Lighting workshop

For today’s lesson, we learnt about how to apply lighting in shooting. To start with this topic, we talked about what is the director of photography(DOP): The chief over the camera and light crews working on production who is responsible for making artistic and technical desisions related to the images. The study and practice of this field is referred to as cinematography(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinematographer)

Firstly, Matt introduced four types of light in the studio that have been used frequently. 

RedHead: Use for general purposes

Blonde light: bigger version of redhead, very strong light

Highlight: Relatively cold and tough light, need to adjust the White balance in the camera.

Fluorescent light 

The good thing is they look cool, the bad stuff is they are not dimmable, which means it is difficult to light the room up by using this light.

Matt showed us the way to set up lighting, for example, the most typical one: Three Redhead lights come from three different positions:

1.Key light/majority of the light hitting the object 

This create very sharp shadow on the face, which build up a sense of mysterious, however, it does not always look good in the general effect, so there is another light to fill the shadow.

2.Fill light: help fill in the shadow, making it doesn’t look mysterious 

3.Back light:edge light

Three lights positions

However, the light travel straight and hit the object, which give very sharp shadow. If we are trying to make the light softer, we could use a piece of paper to diffuse the light. The theory is, light hits the paper and force the light to go in different directions.👇

In order to reflect the light on figure’s face, any white surface material could be use, like white paper, white shirt, etc. Today, we used a huge board to show the principle of white bouncing the light away and light up the face.👇

When lots of shadow going on, polystyrene is used here, blonde light bounce off and gives a beautiful fill light. (Usually use for beauty shoots)👇

     Matte box: fits over the lens and stop all the extra light coming into the lens👇

     

In addition, transparent acetate with colours could be very useful in music video:

Red acetate 👇

Blue Acetate👇

Generally, lighting is one of the key elements that determine the effect of the scene. Before the light switch on, we should let people in the studio know, say to everybody “sparkling” so people don’t look straight on it. 

I think for our music video, we need mysterious lighting, because it’s rock music, we might going to use edge light.

Pre-production Update

Today, I worked on the design of the bedroom with Charlotte and found images that help us to visualise the scene setting. Dylan sent costume ideas to the band and managed to see what clothes they have got in their wardrobe that fit the theme. Jack continued work on the narrative and cut the music into three minutes.

Pictures below show idea of the setting of the game room

However, the problem is, this scene does not fit well with the next scene in the coffin. We should put the elements into a same track, that look similar. So we need to change a little bit on the general lighting, colour and setting. Especially the lighting is the key to control the whole effect.

Also, Dylan showed us some images of what the band and performance should be like from his view 

Tomorrow me and Charlotte are going to continue the design and look for images that represents our idea for the setting of the game room and band performance. The major worry is how is the band performance going to be like and how to make it interesting but not distracting the whole look.

Pre-Production Update

Today, we distributed our work in the first 5 minutes in the lesson and started doing our work individually. I was completing the treatment, Jack is sorting out the storyline, and Dylan was looking for possible locations that we are going to film the general video and how will it be. Charlotte come back from quarantine today, she joins our group after she done her blood test and looked for some similar music videos that could give us more ideas.

Jack made the storyline clearer:

Playing video game—>Game over—> fall from the chair into the bed—>Make up—>into the coffin—>funeral—>Digging hole—>Buried—>hand breakthrough the ground

According the storyline, I rearranged the sequence of the treatment:

The good news is the band has start practicing the music 

Also, I’ve found a website during the lesson about how to survive if you are stuck in the coffin, which is very interesting that the singer could recuse himself:

https://www.grunge.com/107520/how-to-survive-buried-alive/

Artists

 We had a session with Matt today, and he talked about how the record labels sign the artists, according what kind of conditions. 

To start with this, the first question I need to ask myself is : “What are we asked to produce? “  we are campaigning for the artist. However, there is very tiny possibility to pick someone who has good appearance, talented, and the more important thing is, he/she is interested in this. If so, how to sign them? There are artist reservoir, and A&R Mangers* go to night club and music festivals sort of events to look for musicians.

Matt introduced the White Zombie as an example, 

Their music is not very good, but he could see that the special thing within the band and he thinks these people might work, he signed the band, exaggerated their distinctive look and unified this element. 

Also, there is another example of the artist that suggest always look for something marketable. The Active Monkey, a band consist of four teenagers boys, for instance, which possesses old fashion. However, due to their style, most of their audiences are young people.

Generally, when we are producing the music video, we should find the ‘shining’ point of the artist, such as the look, style etc, and then exaggerate it. This is a ‘product’ that is produced and labelled to show the setting for an artist, the attitude, and the concept.

 

*A&R Manager:

 they search for new talent, negotiating with and signing promising new artists, and guiding said artists' careers while they're signed to the record label or publishing company.

(Source from: https://www.berklee.edu/careers/roles/ar-coordinator

Call Sheet

 

Today, Charlotte has collected the contact information from the crew and cast, so we can contact them easily.

Improved Treatment & Timeline

We improved our treatment today, which is shown below.

Also, we made a timeline for the music video, and put lyrics above the line:

Trea tent

                                                 A boy is playing video game (Screen)

                                                 Game Over and pan the camera

Game Over on the reflection of his eyes

(Editing Tutorial): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GwVV6-jpeuA 

   

                                             

Also, I drew a mind map of different elements that related to death:

Workshop with Matt

Today, we had a practical lesson with Matt. Mainly refreshed the technics of setting up camera. For example, how to adjust the white balance,focus, and exposure. In addition, he taught us about the shutter angel, which is to control the speed of the movement that is shot.

Notes: 

<90 degree(Lower Angel):Fast motion, very sharp/shaking 

180 degree(Higher Angel): Normal

360 degree: Slow/Blurry/Warmer/Old Fashion/Smooth

Also, Matt showed us the Prime Lens, which have better quality than the zoom in cameras.

Wide Lens: 18, 21, 25 mm

Mid Lens: 35mm

Close up: 85mm(Shallow depth of film)

Fish eye lens:~10mm

Also, we looked at the position of the focus plane

We can use measuring tape to measure to distance of the camera and the object/person we are filming.

For example, we measured the distance is 6, then we could adjust to 6 on the lens.

For the band performance, we don’t need to keep the camera in one position, because it is not a theatre performance, and we can move the camera (within 180 degree). The very important thing is, we need to keep their energy up, and maybe wave with the music and always support them, in case the performers are feeling nervous, because they need to show their best.

Distribute the works within the group

Today, we distributed four research jobs in the group according our preferences and advantages. The original pitch was form me, so I developed the story line. Jack works on the style (Costume&Hair/Make up), and Dylan looked at several possible locations to film, he suggested to film in the church in the town, I think that is a very good location, but the possibility of accessing this place is very small, because of the situation of COVID-19 and our theme is about death, which is not very appropriate to film in a real church. I think we could work on the props, lighting and so on to work out the effect of church. Charlotte found some amazing images about the old fashion funeral.       

Also, Charlotte found some old pictures to help to set up the scene at the particular time period: