Day 4 Filming - Glenn

Half term was upon us and so we thought it would be best to try and get as much filming done as possible so as we had enough footage for when we came back to school. So, I messaged Glenn and asked when he was free hoping he would be able to help us out again. But it was unfortunate that due to it being half term, Glenn was down to work most days and was not available on the days the rest of the group were free. Frustrating yes, but it is something that cannot be helped when the model is not physically free! So, we agreed over the holidays that the best day to go and film so that we had enough footage for when we returned to school was 20th February, where we were all free to travel up to London and film.

Myself, Jay, and Adam went up early in the morning to try and do bits that we did not require Glenn for, such as more location shots and shots of crowded areas with people going about their every day life.

Trafalgar Square

Jay With Street Artist

One of the first locations we went to was Trafalgar Square. This is a well known area in London which is constantly busy with tourists, commuters and street entertainers. At this location, we simply took a few pan shots of the area that showed the busy life around the square. As well as this, we noticed some street artists that we thought we could take advantage of. Whilst filming, Jay walked up to the artist and placed money in front of him and we filmed the reaction (see above. The shot also made it into the final cut). We thought it was good to incorporate a number of street artists that we found on our travels as they show how different people have their own ways of earning money and it is interesting to see who and how many people approach them.

Westminster Bridge

Bagpipes Man

As well as Trafalgar Square, we did some pan shots off of Westiminster Bridge. The views off of this bridge show the likes of The Houses Of Parliament, The London Eye, and shots up and down the river. As well as locational shots, becuase the bridge is so busy, we utilised this and held the camera whilst walking across the bridge and had some decent shots of the public walking towards us. When walking across, we also came across another street artist/busker. The man can be found on the right hand side of the page and you can see that it made it in to our final cut. Again, we thought it would have been an effective shot just to walk past and have the camera look at him just as a normal member of the public woud walk by and look at what he is doing.

Southbank Busy

Me Filming

At the end of the bridge, we turned right on to Southbank to walk past the London Eye and try and see as many street artists as we could. At the top of the steps down to the bank, I stopped and put the camera on a wall and recorded the 'life' below. The area is constantly busy due to there being a McDonalds, arcade, aquarium, London Eye and a 'scary experience'. The picture on the left is the where I placed the camera (a little bit further forward so that the wall was not in shot). With a selection of zooms and mild pans we had a good variety of shots that could potentially be used in the video (the shot was used in the final cut and is also a contending shot that could be used for one of our ancillary tasks) After we had gotten the shots that we wanted without Glenn, it was time to go and meet him. By the time he got to us, it was about 1500, and Jay had to go to work, so he left us for the day and Adam and I carried on. On the right hand side is a picture of me filming at one of the location shots.

Rough Cut Dark Shot

Final Cut Lighter Shot

So, we met Glenn at London Bridge station, about 5 minutes after Jay left and proceeded to the tunnel that the group filmed in that made it in to the rough cut. We knew that we had to film every shot we had from the rough cut again as they were way too dark. We spent only half an hour or so here filming Glenn a number of times performing the song from different camera angles. The picture on the left was used in the rough cut and I even played with the colour becuase the darkness was so bad. The picture on the right hand side was shot for the final cut in the light. You can clearly see the difference in the shots. It shows how the time of day can influence the video, too dark can make it look dreary whereas being too light and bright may mean that you cannot see the shot properly.

Outside Mayor's Office

After we had finished in this location we decided to walk on to Southbank with Glenn and do some more performing/busking shots. This was something that our audience feedback asked us to do, more performing locations. From the last time that we went up to London, I knew that a good spot to do this would be outside the Mayor's office. Here is constantly busy with commuters and tourists, as well as having Tower Bridge in the background on one side, and London Bridge on the other. Here we managed to get a good few performances of Glenn with the public walking by looking which is an effect we wanted to create.