Wednesday 2nd December - Shots including the opening 2 lines of the film are scheduled to be filmed using a buggy to film tracking shots... RIP the buggy that no longer rolls in a straight line. Plan B involves borrowing a trolley from my schools cafeteria, but the stability of this is also poor and the quality of the shots result in this shot being shelved for the time being. What is filmed however is the potential establishing shot at the start of the video and 1 shot of George singing.
On this evening work begins on a device for tracking shots and my dad cleverly manages to fashion something out of some copper piping, an old desk chair and an adjustable camera attachment, having hopefully listed my requirements they were quite brilliantly met, with a little help from yours truly...
Thursday 3rd December - Yet Another trip to London! This time not for filming but for a Music Video Conference at Rich-Mix Studios near to Liverpool Street Station. Unfortunately for several of us travelling together it wasn't as near as we were led to believe by a unique being... a taxi driver that turns down faires. Having got quite lost and had a very confused conversation with one of my Media teachers we finally latched onto a group of students who 'looked like they did media' and thankfully found our destination. Like most of our trips to London it was useful in parts, rainy and culminated in a visit to McDonalds where we heard 'What About Now' being played for the 2nd trip running. The conference itself was definately worth attending but at this stage in our projects only served to make us more nervous about the quality of what we'd already produced.
Friday 4th December - The final try. After several efforts with varying levels of misery or failure this was the final chance to film in London, more particularly on Westminster Bridge and Tower Bridge and then the train scene. Fortunately at the 3rd time of asking there was relative success and each scene was filmed. It was later decided that not all of the footage was usable, but leaving London for the final time i may have been cold and in need of some pain killers but I knew that was one major hurdle dealt with. The train scene and Westminster Bridge shots were particularly pleasing. Whilst the tracking device wasn't perfect on the hard and bumpy concrete it offered the best option for tracking shots available and some of the results were very good.
Monday 7th December - All of the footage filmed on Friday was captured and the useful stuff was cut away from the spare takes and unusable footage, for the first time there is a sizeable chunk of video footage, and i stayed after school to start positioning the different shots and editing the clips. There are continued problems with the Premier Pro Software but because of regular saving nothing is lost on this occasion.
Tuesday 8th December - The MySpace page is updated to include a blog feature as well as having an aesthetic layout. As well as this I created a Twitter account for my artist and a Facebook fan page in a bid to use viral marketing techniques as widely as possible and spread the Project Eric name on several fronts.
Wednesday 9th December - Another big day as the christmas break approached, this was to see all of the recording studio shots filmed with George and fill a large percentage of the gaps meant for performance shots. most of the day is used to plan, confirm that i could use the location, and borrow props and get various pieces of equipment to school. When school finished we spent 2 hours running through the various shots and filming from different experimental angles untill I was satisfied i had more than enough footage. The tracking device came in very handy on the flat ground and offered another shot type to fit amongst the still performance shots. As well as being a succesful and important day, George and I actually had a lot of fun filming and we were in good spirits as we called it a day.
Thursday 10th December - More work with George on the Thursday as we took pictures for the MySpace page and my blog advertising the album and a DVD documenting his rise to the top. I also attempted to capture everything from the Wednesday filming session, succeeding at the second attempt after a further crash by Premier Pro. This plus some updates to my blog led to another late night at school.
Friday 11th December - An editing day. Going over all of the shots filmed on the Wednesday and choosing which takes to use, before editing and lip-synching to the song.Monday 14th December - The start of the big week. The reality was all filming and the vast percentage of the editing had to be completed so that over christmas i could focus on the clerical work and prepare for the evaluation. A list of shots left to film was drawn up and a detailed and tight scheduled plan of action for filming was finialised with Hayley and George to film on the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The gaps in the video were then looked at and more editing took place with the hope that this would help ensure this week would be the end of the filming.
Tuesday 15th December - Snow comes to Brentwood! And whilst I'm filming outside of course... My adaptability to any situation *Wink Wink* *Nudge Nudge* led to a quick change of plan in a bid to use the weather conditions to my advantage. Tracking shots of George performing the song were filmed along with an establishing shot of the snowy conditions and one final performance shot in the snow. I then took cover in the Media room and captured and edited these latest shots.
Wednesday 16th December - Last day of filming with Hayley, The shots to be used on Tele in my voyeuristic shots were filmed, including Cooking, Mastermind and BBC Weather. The lesson involves more manipulation of existing footage and a pretty standard mild panic about the tight schedule.
Afterschool, Me and George filmed the TV shots of Hayley on screen, George changing the channel and sitting in an arm chair, as well as some extra footage. We also arranged the final shot of the frustration montage to be filmed at school the following day before filming the laptop and book shots rounding off the theme of seeing Hayley appearing everywhere.
Thursday 17th December - The last shot is filmed! Good Times! In celebration me and George took great pleasure in destroying one of my old tennis rackets. As it later turned out the shot filmed on this day was discarded, but with everything of the previous days filming captured and fitted into position this was still a landmark day. Boy did I sleep that night.
Friday 18th December - More Snow. BCHS was the only school open in Brentwood and it wasn't hard to see why... A small amount of editing was done but I was well and truly ready for a christmas break by this stage, like most of the school apparently as the vast majority of people took one look out the window and didn't fancy it... I also had a lovely christmas dinner with my friends in a totally irrelevent to media but lovely end to the year.
Friday 25th December - I recieved a Samsung Netbook for christmas and rather inexplicably celebrated this by doing a bit of log book and blog work... only a little bit mind. I was also given a Director's chair with my name on in recognition of my struggles with media, what d'ya know... my dad does possess a sense of humour after all!
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