(P4) Create production materials with reference to planning

In this post I will show and explain how we have created some final and some draft shots for our audio-visual promo. This report will show how we crafted and prepared for the shots, and there will be screenshots which compare how it turned out, and whether we are happy with it.

Lighting - 

Our lighting used was very simple, as we did not have any professional equipment to use on standby. We instead used my lamp in my bedroom that is on my desk. This light has a bright white LED, which means that we could achieve perfect key lighting of the guitar, as the light was harsh but was not too bright. This also means that we have varying exposure levels throughout the video that we will have to change. This lighting also worked perfectly as it means that we had a contrast between the guitar and the background, which is exactly what we had planned to do. This is used purposely to make the guitar stand out and make sure that it is the only focusing point of the video. This also captured the style of the video as we planned it

Filming - 

We filmed our shots with my Nikon D5100 DSLR, which was on a tripod with a 105mm lens. This means we could get close ups of the guitar whilst maintaining focus and great quality, especially being in a low harsh light environment. These shots used varying focal lengths to create an aesthetic which fits the theme of the guitar advertisement.

We used a DSLR camera to film so we could maintain the utmost quality and versatility. These cameras are smaller than other options such as camcorders, as they are smaller and therefore more manoeuvrable. This means that we could get shots that we could not necessarily get on other cameras, as they were not as versatile. the camera also had a mounting point for a shotgun mic, meaning we could also capture good quality audio straight from the camera if we needed the natural audio from the guitar.

Shot Setups - 

This specific shot is of the guitar neck, facing towards the end of it. This shot is used quite frequently throughout our promo as it shows off the physical appearance of the guitar. This shot was fairly easy to film, as all we needed to use was the tripod to keep the camera steady. This shot also shows my phone filming the guitar. We attempted to film a slow motion shot here and it did not work as planned. This will be removed from the final drafts as it did not work.

We used the tripods rather than handheld recording as it provided some stability for us whilst recording, as we used the zoom and focal changes. The tripods means that the camera will not shift when we change any of these settings. This means that our footage will be as smooth and steady as possible, and our footage in turn will look much more professional, which turned out perfectly, as all of our shots looked incredibly smooth and steady. This was used especially in some of our close up shots, as movement is much more noticeable with shots with more zoom.

StoryBoard Shots - 

Throughout our filming session, we maintained the shots in our storyboard that we had planned before the shoot. This means that we did not waste any time thinking of shots we may need as we knew exactly what we needed from the storyboard, and could pull this off with our plan. This also meant that as we didn't waste any time trying to find shots we could try and create some different shots to use, so we now have compiled a few more shots that we could experiment this in the final edit. Some of these shots have worked very well.

Here I will also provide some evidence of shots compared to the shots illustrated in the storyboard, and show how they link directly to the storyboard examples.

This is the location recce we created for the pre-production materials blog on our promo. This came in useful as it is the precise location that we ended up shooting the video promotion. This means that the information presented here was used within our location and we could use the supplies and things that I already had at my house. This also means that we could perform the suitable shots that we needed with the space that we had.