Production Ideas
We started to look into more videos, types of equipment/props that would be needed for our shoots, also myself and Danielle went up to have a look at the cove, we took lots of photographs to decide on the types of angles that we wanted to film, taking into consideration the white background.
Here are a few photographs that were taken: the idea of the visit was to find out how all the lighting works, what angles we would like to direct, how we were going to achieve the correct camera angles to show the actor, as the cinematographer I thought about high angles, low angles, mid shots, all the time I was thinking about the types of angles as well as thinking about how the footage could be edited together, would we need possible transitions or stick to the natural harsh zooms and crops that I found while viewing other Beauty Guru videos.
Once we came back from the COVE, we started to think about the types of equipment that would be required i.e. camera, sound and lighting.
Camera: Going back to the lesson where we tested camera's against each other, we all agreed that we wanted to use the Cannon XF100 video camera, the features and settings were a lot easier to use for adjusting lighting, focus and zooms. We thought about requiring a Manfrotto tripod for the filming so as to make the footage a lot less shaky, wanted this project to look professional.
As the cinematographer and editor for this project, I wanted to look back to some of the test footage when we got into groups and tested the Cannon XF100, Cannon 600D and the Nikon D7200 against one another, despite the camera not being focused on the XF100 footage that I chose, it gave me a good representation of how sharp the camera footage would look like. The shot that I looked at that was filmed on each camera was a long shot walking down a hallway, the lighting was pretty bright, hardly any shadows and the walls were completely white, I started however to look at the different types of reflections that each camera gave as each of us walked past the window.
Cannon XF100 Camera:
The lighting was extremely bright, not so much tungsten, the light bounced back off really nicely, I thought that it looked like a hospital corridor, the walls looked really vibrant, not to mention that they are the same colour as up at the COVE (our filming location).
Cannon 600D Camera:
I think that the lighting looks less bright, it looks more washed out which wouldn't go with our scene as we are going to be using the COVE which has a white background, I thought that it could however be a bit easier to use for focusing as you would have more control over focusing shots, but then if you were adjusting the focus whilst filming, I think that this would increase the chances of camera shake.
Nikon D7200
Looking back at this camera's footage, I really liked the colours that it produced, despite these I was again thinking about the possibility of zooming and re-focusing the camera while filming, again it could result in a lot of camera shake, where as with the Cannon XF100 we can easily zoom and focus the camera, not to mention that I can edit the footage in post production.
Overall I think that the Cannon 600D portrayed a washed out image, not so much colour on the settings that we were using, whereas the Nikon D7200 provided us with a nice clear image, not to mention the easy accessibility towards the camera's settings, however basing the camera on lighting conditions and the possibility of re-focusing while filming, in my view I feel we should possibly use the Cannon XF100, any additional touches to the footage can be performed or carried out in post production.
Filming by Luke Curno, Janusz Czerniecki, Danielle Young (PCA Students).
Sound: Myself and Danielle looked into the types of sound equipment that would be required, I came up with a list of sound equipment that I thought would be required to pick up the dialogue, sound off camera and sound on the camera while shooting. I thought that we would need a Zoom H4N mic, XLR lead for the input to the zoom and output to a possible boom mic, dead cat to cover the mic incase we decide to shoot outside for any reason. We decided on the possibility of getting a mic stand to help with the recording of sound so that we could position the mic a lot easier to our subject, set a height to record and speak into but we still might hand hold the mic on a pole for a lot easier movement, especially for panning shots from the camera.
Lighting: We didn't feel that we needed any additional lighting, the cove lighting would be perfect and we obviously had the option to dim the light if it was too bright, we could move lighting across or we could make the light harsher to eliminate any shadows on the backdrop.
Camera Angles
Myself and Dan sat down after the lesson to discuss a proposed shot list, Danielle had written a short introduction to the video, we used this to develop camera angles and ways to introduce the presenters i.e. the upcoming Youtube stars.
Looked at existing beauty guru videos for inspiration on our focused camera angles.
Zoella [Zoella]. (2016, January 11th). My 2015 Beauty Favourites [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eXEZ1DRbpc
Emma Blackery [Emma Blackery]. (2015, November, 24th) How To Make & Edit Videos [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSuYPoWR4Ts
Personal further research and collaboration within the group
From the videos that we looked at we've decided on using lots of mid-shots, the previous Beauty Guru videos consisted of short clips, snipped and cut together to form a kind of montage, I noticed that when watching the videos, there wasn't a wide range of camera angles, so to make ours unique I thought about having a pan shot to show movement and for the intro so as we can see the Youtube guest as they walk in-front of camera. I thought about using a mix of these mid shots and close ups for the subjects face for any facial expressions that we would like to capture.
For the Editing techniques I have decided to make the video footage jumpy, use a small amount of transitions and any that are used I shall make them consistent throughout the film. In Zoella's videos, she seems happy and cheery, moves her hands a lot on front of the camera which I think can be distracting but also very effective to show an object, in our case we could have the actor moving their hands and holding up a Go-Pro, link back to the idea Danielle had of VO where the actor will talk about the settings of the go-pro and how they can be used, what is the interface like. This will link back to the other idea we had of our actor not having a clue about the product, starts shaking and panicking, giving off a bad impression. Linking back to the idea that for the script, we are going to give it to her in front of camera, she will be reading it for the first time, we feel that this will flow a lot better compared to if she has already seen the script, she'd know a bit what she is talking about.
A really key feature that I noticed when watching the Beauty videos was the fact that the background was always blurred out (fairy lights, clean coloured background) and in the foreground the YouTuber was in focus. You could clearly see that they were really well presented, wearing make up, hair straightened or tied up and they just looked ready to present, I think that we should have our characters well dressed, looking glamorous as this would appeal to a female and male audience as females would want to be her and males would want to be with her (male gaze perhaps).
In addition, myself, Dan and Danielle talked about the types of music that could be used as a backing track for our project, the first types of music that we researched involved Ukulele however upon closer research we found better music to fit the purpose of the music that we wanted it for. After further discussion we worked out that we wanted a type of upbeat music, not too fast but enough to add movement and give our video a happy feeling just like the types of music that YouTubers use i.e. Pointless Blog, Emma Blackery, Tyler Oakley, Yogcasts, SoCloseToToast and Zoella etc.
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