Grunge Shoot

FRIDAY 15th NOVEMBER 07:00-11:00

Set:

Black background curtain, and black drum kit on the left.

Lighting:

Tight spotlights on each individual band member, keeping them brightly lit, but the surrounding space dark.

Set up 1: In a triangle formation, with Emily in the forefront on vocals, singing with a microphone, Alicia to her right, on drums, and Olivia her left, playing the electric guitar.

As this set up was very plain and minimal, with a simple black background, and spotlights, our acting was key. A larger than life and over the top style was needed, as we knew already that any actions needed to be exaggerated, to look good on camera. For Alicia this meant large and over-exaggerated movement with her visible limbs (arms), and heavy head swaying to the rhythm, however we decided that during quieter parts of the song, she should resume a blank facial expression, with less movement, to strike a contrast with the chaotic sequence of the chorus. Olivia on the electric guitar had to jump around and slide on the floor repeatedly, as well as moving her head up and down continuously 'head banging'. Her performance was so energetic, that she ended up with whiplash, and had to lie down for the remainder of the day, from this we learnt about safety hazards in previously un-thoughtabout areas, and would work to prevent this in future. Finally, I stood at the front, singing into a microphone both on and off a stand, and I was much more free to act and move around, as I had no instrument to hinder me. My facial expressions were very exaggerated, and aggressive, as I screamed the lyrics dramatically into the camera, and threw my head about and stamped during the chorus.

POSITIVES:

Lighting works very well with the genre styling, although was a compromise from original plans.
Over the top acting was good, with a great variety of usable shots obtained, with a lot of movement within them.
Tight spotlights kept the rest of the set dark and mysterious, which looked very effective, and typical of the moody genre we were trying to emulate.
Lots of shots, with a variety of shot types, and a variety in on camera action.

PROBLEM:

On the morning of our shoot we realised our original lighting plan was not going to work. After much stress caused, we calmed down and worked out an effective solution. During our tech prep, we had experimented with using projections, and realised that the projector in the studio was set up too high to project fully onto the back wall, so decided to use a different projector, which was not attached to the ceiling and would be brought in and operated from the front of the lighting desk. Irresponsibly, we failed to check the alternative projector prior to our shoot, as we had made assumptions, and moved onto planning other aspects of our week, as we had three shoots all very close in time to each other. In hindsight, this was a bad move, and not one we plan to repeat, as we discovered that this new projector was not powerful enough, as would be situated further back, and hence could not cast a strong enough projection, leaving our set up too dark. We worked around this issue by drawing on the grungey, punk rock style music videos we had watched previously during our research, and creating a new set, of a completely plain black background, with spotlights on each individual performer. This set up did look incredibly effective, as it allowed a far greater focus on acting, meaning we had to perform far more energetically than we had previously planned for, but obviously this was not a problem for us.

Incidentally, the change has appeared to have benefited us, although the last minute stress was unnecessary and definitely should have been avoided. In viewing our footage, and editing it together alongside footage from our other shoots, we have seen that a simpler set up is far more effective in distinguishing the different genre set ups, and looks better in contrast with the look of the rest of the footage. We have learnt from our mistakes and aim to avoid repeating them in the future.

NEGATIVES:

Olivia getting hurt
Having to adapt our original plans on the day due to a lack of testing with the specific projector
Occasionally performers move out of the light, but as we have so many shots, this isn't really a major issue.
Some obstruction of Alicia and Olivia by Emily being in the foreground, and moving around in front of the camera, but again, not a major issue.

Set up 2- Emily sitting/crounching on the floor, singing to the camera, which was also situated low on the floor, creating a low-angle. These shots were very effective, as made our performance seem much bigger, and having the lead singer on the floor created a difference in levels, which was very effective, especially when incorporated into the over the top, very energetic and aggressive performance style.