15th November Shoot

On this shoot day we filmed the 80s and 70s scenes.

We started with 80s. For this set up, the only props needed were a bench and a book:

80s set up (+ Jacob and Juliette performing)

The 80s set up was based on this scene from The Breakfast Club

These props were needed for the choreography: Jacob walks/dances across the bench to Juliette, then throws the book she is reading out of her hands, and then they shuffle across in front of it (like in the gif from The Breakfast Club above). 

Here are some photos from this set up:

Jacob and Juliette performing

Chrystal, Brandon and I acted as directors and camera operators

This is the footage after editing:

We decided that we needed to re-shoot the 80s scene because:

- the wide shot when Jacob walks across the bench is too long - we need to shoot a mid shot of this as well

- when Jacob walks across the bench he doesn't address the audience for too long - he should direct his performance to the audience at some point during this part

- Jacob isn't always lip syncing clearly enough during the wide shots

On this shoot day we also shot 70s. This meant setting up the disco ball and the disco floor that we made:

Setting up for 70s

The challenge here was getting the disco ball to hang at the right height. Jacob is quite tall so if it was too low down, his head would knock against it during performance, but if it was too high up, it would be cut off from the shot. Eventually we positioned it so the entire disco ball was visible, but at the very top of the shot so there wasn't any space above it.

Shooting the 70s - the disco ball is just in frame

Another challenge was the choreography, because Juliette and Jacob's timing needed to be very exact and in time with each other. For example:

- CU of the characters holding hands - they do this on a specific beat and their hands needed to be exactly in the centre between them, which we hadn't realised when rehearsing/choreographing

- the characters turn to look at each other, then look down at their holding hands on an exact beat - both of them doing this at exactly the same time proved to be difficult

Eventually we did manage to get it right - it just took a little longer than we had expected. Even so, once they had mastered this choreography, we could get the rest done relatively quickly and we didn't overrun. 

Because the disco floor was made out of paper, Juliette's heeled shoes ripped it, but it was okay because it wasn't noticeably damaged until the end. This just meant we had to fix it before the next shoot day with the 70s set, when we film the dance sequences. 

Here are more photos from the 70s set:

Jacob and Juliette

Chrystal, Brandon and I framing/filming

The 70s footage turned out to quite successfully but we realised afterwards that we didn't have a close-up of Jacob's face from this era. We decided we didn't need to re-shoot the entire era but we would later shoot a close-up of Jacob to use when he turns to look at Juliette.

Looking over the footage I was a little disappointed about the quality of the set, because the disco floor didn't look much like a disco floor - it was too small so the set looked empty, and it wasn't shiny like real disco floors. We considered laminating the floor to make it look shiny but decided against this because the lights would reflect off it so you wouldn't be able to see the colours properly. 

I decided the set wasn't actually as bad as it originally seemed, when considering that our video is designed to look intentionally home-made to give it an authentic and innocent feel, fitting with our indie pop genre. Also, with the performance, the other sets and the song itself to distract the audience, they won't be paying too close attention to the disco floor anyway.