Block Week Exercise

Today we had a few hours to learn about the production of a music video. We looked at the fact that we needed to keep the camera in the same place while using a green screen. In addition, we had to watch out for our clothing and make sure that it didn't include any green on it because that would ruin the green screen effect. After that, we looked at the rules for doing a tracking shot. We had a small tracking shot set up so that we could demonstrate what we learned after. There are 3 people minimum needed for a tracking shot. One as the guy sitting on the chair filming, One as the person who would be pushing the guy sitting on the chair filming, and finally the actor that would be filmed. One rule we were told about the tracking shot is that the person on the chair should not be sitting sideways or in any strange way because it is not a very stable seating position. We were shown how to use tape to mark starting and ending positions for the tracking shots. We could establish where to start and end by playing around with the camera and the positioning of the actor to find out where it would work best. Next, we learned about different positions of power on the music video set. We learned that the director would normally not actually be present on set but would be supervising everything in a top box area. We were taught that the floor-man gets directions from the director and tells everyone when to "stand by" "roll cameras" "action" and "cut." In addition, we were told some basic rules before we went to the experiment. One of them was that we should film each shot wide, then mid, and then closeup, to make the editing process easier and to get more interesting shots of the same thing rather than just, having one shot of what happened. In addition, we learned that we should not playback the shots while recording as it is distracting and might mess up the camera if we make a mistake.

 We then took turns doing each role.  I was the actor first and we took a few videos of me and another person lip-syncing to Harry Styles' "As it was" and dancing a little. Then, I played the person in charge of the playback. When the floor-man would say "playback" I would be the one to start the music and be in charge of when it stops. We would switch sets every once in a while to be able to test out every one of them. There was a green screen set, pink lighting set with a couch, and a tracking shot set. The point of this exercise was to play around with the equipment and see the rough feel of how it is to make a music video. Finally, we were recommended to research a song we like for our actual music video. This is because if we pick a song simply for the genre, we will not enjoy filming it on the day because it will be playing on loop for about 5 hours on our shoot day.