Filming diary (1)

filming the glass over-flowing

We achieved this shot by filling an empty wine bottle with raspberry juice and mixing it with some red food colouring in order to achieve a more intense red, to give the look of real red wine. We then proceeded to film the footage of us pouring the wine into the glass until it overflowed. Again we have put in a link to alcohol in our music video, the fact that the wine overflows connotes that that he is drinking excessively. We found that the footage worked well because after editing the image, At the time we believed that the contrast of the red against the white background, along with the light Gaussian blur effect which was placed over the image worked well in that it created a nice visual aspect to the video linked well with the footage from the second video.

filming the glass over-flowing (2)

After watching the footage over again, especially in our first draft, we noticed that the paper we placed behind the wine glass stood out even with editing, giving a unprofessional looking image. We decided to re-film this footage but in different settings (outside) which we felt would be much easier to control both whilst filming because the background didn’t need to be covered up with any equipment and whilst editing as it didn’t need to be covered up with heavy editing. We changed the colour of the glass to blue because not only does it work well whilst filming outside, it also matched better with the blue/orange colours that are prominent throughout our entire video. 

filming the teddy bear scene 

We came up with the idea of a teddy bear scene which would match with the lyrics which say ‘now I done grew up round some people living their lives in bottles, granddaddy had a golden flask’; we felt that a teddy bear would best represent childhood and a comforting tool for children in distress. We felt that its presence in the video could suggest to the audience that during his childhood he grew up with a lot of alcohol influence around him, which is the reason he is now turning to alcohol as a comforting tool in his depressive state. We decided to film the teddy bear in three different ways zooming in and out of the ‘B’ positioned on the bear’s stomach, making the audience question what it is until they actually see the bear. We then decided to use a flashing light so that we could use lighting as a tool to create a dangerous feel to this scene. At first we were going to have the bear appear quite quickly in the video, instead I slowed the speed down when editing, as the flashing lights were quite off-putting when watching the clip 

filming the bath scene

Originally we decided to only film a bath scene with the male character, as we progressed with our planning we decided that even though we wanted the chorus and bridge to be repetitive, to keep having images of him in a bath scene would be a bit too monotonous. We then decided that having both a male and female character bath scene, would be better for the audience visually and would also help to link the two together as they would be performing the same actions  e.g. grabbing the edge of the bath to show panic and fear. A bath scene seemed relevant because in the lyrics of the song there are several references to water with words such as "dive in" being used constantly, the song itself is called swimming pools. 

bath scene - female character

This footage which shows mystery female character going under water and coming up rapidly, confirm that she is terrified about something which carries on from the running scene at the beginning of the video. This raises questions again of what she is terrified of. We controlled lighting by placing a torch outside the bathroom door then shining it through a thin gap which was created by closing the door to the point where it was almost shut. We wanted to create a certain extent of darkness as we have used dark, gloomy tones all through our video in order to highlight the dark message of alcoholism, depression and possibly death. The footage of the female character grabbing the side of the bath was controlled specifically because we really wanted to capture her desperation. The footage was shot with the camera angle where it was placed on the side of the bath, zoomed in to the position where her fingers would appear. Lastly the footage showing the female character running her fingers over her hair is something which we noticed was a common feature in videos to highlight the fact that the artist was distressed, we felt that this would work well with our video because we were also trying to portray distress.

filming - male character 

We filmed the same angles and shots but this time using the male character, to illustrate the fact they link together, she is the reason why he is distressed and he is the reason why she is distressed. We felt that incorporating the two footages into our video would further create mystery as to who this mystery for the audience as they are kept questioning, what is this link and what happened between the two of them to cause this distress. We decided to make the footage of the male character lighter in comparison to the footage of the female character, to ensure that the audience understood that the male character was alive and living in the present day, whilst on the other hand with the female character, there is questions as to whether she is dead or alive.

filming text message 

Shooting this scene was quite difficult at the start because of the fact that it was difficult getting the camera to focus, the camera kept on going fuzzy because of the transition from dark to light when the phone lit up whilst receiving the messages. We needed to get good enough picture quality so that the messages could actually be seen by the audience, but at the same time we needed the footage to begin dark to give continuity to our music video. We eventually figured out that we needed to reduce the brightness setting on the phone in order to make the camera focus; once we did this the footage began to look much clearer.

The text messages were significant that his family are aware of his problems and are concerned about his wellbeing (shown by the fact his mother texts him saying ‘I’m worried...call me’). However the fact that that his mothers text message is the replaced with his friend texting him to bring alcohol out to a party, indicates to the audience that he will choose the alcohol over getting help from family members because to him the alcohol is more important.