Shooting Diary (Heidi and I shoot)

Myself and Heidi shoot

Today, I captured footage of Heidi and me in the studio. I thought it would be nice as the two of us star in the music video to have footage of us together lip syncing and dancing. This time, I did not bother with the big, photographic light as I will be colouring this footage anyway and I found that the light did not make any significant different, therefore for this shoot I just used the normal studio lighting.

Heidi wore similar clothing to what she had worn in the last shoot; I wore my red harem pants, a red suit jacket with padded shoulders and a trilby. I filmed footage of both of us performing Bobby Brown/New Jack Swing inspired moves, I also got a shot of me in the foreground lip syncing and Heidi in the background dancing. We then swapped position.

This formation of us two was inspired by Rick Astley’s Together Forever music video. The idea is so simple yet very effective.

Shooting Diary (heidi shoot)

Heidi Shoot

I returned back to the studio to capture some footage of Heidi doing some cheesy 80s dancing and some lip syncing as well. I managed to get hold of one of big photographic lights and place it upon Heidi. This gave a subtle warm glow upon her, which I liked.

I wanted Heidi’s costume to be simple, yet appropriate to the genre of the music video. This is because Heidi is a very good dancer and too much of a complex costume may distract an audience from the movement she performs. I looked at various pictures of 80s fashion, which influenced Heidi’s costume. She wore some black leggings, stripy, colourful socks, a bright red top (all typical of Madonna to wear), big sunglasses (typical of Rick Astley) and a trilby (typical of Michael Jackson). The trilby is also more of a tribute to the New Jack Swing era, as a lot of New Jack Swing artists of the late 80s wore trilbies.

In this shoot, I did not use a tripod, so I had to be careful that I did not jerk the camera too much and when I wanted a moving camera shot, I tried with care and not make it look really amateur. This was quite a challenge and most of the time the camera wobbled far too much. Therefore, I myself had to act as the tripod and I attempted to keep the camera as static as possible. These shots were not too bad; however it will be a challenge sifting through all this footage in Premier Pro and trying to pick the right shots to use in my music video.

However, my model Heidi was brilliant; she turned up on time, was filled with energy and enthusiasm and had learnt the lyrics. I am pleased have chosen someone reliable to star in my music video.

Editing Diary (guitar shots)

Editing the guitar footage

I have edited some of the guitar footage with the threshold effect, however to add a bit of variety, I wanted to add a different visual effect that still was colourful and appropriate to the 80s theme. I was hoping to create something similar to a neon glow effect as after looking at some images of 80s fashion, artwork etc and also talking to people who were youths in the 80s and appreciated the trends of the time (people who are part of my target audience), I discovered that neon colours were very iconic of the 80s era.

80s Ghostbuster music video

Elements of the 80s fashion

 After doing some experimentation with the various video effects on Premier Pro, I found setting the solarise effect to 100 (video effects panel > stylize > solarise) made a very vibrant and glowing appearance, and I thought this was perfect for my 80s theme. I then had to add the colour replace effect once again, otherwise the solarise effect was just a plain looking dark blue.

(Top) Solarise and colour replace effect. (Bottom) Threshold and colour replace effect

Shooting Diary (guitar shots)

Guitar Shoot

Today I captured some footage of me playing the guitar. This shoot originally was not planned, however I felt there definitely needed to be another instrument, as well as the drums, as the song ‘Summer Love’ is very rhythmical and a collaboration of different electric instruments. I captured the footage in the photography studio, which is a small room with white walls. I did this because I did not want to have a distracting environment as I want a lot of my audience’s attention to be on the array of colours I am creating in my music video, rather than the detail in my shots.

In this shoot, I captured a basic long, mid and close up shot of myself playing the guitar and the studio light was a good source of light, which did not make the shot too grainy. This was a successful shoot and I hope it is just as successful when I come to edit this footage.

mid shot, close up shot and long shot

My costume was inspired by the female New Jack Swing group TLC (backwards beret) and MC Hammer (red harem pants).

Shooting Diary (silhouette shoot)

Silhouette Shoot and editing the footage

Inspired by a number of Michael Jackson music videos and the iconic iTunes adverts, I have recorded some silhouette work.

To achieve this effect, I used a shadow screen from the drama department and placed an over-head projector a few metres behind it. Heidi (a talented dramatist and dancer) placed herself between the screen and projector. She placed herself as close as she could to the screen which created this beautiful and detailed silhouette of her. However although the silhouette looked really good, the colourless screen looked really washed out compared to the rest of the colourful footage on Premier Pro....

Heidi dancing in silhouette

On YouTube I found a specially made music video for Michael Jackson’s unreleased song, Cheater, and at the very beginning of the video, there is some really nice colour, silhouette work and inspired by this I want to create something similar.

I used the ‘colour replace’ effect on this footage and set it to 100 which gave this beautiful appearance. I then did the same to other pieces of this footage and put them all together like so…

I am really pleased with this, as it looks both visually powerful and entertaining.

I also captured some of Heidi’s profile in silhouette, whilst she did a bit of lip syncing. This was great, particularly because Heidi’s energy and enthusiasm really fits in with the 80s style. As you can see I also used the colour replace effect on these pieces of footage as well. 

Editing Diary (drumming shots)

Editing the drumming footage and creative decisions

I was having second thoughts when editing my drumming footage. Though I did take extra care considering the mise-en-scene in my lounge, when looking at the footage properly in Premier Pro, I realised that the lounge setting was not exactly working. The reason why I shot the footage in my lounge was to give it an amateur feel, as I was trying to make something which my audience could relate to. From the various music videos I have looked at, I just liked the idea of having people lip syncing and ‘rocking out’ in domestic environments as I am quite certain that any audience member will watch the video and then reminisce about a time they too ‘rocked out’ or had a dance in their lounge or kitchen.

However, it simply was not working for the genre of my music video. I realised that if I really wanted to coin the 80s style, I needed to insert bold and vibrant colours in my footage to give it an artificial appearance and move away from anything too realistic. Both my magazine cover and album digipack are full of vibrant colours; therefore it is vital that I keep my music video within this theme as well.

The threshold effect I used with my images for my digipack (partly inspired by Andy Warhol’s Pop Art) worked really well, so I thought inserting a similar effect for my footage would be good and appropriate. So after experimenting with the various video effects on Premier Pro, I finally achieved the effect, this is how I did it….

I went to 'Video Effects,' then stylize

There were a number of different effects I could choose from but 'Threshold' was the one I wanted. When I set the theshold effect upon the video clip, this is the look I got...

In the 'Effects Control' panel, I set the theshold meter to about '100' which did not lose too much detail of the footage.

I then went to the 'Video Effects' panel once again, but this time I chose 'Image Control' and chose the 'Colour Replace' effect. In the 'Effects control' panel this brought up a colour grid, so I could choose the colour I wanted to make the clip. I then set the colour replace meter to 100, which gave a full blast of colour onto the video clip. I repeated this procedure to other pieces of footage as well...

I think the effect really worked and makes the mise-en-scene appear a much more artificial world. It certainly works better than the footage’s natural colours and also detracts attention away from the domestic setting.

The threshold ‘Pop Art’ effect was inspired a lot by Madonna’s 80s album, Celebration. On it, is her face coloured in with the threshold effect. Its artificial appearance is very typical of the 80s. I was also influenced by The Autumn Society’s (group of illustrators and artists) recent exhibition, ‘80s Pop Art Show. The group set up an exhibition of work reminiscent of 80s cartoons, films, games etc. The work was stunning and elements of the threshold effect were certainly used.



Madonna's Album Celebration



Autumn Society's 80s Pop Art Exhibition

Andy Warhol’s Pop Art has been another great inspiration to me as well, particularly for my album digipack. His work is very much in the style of the threshold effect and I love how most pf his pieces includes repetition of an image, but each one in different vibrant colours. This kind of style influenced my digipack a great deal.

As well as using the threshold and colour effect with my drumming shots, I hope to use the same effects for various other pieces of footage, yet I have used the threshold effect in some still JPEG images…

I am really pleased with discovering the threshold effect on Premier Pro and I am looking forward to the completion of my music video and seeing all this colourful footage together.

Shooting Diary (drumming shots)

Drumming Shoot

Today I did my first shoot for my music video. I set up my electric drum kit in my lounge and played ‘Summer Love’ on the nearby speakers so I could play the drums to the right pace. I got a variety of shots from placing the camera at different angles…

I also made sure that, in order to maintain a plausible Verisimilitude, the mise-en scene did not show anything too obviously modern. I made sure that everything in the camera frame was believable to be in the 80s. I also considered what I was going to wear. I knew that padded shoulders (from images of Abba, Guy, Bobby Brown) and backwards berets (from images of TLC  and MC Hammer) were particularly popular in 80s/New Jack Swing fashion, so I raided my wardrobe and found an appropriate black suit jacket with reasonable big shoulders and also a chequered patterned beret. I thought these would be perfect to wear as part of my outfit for the drumming shots.

The reason why I shot the footage in my lounge was to give it an amateur feel, as I was trying to make something which my audience could relate to. This idea was inspired by various music videos from both the 80s and more recent times. There are shots in them with the protagonists either playing instruments, lip syncing or dancing in domestic environments, something which I am sure everybody has done in their life. In particular, I am sure the people who are part of my target audience (who are now aged between 30 – 50) will have had parties, dancing or band bashes in their lounge to 80s music. 



Freddie Mercury lip syncing and dancing in a domestic setting in Queen's I Want to Break Free video (1984)

People air banding to Feeder's Just A Day in Feeder's Just A Day music video (2001)


P Diddy lip syncing and dancing in a garage setting (though not exactly clear from the screenshot) in P Diddy's muisc video Bad Boy For Life (2001)

However, there were moments when I had trouble with the lighting. During the filming of the moving camera shots, there was a flare of light from the lounge’s window which affected the vision of the shot. When it comes to editing this particular footage, I will either try to tone down the lighting or just cut out these bits of footage all together.

Next time I film, I will take extra caution about where I am placing the camera, so there is no flare of light from windows etc.

Overall, I am really pleased with how this shoot went today. I have managed to capture a variety of footage, so I will have lots to edit and experiment with in Premiere Pro. I think the biggest challenge will be is trying to get the drumming in sync with the song, however as you can see from my preliminary exercise I have already had experience with this.