to help Ellie get dressed and make sure that she knew what was happening in each shot.

7.    What problems did you have on the shoot day, and how did you solve them? One major issue we had was we didn’t have any extras for the party scene because the timing of when we were going to shoot changed. This just meant that we had to walk around a bit and pick people who weren’t doing anything. We also had to cut a scene to make time for the band shots; we didn’t feel that they were that vital to the video though.

8.    Which part of the shoot was most successful and why? I think the bedroom scene was the most successful bit as the actors were great. Having to do a passionate kiss in front of a filming crew has to be hard but they dealt with it really well, I was so impressed. 

9.    Which part of the shoot do you wish had gone better, and why? I wish the party scene had gone better, simply because i think bits of it look a bit fake and forced. For example, the dancing at some moments isn’t very realistic.

Party Scene - although it looks good it was hard to control.

 10. How well do you think you managed your talent? I think I did really well managing them, like I said before I was with Ellie a lot of the time looking after her. I think the moment when we didn’t have the talent totally under our control was during the party scene when we had a lot of more people on set who were all very noisy. 

11. What was the part of the shoot you enjoyed the most? I have to say I really enjoyed shooting the band. I think because it was very easy as they weren’t making a fuss and just getting on with what they had to do. They were all very professional; especially Harry Lawtey (Lead Singer) who knew all his words and was in character the whole time.

12. What are you looking forward to seeing the most in the edit? I cannot wait to see how the movement between each scene merges into one another. This is the big thing with our video; if it works it will be amazing.

13. How well do you feel that your production group worked as a team? I am so impressed at how well we worked together. We didn’t have any issues with any one not doing what they should be or not being focused.

14. Are there any lessons you learned that could help you make your next shoot even more successful? I think it’s important to think about time management. It’s not that we wasted time, it’s just we tried to do too much in one day which then meant we had to cut a scene.