Opening time lapse

This is the still shot of the smoke cloud time lapse. Overall the sunrise lasted 7 minutes and the colours change from deep purple to begin with to eventually becoming a pinky/ orange. We made the colours much more vibrate by altering the contrast tool in iMovie, in which we also sped the clip up 20x than its original speed.

This is the clip we will use for our title sequence, the lightly coloured background will make it much easier to read white font making it very well suited for our band's theme.

Sunrise filming day.

Initially, for the first few beats of the song we was going to include a few establishing shots of the area of Edmonton, this would establish the theme of escapism throughout the video whilst also allowing the audience to become familiar with our locations. However we recently brainstormed the idea of including a long wide angle shot of a time lapsed sunrise.

During the half term we went to Kelly's local allotment area as it had a high enough hill. The time lapse was started at approximately 6:50 am and was left on a rolling shutter until the actual sunrise at 7:13 am.

We then recorded a second time lapse with a smoke cloud that was nearby. The sun was reflecting off the cloud casting changing colours of pinks, blues and oranges.

Filming with car

For the running shots found at the beginning of our storyboard, we wanted to have a scene of Janadhi running from out of frame into the centre of the shot, additionally we wanted to film Jandhi side-on catching her breath at the lyrics 'we fall down.' We felt that the best and most stable way to film these tracking shots was to film from a moving car. Fortunately Kelly's parents own a convertible, avoiding the awkward 'sitting in the boot' struggles. Instead Kelly could just lean out from the back seat balancing the camera on the boot of the car which proved effective. 

Unfortunately I wasn't able to be present at the filming as I was going on a family holiday, however from the footage Kelly was able to film and show me, other than a few shaky shots of from the car (caused by numerous potholes and bumps) the footage is exactly how I pictured it.

Letter filming

Our next filming location was my house, we needed to use my front hallway to film the scenes in which Janadhi opened her enrolment into the army letter. We chose to film at my house as my hallway is wide, which would be effective when filming the long angled shots, as well as it having two large front-facing windows which would let in plenty of natural light which allowing the letter to be perfectly visible for the audience. 

These shots would reinforce the army theme narrative and needed to be filmed in such a way that made it clear to the audience what was happening, in order to do this we needed our miss-en-scene to be believable and effective. 

Kelly created the letter after researching templates on google. It was evident that they followed a simple letter format with a large signature printed on the bottom, with a large logo of the British Army visible in the top left corner. The rest of the letter incorporated information Kelly had researched on off of key Army sites, e.g training locations, training dates and any uniform information. 

Reshoot

Our next filming location was back in the school gym again. 

After watching our original footage we realised we were lacking some variety  needed to reshoot and capture some more shots of Jan working out as we were lacking variety of equipment shots. 

This was the shot we have decided to use for the line 'look me in the eye' 

Stills and compositions shot so far.

 Below are a selection of just some of my favourite shots that we have taken so far.

These two specific shots were captured in our first location, alongside the canal.

The bench is framed in the centre of this shot making it the focal point. However this changes when
Janadhi enters the composition as she is then placed where the vertical line indicating
where the rule of thirds compostion of '9v9' would be, drawing attention
from the bench onto her.

This shot is my favourite from this location. It was one of the many Kelly captured 
whilst she climbed and walked along the bridge. Not only does it establish our setting with its wide angle composition, but it also emphasises the vastness of our location by the prominent diagonal line that runs through the shot. 

The next three were filmed in our school gym.

To comply with the 'rule of thirds' Jan was positioned in a way which seems 'natural' and 'comfortable' to the audience, this is due to the symmetry framed by the positioning of the rowing machine bike against where Janadhi's body is. 

By leaving the rowing machine in the foreground out of focus and placing it entirely on Janadhi's face, it enhances her facial expression and draws attention directly onto her. 

By directing Janadhi to act out this particular body language, it paints to our audience how exhausted the protagonist is, and emphasises and in a way foreshadows the struggles she is currently suffering and what she is to expect.

These last few shots were taken at our last filming location.(The agility park in Primrose Hill)

This high angle close up shot has her hands gripping the bar, in focus. Whereas her face, which is distant is left out of focus, this is one of many shots where we chose to include a varied number of different and 'unique' angles in which we can capture her exhaustion yet determination to succeed.

In order to capture her empowering facial expression in this specific shot, Janadhi was framed in the middle of the shot, her arms acting as the two vertical lines to comply with the 'rule of thirds,' this allows no distractions to occur leaving her face as the dominant feature. 

Similar to the previous still shot, Janadhi's arms during this close up of her 'attempting' a push up follow the two vertical lines of the '9v9' grid, leaving her in direct view for the audiences attention. 

Costume change.

Not only did we need to film Janadhi training in the agility park, we also needed to capture Jan in her official army uniform running up the hill and standing at the top. The main message within our video is focused on the empowerment of women and to inspire the movement of equaling the gender gap within certain sectors of the economical world.

To showcase this message we wanted to capture a wide angle panning shot of Janadhi standing at the peak of the hill looking down at the city of London framed in the distant background, symbolising her character reminiscing on the past struggles and achievements she had to go through to get to where she is now.

Make shift equipment

In order for us to capture the steady tracking shots of Janadhi running we brought our friends skateboard along with us. We aimed to be able to place the camera on the flat surface of the skateboard, and roll it alongside Jan as she jogged, this angle would be able to capture just her feet, but we imagined it would be a successful way of achieving the shots that we wanted.

When it came down to actually using the prop, rather than filming Jan running on the flat surface of the ground, we ended up wanting to film her running along an extended wooden beam that was included in her workout routine instead. 

However with the camera sitting on the flat surface of the skateboard it wasn't elevated high enough to capture her feet running along it. After much brainstorming over the items we had with us at the time, we decided that propping the camera up with my scarf was the best way to capture the perfect shot, and it worked! Me and kelly rolled the skateboard back and forth to each other which enabled us to get some really nice steady shots. 

Filming Action shots.

At our Primrose hill location we were attempting to capture all of our agility training shots. These shots reveal Janadhi in her army uniform and her journey through her intense training.

The montage of her action shots need to last approximately 45 seconds, as these are shots needed to fill the instrumental section found in the middle of the song, because of this we needed to film A LOT of Janadhi working out in the agility park, and as we were filming for around 3 hours I'm hoping got all the footage we needed!

Below are just a few of the behind the camera shots I took showcasing the workouts Janadhi had to endure through, I must admit I was very glad I was on the other side of the camera.

Third filming location.

Last Friday Kelly, Janadhi and I traveled up Central London to the fitness park located in Primrose Hill, at this location we focused on filming the agility course shots of Jan in 'training.' These specific training shots differ from the previous training shots where the protagonist is in her 'local gym;' they feature Jan in her army training uniform, working out in an outside gym\ agility course, giving the shots more verisimilitude of featuring the theme of being 'army-like.' 

 We specifically chose this location due to its agility course present on the site, however it also features a very prominant steep hill, the views acquired from the top of the hill are rather breathtaking making it perfect for any climatic shots that we could use as an empowering ending scene.

Practice filming.

 Because our music video is strictly a narrative piece of work, that means lip syncing is very sparse. Due to this we decided on a number of lines in which we can link with the visuals in order to include some lip syncing in our video.
For the line, "Look me in the eye when I'm talking to you" as a group we thought that line would perfectly match with a scene of Jan being intimidated by the conventional 'scary sergeant,' mouthing the words 'look me in the eye' whilst shouting in her face.
To get a feel of the framing and composition needed for these shots we filmed a couple tester shots using our friend Ertan to personaify the aggressive character.
The setting we used was simply the backfields connected to our school, making it a really easy location to get to.

Second filming location.

So earlier today my group began filming in our schools gym, we were able to access the equipment we needed, such as the rowing machine, the spinning bike, a skipping rope and some weights. We were able to capture some really nice action shots of Jan.  

Day one of filming!

So today we took to Edmonton, one of our filming locations, to begin filming some landscape and running shots of Jan.
We filmed along the Lee Valley river and was able to capture some really good shots of Janadhi jogging along the canal from varied angles as well as being able to capture the sense of 'escapism.'

We were also able to boost Kelly and the camera up onto a kind of bridge/ kind of electrical cable pathway (as seen in the last picture)  in which we were able to film some really good landscape and running shots from such an unusual angle from above the river.