Story Of The Pop Shoot Day

For the pop shoot day on Monday 22nd November, our group all met in the studio to discuss the days plan. Whilst the lighting team set up the appropiate lighting from our lighting plan we all collaborated with Luc and talked about the initial idea that we were going to do and what was needed from each group member. I voluntered myself to do the play back, which is when you get the music to the right time frame depending on the shot, i had to say ' playback in 3,2,1' then start the music. Whilst waiting for the band to arrive we then started to set up the set, adding chairs and props where needed. Once the band had arrived we then directed them to an appropiate place for them to get changed and make-up done. The band brought along there own clothes and make-up artist which made the day alot smoother for the band and us. The roles that each production group memeber had was divided and shared between us all.. because our set was closed of due to the way of shooting, only one member of our group was allowed into the set whist the other 3 either did playback, photography or lookig after the bands belongings. For a majority of the day me and Josh Gorman shared the roles of playback and photography and Ben Norris and Josh Jackson shared the role of filming and 'watch out', although we did all in turn get to help out with shooting, these were the main roles of each. The cameras that we used was Sony NX5 with a wide angle lense. Throughout the performacne we didnt do any tracking shots as our camera was spinning in circles, as to subvert the stereotypical image of a music video. Doing this process was quite hard, but the overall outcome of it was very interesting to watch. After this we established fixed positions for the band members under the five pools (spots) of light surrounding the camera, and used electrical green tape to mark these positions. We ran a brief test run with members of the crew whilst standing in the markers to identify any problems with the camera and to see if the spots that we had allocated would work. Once all of this was finalised and ready we then did the following

• Shot a wide of the whole band, whole song. We then repeated this but got the band members to move around behind the camera and switched positions so that when the camera had done a 360° rotation - there was someone else in the same position. This proved fairly difficult as sometimes people weren’t in position before the camera reached them again or they had not stuck to the markers and were not in sufficient light.


• Shot of the whole band, mid shot


• Close-Up of whole band/whole song


• Fiddle Player


• Guitarist


• Banjo


• Lead Singer


• Introduced the Jukebox with the band playing in front of it


• Shot mid of whole band, whole song


• For the final shot, we constructed a raised stage and hung stage like lights that flashed consecutively above, and positioned cinema like seats in front with extras sat in them to simulate a ‘gig’ atmosphere. Problems that we cencountered on the day were things such as, playback timing. Sometimes we needed to change the timing of the playback, i.e instead of playing the track from the begining, t needed to be from 2:35 etc. . in order for us to get the right shot. Other problems that we encountered were that only one of our group memebers was allowed into the set to shoot, whilst the others had to stay outside in order for the shots to be done easily. Other problems were that the band was slightly late which therefore meant that we had to wait a little bit longer and also p[ossibly shoot later in the day than initially expected.

Shots that i felt worked were the final shot with the band playing and an audience looking up atthem and also the shots of the 'bar' to give it a more reaslistic approach. It fitted very well with the music, as there is a feeling of movement throughout the song.

Another shot or sequence that i felt worked well, was the close up shots of the various band members and instruments, as they are not conventional 'band' instruments, including a banjo, fiddle and a double bass. Due to the song being rather fast paced, it meant that the shots were very tight and the image it brought of was very successfull.

A shot that maybe didnt work as well was the close-ups when on the stage and also some of the close-ups of the double bass as well, for me wernt as succesfful as the others as some of the shots were shaky and also slightly out of range , as you could only see someof what was actually being played. And i think if we did this another time then i would change that.

Overall i was very happy how the day went, the band were alot of fun to work with. The overall feel before the day was quite hesitant due to use loosing our initial location a week befoe, we were slightly worried about thisidea and outcome, but having said that the day couldnt haver gone better.