I found a really great short films that relate well to our project. Both share the genre of romance and are beautifully shot and edited. Given that we are currently in the process of filming these films have given me and Emma lots of inspiration for new ideas on how to frame shots and how we could edit our footage eg tones and lighting.

Half from Alex Bohs on Vimeo.

Half 

Written, Directed & Edited by: 
Alex Bohs

Cinematography by:
Mark Johnson


This cute split screen short film really excited me when I came across it. It is defiantly close to what me and Emma want to achieve with our music video, although we understand that this may be ambitious it feel it's possible too! The creative use of reflection and repetition of actions really adds to the value of the production - it allows the audience to understand that the characters share qualities and lives that are compatible. The use of the journal/sketch book connotes memorise, something that me and Emma want to explore along with nostalgia, and pieces of writing and drawings are ways one may document their life. I felt the animation really added another dimension to this production, it gave it a story book feel, again something me and Emma want to achieve. Perhaps me and Emma will experiment with small animations in the editing stages of out work to see if we can create the same effect. 

Pre-lim Fliming

Here is a screen shot of some of our pre-lim filming. After our first lot of pre-lim footage, we decided to focus more on the particular shots that we want to use. For example, we practiced the close up shot of the girl in the cafe when she is reading a book. We still feel as though we haven't perfected these shots yet but are still more confident with using the camera. 

We tried a high angle shot of the girl reading in the cafe, which we think works quite well. She looks directly at the camera as if she's looking at the boy who's just walked into the cafe, thus creating a POV shot. When watching this shot back, we realised just how important mise-en-scene is, because even though this was just a practice shot, the mise-en-scene still dulls the overall impact of the shot. From this we've learnt to take great care in choosing our mise-en-scene so that our film has the best possible impact, provoking thought and emotions in our audience.

Here's a short video of some of our shots edited together. It's the same shot practiced four times because we wanted to try and perfect it. In the third shot, the sunlight coming through the window behind definitely doesn't work, as it creates glare and also darkens the girl so that she can't be seen very well. This has taught us to experiment further with different lighting and face away from natural light coming from a window for example to allow the characters to be seen clearly.

We didn't exactly get the effect that we wanted to achieve with this shot and definitely need more practice. We wanted to have the book in crystal clear focus with the background slightly blurry, so we can just see the figure of the boy walking through the cafe but not in much detail, remaining quite mysterious. We felt that it was a good first attempt, but we need to experiment more with depth of field and keeping the camera steady.

Pre-lim Filming

To gain a better understanding of the tasks that are ahead of us, we decided to experiment with filming techniques and genre. We took the camera out and tried some of our planned shots to see what was effective. We really liked the camera shot at 0:42 using a POV shot, created by a hand-held technique, because it makes it feel more personal for the audience, as if they are there, creating empathy for the characters. We developed this idea by maintaining eye contact with the camera which ultimately creates a relationship between the character and audience. We experimented with editing once we had filmed some ideas, by uploading the footage to iMovie. This really helped us gain an insight into how to use the program which will be invaluable when it comes to editing our final video. We found some techniques to be really effective, such as slow motion, as it captures the dazed aura of romance. In contrast, we tried speeding up some of the film to portray the adrenaline rush felt when in love. We also included fade transitions to make film flow smoothly. To get a feel for what our final video might be like, we added the music we're going to use, to the footage which we felt lifted the whole vibe of the film due to the added dimension of the audio. Although this is only the early stages of pre-lim filming and we know that our video will be of a much higher standard, this has still been a constructive task as it's given us more confidence and skills for our future filming. 

Permission letter for song use

Dear Capitol Records,

Our names are Emma Dickson and Rachel Petrovics, and we are currently studying A-Level Media Studies at The King's School, Devon. 

As part of our coursework this year, we are creating and producing a music video to a song of our choice.  We have chosen 'Wouldn't it be nice'  by The Beach Boys as the song we would like to create a music video for, and we are writing this letter to seek your permission to do so.

Please note, this video will be used only for our coursework and will not be distributed or marketed in any form.  We would greatly appreciate your permission to use this song.

Many Thanks,

Emma Dickson and Rachel Petrovics

Location Shots

Character Profile

Here's a drawing of our two protagonists, with annotations around them describing their traits. We made them both quite similar to show that they are well suited and at first seem 'perfect for each other', as we want to portray the idealistic relationship in the beginning of our video.  

 



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We thought very carefully about who we wanted to play these characters as we want them to be believable. At first, we thought about using a couple of our friends who we know are confident and wouldn't be shy on camera. However, we decided it might be better to use two people who are actually going out, as there is a natural chemistry between them which would come across on film. We are going to use Hannah and Steve as we feel they fit the description of our characters well.