Filming the Performance....

For our performance, we chose our close friends; Jess (lead singer), Rory (bass) and Alex (lead guitar). We chose them because we knew that they would be willing to do it, they looked the part and the are very reliable. It was important for us that we chose people who were not only munitions who would be comfortable with instruments (and who could actually learn the song) but also people who enjoy rock so that they would already have a knowledge on how they should preform and would be enthusiastic with our project. We also knew that if we didn't think they looked right in the video, they would be very understanding.

We had a bit of trouble finding a drummer who fit the part. A friend had agreed to do it but we found out that he had too much work and couldn't do both. We had a back-up drummer but he didn't quite look like a rock drummer so we asked another friend and she told us she knew a drummer that was willing to help us. Ben was up for anything and he looked like he was part of the band. He was easy to work with and he was very focused. Although, we had to get him to come from another school and so our time was limited as other members of our band had to leave at a certain time.

Our first performance didn't go quite as planned. There was a lot of things we needed to change to make the set look better. Such as, adding red material to make the set look more Gothic and rock. We needed it to look less like a school play and more like an actual rock band performance. Also, I think that if we use the platforms in the drama studio and have a lot of different levels then we would be able to see each of the musicians and also I think it would look more professional.

Also, we think that if we had a light coming from behind the actors we would be able to see them against the black curtains because before we couldn't really see them as they were wearing black clothes against the black cloth. We were thinking that we could have the lights straight on rather than from the side as it highlighted the bass guitarist and made the lead guitarist look darker.

I think the positioning of the actors was off, too. The drummer was not visible as much as we wanted him to be. When the bassist moved it covered some of the drummers face and so I think that next time we need to rethink the positioning and check how it looks on the camera a lot more so that everybody is visible.

We also need to rethink our drummers costume as we had the problem of him ‘disappearing’ into the background.

However, we did get a variety of good camera angles and shots. We got a lot of close-ups of the Jess' face so that the audience could clearly see her pain and anger. We also got close-ups of each of the guitars and the neck of the lead guitar and an over the shoulder shot of the drums.










We got an art student to do the make-up for Jess which made her look like she was missing part of her skin which fit in well with our genre and our song. Also, it made the performance in our video memorable and it stands out against most other videos.

 

We chose a cold blue light and a warm yellow to contrast with each other in our performance. I think this worked well but next time we need to think about the positioning of our band considering lighting and other colours in the shot as sometimes people were in complete shadow or very over exposed. Even when considering this I still believe this lighting worked as the cold white light (mimicking moonlight) on our lead singers face is in keeping with the supernatural and creepy element of our video. The yellow light looks like sunlight showing how our singer had turned her back on her normal life and all that is pure in becoming a zombie. The two types of lighting works together to create the idea of the undead (being alive and dead, just as the lights show both day and night together). This is similar to our narrative as it explores the idea of good/bad, right/wrong, pure/contaminated and what it is that stops us from being mere animals (represented by the animistic zombies in our video).