Filming With Glenn 3

During the half term break we had to re-film and find some new locations for our video for the final cut. With it being half term Glenn was available for a limited time, due to his numerous employment and band commitments. We therefore had to priotitize and plan a day around him so that everyone could go to London to film.

We agreed a date amongst ourselves and Glenn and prepared what we needed for the day, this was mainly the camera, tripod, signs for Glenn to hold and our plan of action so we didn't waste any time whilst in the city.

Southbank Filming

Myself, Matt and Jay traveled up to London early so that we could have the whole day filming, we wanted to film more locations to show the vast range of life and culture in London, so went to locations such as Trafalgar Square, Southbank, Tower Bridge and various streets and underpasses. We were also lucky with the weather on this particular day as there were clear skies and therefore the best day-light was available, which improved the standard of our footage as most of the previous was in slightly darker conditions.

Matt Setting Up The Tripod And Camera

Glenn joined us in the afternoon as he had to work during the morning, once he arrived we walked to the tunnel which would be used for our opening shots. Once we arrived and began filming the footage again looked a great deal clearer as we still had day-light. We re-filmed the opening pans and shots of Glenn singing so that we could replace the old, dark shots from previous filming. The location of this tunnel must be a popular filming location as it is similar to the Coldplay music video to 'Fix You', and whilst we were filming there seemed to be a photoshoot taking place on the other side of the tunnel.

Whilst we had Glenn with us I began to take some photos of him and his guitar for possible Digipak covers. Due to the title of the song being 'What A Life' it was difficult to think of a single image which could portray or connote the title of the song. I did however, remember some of Noel's other artwork on his singles, and some of them had Noel facing the other way looking into the distance. Taking this into consideration I took some photos from behind Glenn when we was walking along the Southbank near Tower Bridge. I believe photos such as this can promote the song title as Glenn is watching different lives around him, and at the same time a sense of voyeurism is created as the audience are essentially watching Glenn too.




Here is a short slideshow of some locations we visited whilst in London. They included areas such as Southbank, Trafalgar Square, Westminster and Buckingham Palace.

Filming With Glenn 2

On Tuesday the 25th of January myself, Jay and Glenn travelled to London to continue with filming. Matt couldn't join us this time due to work commitments, however previous filming sessions meant that either Jay or I were comfortable with using the camera so it was not a major problem. Due to Glenn's work commitments also, we had a limited time up in the city due to the early darkening evenings of Winter, we did however film an effective amount of footage which will be used for the video.

Here is one of many shots we got of Glenn holding the signs which spell out 'What A Life?'. We filmed him holding each sign for a few seconds each in various locations, this is so that in the video we can show him holding all of them in a continous flow and it will hopefully portray a question to the audience of what they believe life is. This particular shot is Glenn infront of a traditional phonebox, we passed it on the off chance and thought having well-known structures of London in the video will aid in setting the scene of the music video.

Here is a shot of a slow pan of a train pulling out of Waterloo East and into Charing Cross. We did not plan to specifically film this but at the time we thought it could play a vital part in showing the different regions of London, as the Houses of Parliament in the background are a famous monument. The only problem we had with this shot is that the day was coming to an end, and the overcast weather caused the shot to be rather dark, however if we need to we can re-film this at a later date.  

This shot is an under-cranked shot of the busy streets in Westminster. We thought filming this for a few minutes and speeding the footage up may look effective as the vehicle lights will be passing by showing the amount of people traveling through London. However the time of day was against us again, as the lighting is dark and would not follow the continuity of the song as it is based in day-light. This shot could be used near the end, if we decide to have the end of the song at the end of a day for our character.

Making The Signs

During the planning stages for our music video we wanted to have our character (Glenn) holding signs during a rather long instrumental part of the song. The signs will have the words What A Life ? on them so that the song is promoted visually as well as during the lyrics, I volunteered to create these signs for the video as I had many paints and spare wood in the shed at home.

I began by opening a word document and typing out each word in a font called 'Stencil' which ironically was perfect for creating a stencil type font. I made each word large enough so that it would be easily read from a distance when filming and printed them out. Once I had each part of the question 'What A Life?' I began to cut the letters out with a Stanley knife so that I could spray over the stencil onto the boards of wood.


Below are the finished boards which Glenn will be using during the video. I took them to school the next day and the group and I were very pleased with the outcome, therefore making them a success!

First Filming With Glenn

We traveled to London on the 19th of January with our new character Glenn to begin filming for our music video. We could only leave to film at 2pm so our time was limited whilst in the city, this meant we could only get a selection of shots completed on this day. However we recorded Glen in several locations performing the whole song, this means that when we begin to edit the song we can select certain parts of the song to fit our plan.

Jay

This was the first location of shooting, it was by London Bridge Rail Station and the idea was for Glen to sing the song whilst looking out over the River Thames. This image shows Jay filming this shot, which required using the tripod to keep the camera steady.

Me

This image shows me filming Glen walking over Tower Bridge, this shot wasn't actually planned but as we was walking over it we thought it could prove to be an effective tracking shot. For this shot I held the camera and we had Glen walking towards me, I had to have a steady paced walk for filming this shot as we didn't want the shot to be moving vigorously.

Matt

Here is Matt filming Glen playing the guitar and singing the song, this tunnel will be used through-out our video so making sure these shots were shot well is vital. This image is showing where in our video we want a slow movement from Glen's feet to his upper body. We also used the tripod to film this shot which came out more effective than filming it free hand, as the movement was much smoother.


We also wanted to share the responsibility of filming so that the workload was evenly split and so we all were comfortable using the camera. We all wanted to be able to use the camera so that in case anyone couldn't attend filming days we had a back up camera operator.

First Day Of Filming With Jack

On the Sunday of January the 15th myself and Matt travelled to London to film the London Eye and Jack doing his performance shots. During the train journey Jack phoned Jay to let him know he couldn't perform in our music video, once Jay let Matt and I know of the situation we all thought the video would be a huge doubt.

The day progressed and we went to the London Eye as we had no character to film, however once we arrived at the Eye it was closed! This day was planning out to be a disaster, as we had no character to film, and no London Eye. The events of the day casted doubt over the group and I as our whole video was in jeopardy, however our luck soon turned whilst traveling home.

During the journey home, Matt asked his friend Glenn Rice if he would be interested in being the main character in our video. Luckily for us he said yes, this helped our group greatly as Glenn is part of a band (called Go-Zilla) and therefore is a natural musician. He also makes his own music videos for his band so his knowledge for certain shots and camera angles will provide us with great help.

Glenn Playing The Guitar 

Here is a photo of Glenn playing his guitar for his band, he can also play the drums which adds to his musical ability. With Glenn having a strong musical ability it will work as our advantage as he also knows how to lip sync to the lyrics, this will make our video look more professional and original. 

Filming Schedule

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