Music video
Journey through a dream 30/03/2013
Production day 4
This was our last day of shooting our music video at the Cable Studios.
This time the shoot was postponed as we couldn’t access our equipment, because the owner of the flat, where it was stored, was away and we didn’t have the key.
Nevertheless, we got rolling as soon as the set was ready. Anna was there to assist me and that made my job much easier.
We shot the three mirror scene, and even though we rehearsed it in advance, the layout of the location and the mirrors themselves were different from the ones we had practiced with, so it again took a while to set up this shot properly.
I finished shooting as soon as we had done the famous climax scene of James breaking the mirror.
As Anna owns and knows how to use the fly cam, she continued filming James walking through corridors.
It has been a great time to spend filming at this dreamy location, finding creative solutions, capturing beautiful images.
Looking forward to seeing my work edited into the final music video.
Journey through a dream 23/03/2012
Shooting day 3
Initially we were supposed to start filming in the morning, but the day before the shoot was cancelled. The shoot was rescheduled again three hours before meeting on location. As we started filming just around 5 PM it got dark very soon, so we had to postpone the filming of the mirror breaking scene, as there were no electricity plugs and we had to film in the daylight. I also had to leave by 8 o’clock, so I let Anna Barsukova finish filming. She is another course-mate, who specialises in cinematography, so I trusted her handling my camera.
Journey through a dream 20/03/2013
Catching up on my forgotten blogging.
Day two of music video production was really well organised. We finished shooting about an hour ahead of the schedule, but nevertheless made lots of on-the-spot creative decisions, which in my opinion, will definitely enrich our final product.
This still image from the footage illustrates one of these creative decisions – we can see the shadow of the debt collector looking at James taking off his last shirt.
We also had to rearrange the blocking of the scene on-the-spot, as the layout of the location was different from the one where we shot our tests, which resembled the location Aurelija had imagined while writing the script.
Journey through a dream 19/03/2013
I have waited a long time for the shooting of this music video and finally here we are! Day one has just finished.
Was a great productive day.
Again, I’ve been to location just once so had to set up the lighting on the spot, that took a little while, would have managed everything on time if we had started earlier.
For this scene we wanted to create an evening atmosphere, which meant that we had to use all the available lighting to change the contrast between the inside and the outside of the room. Because of the nature of light there are some unnatural shadows, but this sequence being a dream can justify that. Colours will be also adjusted and corrected in postproduction.
A journey through the dream. Test shot 14/02/2013
Today we had a test shot for the camera movement in front of three large mirrors.
We met at 8 o’clock, but for me to get to the location by that time I had to leave home at 6:15.
So that’s how it went:
8:00 – arriving at location, rigging the tracks and dolly.
9:00 – finding instruction, re-rigging the tracks.
9:30 – breakfast
9:45 – testing close-up shots with camera movement
10:30 – after finding the movements that work, discovering that wide shot looks much better, trying to work out the movements in wide shot.
11:00 – break
11:10 – discovering, that shot works the best with static panning camera instead of tracking dolly, filming several variations of the shot.
11:20 – de-rigging, packing equipment.
11:40 – wrap.
This was our test shoot. Learned a lot about rigging, re- rigging and de- rigging the dolly tracks, making shooting plans. In the end, all the production team was happy that we discovered the technique after 3 hours on the test day and not after 3 hours on the set.
A journey through the dream 13/02/2013
Met with Aurelija.
Took the proper dolly and tripod for tomorrow’s test shot.
Looking forward to it.
A Journey Through a Dream. Music video. 19/01/2013
I’m writing this blog from the filming location. Aurelija, Anastasia and I met to try out the camera movement for the tricky part of the video, when in one long shot you could see the same person twice. We tried it several times, but we found out that it would not work with the tracks. It wouldn’t work with a steadicam either, as it would be almost impossible to stop at the certain point for several times. For this shot we would probably need a hydraulic dolly, which, unfortunatelly, we cannot afford.
Update:
During the rest of the shoot we worked out the sequence of shots to replace the tricky one.
I gave the footage to Aurelia and she is going to edit it.
A journey through a dream. Music video (17/12/12) 12:30
Today we had a meeting with the production crew of the music video “A journey through a dream” – director/producer Aurelija Diliute, 1 AD Anastasija Panfilova and I – the director of photography. We carried out some camera movement and editing tests. We also discussed the storyboard over lunch and came up with some interesting ideas that add some depth and more meaning to the story. Overall it was a really productive day.
A Journey through a dream. Music video (12/12/12)
Today I finally had an official meeting with Aurelija Diliute, the director of the music video “A journey through a dream”. We looked through the storyboard and floor plans, discussed the tricky shots and decided to meet next week to make some test shots. The location still has to be found, that is when I’ll be able to start drawing lighting plans and lens tests.
Art Kavali 