When making such a film, research & planning is of course such a necessary & engaging task however its not the same creative buzz as we recieved when we actualy begun formulating that material and transforming it into the product of all that hard work.
When our sketches became a performance (the blueprints of our overall piece), our excitement and interest reached new levels (though the two stages are practically equal in energy)!
We started chronologically, with our opening shots in modern day London. We managed to shoot x5 different snippets of a day in our first location (Dukes Avenue in New Malden - typical London suburbs), and then another scene set in 'Costa Coffee' on New Malden High street (after previously securing the permission of the owners of course). We attempted to capture a diverse range of shots using a variety of possible camera movements & angles & levels, in order to reduce the possibility of later stress or hassling re-shoots. Knowing that if we can manage to spread out the shooting dates and fully commit to the meticulous detail then our final piece would be progressed with energy not motivational loss. We were aware of the difficulties of our projects, the multiple locations, costumes & characters and wanted to be able to film everything with accuracy, style and equal enthusiasm.
We got shots of :
our protagonist & her boyfriend (the lead singer in our staged band) in bed in the morning, making brownies / taking them out the oven, cuddled up eating cake together, curled up on the sofa watching a movie under a blanket,getting ready for a night out - costume choosing & makeup, going for a "romantic stroll" down the street together & finally walking off to go for a night out in their finery. We aimed to use the idea of film within a film - or photo within in a film, to creating moving images (framed as pictures) of a montaged relationship condensed into the first x19 second of 'If You Wanna' (By 'The Vaccines').
After securing the internal shots we went to Costa coffee & worked on a variety of shots of the couple ending their relationship after tribulation over their future & identities (juxtaposing the cheesy montage sequence before & amplifying the drama whilst highlighting the start of the lyrics & leaving the audience filled with enigma for the rest of the song).
Costume choices : Pyjamas & dressing gowns, smart evening dress & tucks, contemporary jeans & hooded jumper / coat, jacket & jeans with trainers. In relation to wardrobe decisions it came down to so much more than throwing anything on from our cupboard's to represent the modern day. A key part of our entire concept was to express exaggerated stereotypical, noticeable outfits that would clearly convey to our audience a generalisation of the specific era. We thus chose an ensemble which would be visually appealing and in complete contrast with our time traveled to by gone eras.
Lighting choices : We didn't manipulate the lighting in our first shoot as much as we will need to for many of the others, of core concept was of a natural, authentic, serious yet playful relationship, thus we aimed only to use sunlight (which created a beautifully dappled effect highlighting our actors features and creating a romantic ambiance for their morning lie in scene) as well as a few additional bright tap controlled lamps.
Mis En Scene: For each small sequence we also tried to include many signifying items which would allow the audience to easily contextualise & recognise the location and make sense of the couple relationship through this string of shots (though evidently at other points in the video we will employ confusion or ambiguity aiming to provoke re-play and entertainment for our audience, at this point we wanted to open them up to the pretences of the narrative thread).
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