Tranquillised Lives

Pre-production

In exchange for Janar’s help for my final project as a crew member, I took part of his production of music video. At first, there was no particular role assigned for me but I put myself forward to be the first assistant director as I have a previous experience in directing.

In our first brief pre-production meeting with Janar in March, I had some ideas of the production schedules; he first hoped to film on the first and second week of April. He wanted a location that looks like an abandoned hospital, but he could not find such a place in Hastings. I gave him an idea to solve the problem that we can create haunting hospital look in the Observer Building with the aid of props like some white sheets. He liked the idea and said he would consider the option. We also talked about camera choices and he particularly wanted to have a slow-motion effect in the video so he chose to use Panasonic AF101.

The main problem in the whole process of this production was the director’s lack of communication. I contacted the director about the progress of the pre-production via Facebook message on the first week of April. A few weeks later, he replied with the slightly changed shooting date and location as well as the crew list. It would have been much better with keeping me up to date on the progress since the first meeting. The new arranged date for the shooting is the 19th of April at 10AM to 5PM and the confirmed location is the TV studio in the Hastings campus of Brighton University. It seems to be a good alternative to the previous plan. He also asked me to have another job for the production, the Script Supervisor. It would not be a big deal for me to cover the role as well, as I have a good grip on the whole production process as the First Assistant Director. So, I accepted the job too. The director promised me to send the shot list and storyboard to me as soon as possible.

Two days prior to the shooting day, no shot list or the storyboard given to me yet by the director. So, I messaged the director again to urge him to send me all the necessary information, as I had no concept of this music video yet. It is quite crucial to have a concept of the whole production as the first director, to prepare all things necessary for shooting. Soon he replied to me with an apology, and promised to send what I need for the production shortly. The director finally confirmed the total crew member that is reduced from what was originally meant be to just three people; Janar the director himself, David and me. He has recently lost one crew member, and he asked me to take over another job to cover the missing position. I recommended him that the missing role should be replaced with a new member, not by me, as my hands are pretty full with the two jobs as the first assistant director and script supervisor. I was genuinely concerned that I would not be able to cope with three jobs for the production, as I already have two significant main jobs that require my full attention.

After I looked through the concept file, most of things I should know seemed clear except one thing. I addressed my concerns about the Scene 3 where the latex sheets are used as a prop, as nobody in the crew has ever tried them before. I suggested to have a backup plan in case it does not work as intended. He seems to rely on the musician who is casted for the music video, as he has an experience of using it in the past. The musician is supposed to bring the latex sheets with him to the shooting location. The director took my concern and prepared a blue spandex sheet as an insurance.

Lastly, he clarified my main roles as follows:

· Clapperborad

· Taking care of the musician

· Getting the musician's signature on the consent form

I am so glad that we just managed to prepare everything necessary for the shooting.

Production

I arrived early 30 minutes before our call time to have some time to talk things through. The moment we started our prep-talk, we found out that the director forgot to print off the paperwork and consent form. So, David and I went to the library to print out them. We ended up spending the whole 30 minutes running around for printing the paperwork. We could have made the most out of our prep-talk prior to the filming, rather than wasting time to cover what the director had missed such as the paperwork and a pen, only if the director had everything ready, as I advised the day before the shoot. Luckily we could manage to solve the problem on time with the printer in the University Library, as we were in the same building for the shooting.

When the musician arrived, Janar and I greeted him. Then I showed the musician the guestroom of the gallery, and looked after him throughout the production. We had to catch up the scheduale, so we just got on with going over the shooting plan straightaway.

Lighting is of particulr importance in this production as it uses a green screen. So, we made an experiment on the lighting several times to reduce shadows, which achieved a successful outcome as you can see.

In the Scene 2, we used some blue gels as a light filter to project a beam of blue light on the latex screen, which produces a blue colour look on the screen.

As the scenes were filmed in slow motion, using the green screen, the director Janar also booked out the editing suite next to the TV studio to test and see the result straight away. This was very effective as the crew and musician could see the result so that we know what exactly works or not.

As Janar wanted to have a slow-motion effect, we filmed 50 frames per second with a 200% speed of the music. We had a few rehearsals with the musician before the shoot as he needs to lip-synch the lyrics. We finished the scene with just 5 takes. The Scene 2 was particularly interesting and exciting as we used an unusual material of ‘latex’ to get the special look.

We also improvised some areas such as the profile shots. I suggested to film with a handheld camera without the tripod for the scene 2, to create a different look.

Overall, despite all the concerns in the preparation stage, the shoot went well very smoothly and the whole crew and the musician derived a great deal of the satisfaction from the achievement. There were lots of laughter and giggles so it was a defiantly interesting and fun experience.