PRODUCTION LOG #2

 

Kitchen Scene

4th December 2022

The next stage of shooting, we filmed the kitchen argument shots between our main actors, Lucy and Vedaant. Our actors weren't available in the evening, which was a challenge as we had planned the scene to be in a dark room. To overcome this, we hung blankets over the windows in the kitchen, which proved to be quite effective. In the end the room was quite dark, but still light enough that the quality of footage wasn't compromised. The blankets did add another challenge, as we had to make sure they weren't in the frame when filming.

We decided to film handheld, to give more intimacy to the scene and to match the instability in their relationship. We filmed in one long continuous shot, panning between Lucy and Vedaant, so we could just insert sections of the argument into the final cut of the music video. This was quite difficult, as we had to make sure the actors were in focus, while using both hands to hold the camera for stability. This was quite challenging and took a few tried until we got a take we were happy with. Another challenge was making sure to avoid our shadow being in the shot, as we were also using a small Apurture light to cast a cold, bluish light on the characters.

Clementine and I have used this light consistently throughout our filming process. It is very useful, as it is small but powerful, and you have the ability to change the hue, saturation and intensity of the light.

Dinner Scene

Although we didn't invite any extras so were limited with our filming of the dinner scene, we made a start by shooting some close ups of Lucy and Vedaant. This proved to be quite effective, and helped us picture the shots we would film when we shot the dinner scene in full. We also used this opportunity to test out some of our ideas. One example of this was using Ribena in the place of red wine. Most of our actors are underage, so we wanted to ensure their safety by giving them an alternative. We used today as a chance to see if Ribena would work, and this proved to be successful and had the same appearance effect as using red wine.

Like with the kitchen scene, we had to try to darken the room. Luckily it had started to rain, so it naturally became a little darker, but not enough to imitate the evening. My dining room has curtains, which made the process easier. We decided that the curtains we sufficient, and that we would darken the scene a little more in post-production. As we have to reshoot the dinner scene with extras, we got the shots done quite quickly and mostly used it as a chance to experiment and prepare for the next time we would be filming the scene. It still proved to be useful, as it gave coverage we can use if we need more footage to cover gaps in the music video.

Bathroom Scene

This was more challenging to film, due to the confined space. My bathroom had a large mirror, so Clementine and I had to be mindful not to get caught in the reflection while filming. My bathroom also had a window, which we had to block out. We tried to create a different effect by using a red blanket, which filtered the light to create red lighting. We used an additional light to create a contrasting blue from the other side of Lucy's face.