Prelim Edit

Audition video

1. Personal Achievement

For our A2 prelim task, we are remaking the music video 'Girls' by The 1975.

What do you personally want to get out of the whole A2 prelim experience?

From this prelim I would personally like to gain more confidence in performing, especially in front of a camera. I would also love to gain the experience of working with a large cast and crew. This music video remake is the largest project I have worked on to date, and it will be exciting to work alongside people who are currently working in different sections of the industry.

Is it a challenge for you or within your comfort zone?

Performing in a task like this is out of my normal comfort zone and so it will prove a challenge; however, after the performance session we all had, I was more comfortable with it and got used to it a bit more.

Have you achieved/learnt anything so far?

So far I have learnt the basic differences between shooting a music video and shooting a film opening, and the way in which the shoot is organised and prepared for. I have also learnt the basics to lip synching by doing our audition videos and our 4 hour performance session with out performance coach.

2. My Role

Describe your role, how you feel about it

My main role in the video is as one of the three photography girls, whilst she is not playing in the band. I am happy with this role as it is quite a fun part ,without having the pressure of being one of the band girls and doing the lipsynching. 

I also have some small miscellaneous parts, like holding the cigarettes in my mouth and the pink milk pouring from my mouth.

What does the performance actually consist of?

I have to pose and dance around a little bit with a guitar, and generally look like I'm having fun on the set, without having to do any lip synching or serious playing.

Is this a challenge for you, or something within your comfort zone?

It's not a particularly challenging role, however it might be a bit daunting performing in front of the cast and crew as I'm doing my part on my own, and not with a whole band of girls. But I think the performance session improved my confidence levels and hopefully will help on the day of the shoot.

3. My Costume

Describe or list the specific costume/look you are aiming for:

My costume brief for this shoot is basically to dress all in black, with either a black dress, or a black top and skirt perhaps. I will also need a black leather jacket to wear on top, and black high heels as well.

Do you have the items you need or are you planning to beg/borrow? is there anything that may need to be bought?

I have lots of black clothes but I'm not sure if I have any that will suit the style of the shoot, and I don't currently have a black leather jacket but I should hopefully be able to borrow one for the shoot. I have a pair of heels that should be okay as well so I won't need to buy those.

In one of the miscellaneous shots, one of the models holds different coloured sobrani cigarettes in her mouth, which was added to the prop list and will be bought in time for the shoot.

1) Evaluation: Did you enjoy the workshop day? What were your best bits and why?

I really enjoyed the workshop day, even though it was such a long and tiring day, the attitudes of all the cast and crew helped to create a vibrant and positive atmosphere to work in. It was a really interesting experience to work alongside ex-students from Latymer who are now professionals in the industry, such as Dom our director, in a professional environment that we created in our studio. It was exciting to see how different departments and roles come together on set; like the make-up department, the runners, the camera work and the lighting.

Dom - our director, in discussion with our camera op on set.

One of my favorite parts of being on set was getting to watch the cast perform on the big screen which was set up to allow everyone to see what was being seen through the camera lens. Watching everyone perform on the screen was also useful because it meant that the smaller details in the scene could be seen more clearly, allowing changes to be made to make everything as precise as possible. It was good for the rest of the cast to be able to watch each other perform and cheer eachother on while they were performing.

It was cool to see how the make-up and hair department works, and it was really fun to have my make-up done by a professional. I didn't realise how much attention to detail is paid by the make-up artists to replicate the make-up of the girls in the real video, onto the cast in our remake.

Alice getting her hair and make-up done before her role on set as a photography scene girl.

2) Evaluation: What have you learnt from participating in each of the prelim tasks?

Task 1 - The Audition Video

The first part of our task was to record our own audition video, edit it and upload it onto youtube. At first I was really aprehensive but this was a really helpful process as it helped me to relax in front of the camera and gain a little bit of confidence which came useful on the real shoot day.

This task also taught me how to lipsync which was a good skill to learn, which may be useful for our music videos next year. However, my part in this music video didn't require a lipsyncing part. It also taught us how to edit a video so it was in sync with the music.

The gif above shows a clip of the male lead character, who had lots of scenes that involved lip-syncing in the music-video and how we synced it up during editing to match the original video.


Task 2 - Learn and practice your performance

All of the cast and some of the crew members took part in a performance session, led by a performance coach, which helped us to relax with each other, and get into our roles well. It gave me a boost of confidence which I definitely needed for the shoot.

Task 3 - Help to plan and organise your costume

A lot of the costumes that the girls wear in the video were viewed as inappropriate for us to wear, so we made adjustments but kept the colour scheme and the themes the same, especially for the girls in the band and in the photography scene, like my own character.

                                             


Everyone chipped in, and we begged, borrowed and stole from each other to put together outfits that were close matches to those in the real video.

Task 4 - The shoot

The shoot day was an entirely new experience for me, and was unlike any filming I had done beforehand.There was a much larger cast and crew than I had filmed with on projects before this so it was interesting to see how everyone came together to create the final product.

                         

The shoot day was a really useful way for practising our time keeping skills. I learnt which ways worked best for organising a shoot and keeping to a relatively strict schedule. This is something I find difficult generally, so this task was especially useful as it gave me some experience for when it comes to organising our own music video next year.