The Filming- Sofie

Filming at Jack's house was very cold but otherwise really successful. Things were slightly delayed due to Jordan's work commitments and I could only stay long enough to help dress the set. Although I really wanted to stay to film, which was my main intention, I couldn't.

 Me and Lily first put two strings of fairylights up in a tree in front of where we first thought would be an appropriate place to film, but soon after decided that the other side of the garden on the decking would be a better place to do it as we had more places to put lights. In my opinion, without the fairylights our footage wouldn't have looked half as good, as they created a unique atmosphere and fitted with our lovely 'tea party' theme of this particular scene.

 In a desperate bid to find any light we could, we came across this lampshade-less bulb on a stand that was really bright and came in really handy. We used an extention lead to plug it in and we balanced it in the tree beside where we moved over to to film

 As well as the fairylights that Jack's mum gave to us to use, Jack, Owain and myself searched for any others that we could find. In the garage we found these big colourful bulb ones, and we also looked in the attic but couldn't find anymore. Not all of the bulbs on the colourful ones worked but they looked really good once arranged on the trellis, which we can had to try and balance upright with concrete blocks as below was a little stream and we did not want our lights to fall in!

 Another light we had was placed on the opposite side to the light in the tree and we placed foil behind it to reflect all of the light towards the set. I'm not sure if this made a massive lot of difference but i'm sure it helped a bit.

 The set looked like this (with the garden wall lights on) and this was before Jack's dad wired a flood light up for us to use also.

 We had a choice of two tables- this small, round tiled one, or a rectangluar wooden one but we all decided that this one was more suitable for our mise en scene as it was older and more delicate looking, fitting in better with the tea party style. I provided the teapot, which is older than me- probably from (or almost from) the 80s and the floral pattern suits the old, vintage style of our video, and also the tea party look. I also brought three cupcakes to put on our tea party table to provide more of a realistic mise en scene. Jack also had biscuits etc to put out on the plates. We found a box of old crockery in Jack's garage which I picked out the cups we used from. These were some of the only two identical ones that weren't broken and I do like how none of the crockery matches, even though at a tea party you typically have a tea set that matches. This, on a small level, reminds us of the slight juxtaposition that crops up in our video.

To create more light and more atmosphere, we retrieved every candle we could find and lit them and put them on the table. Again, they were a mismatch of shapes and sizes which I think looks quirky. I think that the set looked really cosy and imaginative, which created a great juxtaposition and irony when 'Hewitson River' throws his tantrum in the footage, as it is a negative situation in such a nice enviroment where the mise en scene does not match the mood of the protagonist.

I love the footage that the guys got and I think that Jordan, Jack and Lily's acting was top notch! I really think that the narrative gives our video more substance and connects with the audience more. I feel as if it relates more to a typical music video now because of this, and also because usually in a music video you have a few different scenes and locations and not just the same over again. The only problem that we have now, is how we make the transition from night to day (this footage to our previous footage). I think that we are going to over-come this by rotoscoping the change of night to day, as it is virtually impossible for us to capture on film. We will do this by sketching Jordan walking, and the moon setting and the sun rising, or something along these lines.

Over-all, really successful and we are all feeling more positive about where our video is going as a result of this filming.