Lighting Plans

Workbook

We have potentially secured a location for the stairwell in a multi-story car park in Guildford. We have been granted permission by the owner, however, in order to film with replica automatic weapons we have to get the local police's permission:

The Contact Centre
Surrey Police
Mount Brown
Sandy Lane
Guildford
GU1 3HS

October 15th 2009

Dear Sir or Madam

FILMING ON WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 11TH IN GUILDFORD

Hurtwood House is a 6th Form College, based at Holmbury St Mary. As part of our Media Studies A Level course, a group of students act as a film production company to produce a pop video.

One group would like to film a short narrative in a stairwell at ………………………………… Car Park, and have the permission of the owners to do so on the date above between 2 and 6pm.

I write to advise of this, and just confirm it is acceptable with you. The details are:

LOCATION:
TIME OF FILMING:
PERSONNEL INVOLVED: 3 teachers, 3 students as film crew, 5 students acting as a Swat Team, dressed in the appropriate outfit, carrying replica automatic weapons.
VEHICLES: We will arrive and depart in one of our school’s mini buses.

I hope this is ok. If there were any problems or points, would you let me know. My mobile is 0776 468 1531.

Yours sincerely

LUKE GILCHRIST

STUDIO DESIGNS

ROOFTOP:








APARTMENT:

POP VIDEO CLIP – KANE GANG

In the music video for ‘Closest thing to Heaven’ by the Kane gang they use a number of composition rules including rule of thirds, shapes and lines, and leading the eye.
Through the performance parts of the video, the lead singer is always positioned to the left of the screen therefore, according to the rule of thirds, making him seem ‘good’. When the other band members are on screen they create a dynamic triangle, one of the strongest images you can use in a pop video.
In one sequence, the lines of the shot are significant. There is a path running down the centre of the screen which opens out at the end; this connotes moving on to better things. Also the person running down the path is moving along the y axis from top to bottom connoting easy decent and carefree attitude.
Finally, at various instances, the video leads our eye - sometimes unintentionally. In one shot, as the main character in running down a pavement on the left of the screen, a car drives past from left to right, immediately leading our eye to the right of the screen. This is almost definitely unintentional as is serves no real purpose and momentarily distracts us from the narrative.

COMPOSITION RULES

There are over 100 composition rules for film making. Each one of these can help portray your hypothesis, your meaning and enhance what you are trying to say through your film. The 10 most important rules are:

1. Different type of shot size
2. Camera position and angle
3. Camera movements
4. Lighting
5. Rule of thirds
6. Leading the eye
7. Colours
8. Shapes and lines
9. Detail arrangement in the frame
10. Editing styles

The main rules I will be using in my pop video are: rule of thirds, colours, leading the eye and camera position and angle.
Rule of thirds is all about where the audience looks to first on the screen subconsciously. It can be used to create negative or positive images of people. If a person is positioned predominantly at the top left corner of the screen they will be seen as good and the audience will begin to make positive inferences. Similarly, if a character is placed predominantly in the bottom right corner the audience will begin to make negative assumptions (I found this out from ‘Cinematic Storytelling’ by Jennifer Van Sijll).

To utilise this technique, in our pop video, every time the swat team are positioned in the frame or are moving into the frame they are on the right side so they are seen as the ‘bad guys’.
Colours, in terms of wardrobe, can be effectively used to portray personal characteristics or personality. We will be dressing the band in black and purple which connotes power, control and truthfulness which are exactly what the song and band image is all about.
Leading the eye is when something on the screen prompts you to look in a certain place or expect something in the next shot; for example if there is a shot of a field and a man gallops past on a horse, a logical following shot would be a close up of the man on the horse. We use this technique in the shot of the bass guitar fret while it is being played, this then cuts to the body of the bass guitar with the bassists other hand playing. The final main rule we will use is camera position and angle. The audience’s impression of a character can be completely altered by the angle from which they are shot. If they are shot from a slightly low angle they appear confident, but if the angle becomes too low they can come off as arrogant or intimidating.





If someone is filmed from a high angle they come across as weak and inferior.

In our pop video we will shoot the swat team from a low angle so the audience is intimidated by them and begins to feel a sense of hostility towards them. Contrary to this, the band will be shot at normal level, no high or low angles, this makes them seem more humble and equal to the audience so they can relate more.

WHAT I HAVE DONE IN MY GROUP:

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT – for research and development, each member of our production team created a band and established their image. We then chose two songs each that our band could perform and wrote up a music video treatment for each. We each pitched our individual ideas and one was chosen by the whole group. One of my ideas was greenlit, and we immediately got to work on pre-production.

PRE-PRODUCTION – this stage of production is extremely important if we want the shoot to run smoothly. This stage involves all the logistics of arranging everything in detail; writing up a timeline; drawing storyboards; camera testing the cast; and establishing locations.

So far we have successfully completed our timeline:

Our storyboards:

And camera tests. For this we just got the band to stand together with their instruments and filmed a wide shot. After this we did close ups of each of the band members’ faces to ascertain whether they looked good on camera or not:

We are currently considering locations and have a couple of stills of possibilities for the stairwell: