Steel wool

As a keen photographer myself i felt that we needed something different and out of the ordinary as an album cover, id wanted to do some steel wool photography for a long time but never really had the chance so i thought that this could be the right time to do it.

When researching on how to do it, it seemed simple enough. Its the same as light painting and long exposure shots, the shutter needs to be kept open for around 10 seconds for it to work with the widest aperture and a film speed of 200iso to 400iso depending how light or dark the area the photo is being taken is.

The way in which the orb is created is done by putting a clump of steel wool in a whisk and attaching string to the whisk and you hold the other end of the string, this is all

When taking the photo i decided to drag Matt along with me to help out with the photos, the teqnique is very simple and the outcome is excellent but with two people it makes it 100x easier.

Here are some of the photos from the night.

Performance Lighting

For the performance we have all decided that we are going to try the same approach that Huse Monfaradi took when filming the music video to the Arctic Monkeys video 'Brianstrom'.
In the video the whole band is silhouetted from a source of light behind the band facing the camera creating dark shadows on the band when filming, this gives a slightly illusive look to the band and makes its more interesting as i personally haven't seen it been done in a music video elsewhere.

To try and re-create this effect we chose to use flood light that I happen to have a home, these are very powerful construction lights for building with halogen bulbs that give off a yellow type light which is perfect for what we wanted.

The lights are going to be placed directly behind the band at head height to try and re create this effect , the lights should hopefully be big and bright enough to do this and have a good outcome.
I also have a bright cathode light which gives off a bright white colour that is perfect for close up shots of the band as its a neutral colour and will give a nice gradient on the actors faces when filming close ups.
When looking at any cinematography having a neutral light in dark settings is the best way to light an actors face,

Animatic Me and Danny

Copyright Letter

To make sure that we were not infringing any copyright laws by using the song 'Young Blood' we emailed the manager of the band to ask permission to use the song for our A2 Media music video, in which it would be featured. Below is a copy of this email that i sent them on the behalf of our group.

First shots

Equipment

Here are a list of the items that we shall be regularly using during the production of our music video, all of which are displayed in an animated .GIF

This is one of the three cameras that we will be using, its a Nikon D5100 that shoots full frame video as well as it serving the purpose of being an SLR camera. The camera is equipped with a standard 18 to 55mm lens that is perfect for the amateur production that we are under going. It takes standard SD memory cards which allow us to use the ones that we already have so that we can shoot more on one setting.








This is the Go Pro Hero 2 that we will be using to shoot the action shots for the music video, it also takes SD memory cards which makes it a whole lot easier as we will be using one memory card type. The camera is a fully waterproof, shock proof and drop proof action camera that can handle pretty much anything, making it suitable for any slightly more dangerous shots we are going to do,
the camera is also equipped with a standard fisheye lens that gives the video a nicer look as well as it being full 1080p HD at 25fps.

This MacBook pro is one of a few we will be using to do the post production of the video, all of which are installed witch Final Cut Pro 10 and all the Adobe CS5/CS6 software.
As well as having the desktop iMacs for use at school we have these to take out on location with us so that we can instantly upload any footage we have to see if it needs sorting on location or not.

 

One of the key pieces of software that we will be using is Final Cut Pro X, Its the most up to date editing software from Apple themselves.

It has a simplistic design and is simple and easy to use, this should be easy enough for the whole group to use and to be competent with, the software is also installed on the MacBook Pros that we will we taking on location so we can even edit the video on site.

SteadiCam
Previously when i wanted to get into videography i had the idea of making a home made Steadicam, but unfortunately i never went through with the idea, now that were making music videos i thought that a Steadicam will be a great thing to add and help us out with the look of our videos and clips.
The homemade steadicam is made from 3/4 PVC pipe and some other connections, i also used a bearing and a double jointed multi rotational fixing to create the gimbal to give the desired effect from the Steadicam.

Tripod
The tripods we are using are very basic and are nothing special, they are both height adjustable up to 1.6 meters and have rotational panorama heads and portrait shooting tilt on.

Canon 550D
Another Camera that we have is the Canon 550D, its of a slightly higher spec than the schools camera that is given to us so it is of some use to us. This camera has a higher frame rate of filming and is 18.8 megapixels.

Lenses

On the Nikon that is given to us, it has a standard 18 to 55mm focal length, this is good for shooting the basic stuff that we need to, i also personally have an 18 to 55mm lens for the Canon, along with a 75 to 300mm zoom lens and an 8mm full frame fisheye, which will look different and give a really good effect to the shots, it will also work well with Steadicam as it needs a wide angled lens to make the movements softer.