Our locations

Choosing the right locations is vital when producing a music video as they need to match the narrative in order for the track to flow. As a group we spent a lot of time deciding where we would film our shots, compared to our AS portfolio where we filmed the majority in one location; we want to film at a variety of locations to make the video more interesting. We decided that we wanted to film where their would be no other people in the background, as we wanted our artist to be the focus of the video. We also took into consideration that the location had to be accessible to us, and also easy to travel to in order to get enough filming done. After numerous ideas, we decided that we would film at the Dockside in Chatham. This location had lots of different features such as; a river, boats, different structures and lots of space. Our location is easy to travel to which meant that we could use some of our lessons to film, therefore meaning we could start to edit sooner. We also took the weather into consideration as the main theme of our video is 'happiness' and 'fun'. We wanted the weather to be sunny and bright in order to conceive this idea. Therefore we checked the weather forecast before every filming session to make sure that the weather was suitable.


Location 1

We used this location in a few different shots, as the layout of the building gave us a range of different opportunities to film at different sides and angles. Its a very neutral location which meant that when we applied filters and other editing techniques, the location would still look good. This particular location also had a lot of space which meant that we could film from different distances, whilst still having the building in the shot. We filmed our artist weaving in and out of the beams, this idea meant that when it came to editing, we could cut the shot, then show it again with our artist on another beam. This highlights our editing skills as it required us to be technical on Final Cut Express. The brick walls inspired our idea for our Digi pack, we decided that the simple background of a brick wall on a CD cover would allow us to edit it and add different aspects in order to make it look individual and professional. Its a very open space which meant that all the sunlight came through, this helped when editing as we didn't want any of our shots to be dark or hard to see. We also used the boulders that were on the ground for our artist to jump off, we put a slow motion affect on this when editing which made it look more creative and professional. The location was very clean and there was no graffiti/vandalism on the walls, this made the overall presentation of our video look more appealing to the audience.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Location 2

We used this particular location as a backdrop for a lot of our shots, this is because the boats and tall buildings really make it stand out. Like the other location, this place was very clean and there was no litter or vandalism, this adds to the professionalism of the video. We filmed our artist in a number of ways in this location, we took numerous shots of him looking out over the water, a birds eye shot of him looking down and of him walking from different spots. We were able to do this as the location offered us a lot of space, we learnt that this was important as in our AS portfolio we filmed the majority of production a small alleyway, which made filming different shots and angles difficult. Again, we made sure that the weather was nice when filming at this location as we wanted our video to look bright and cheery. We made sure that there was no people in the background of our shots as this would deter the audiences focus from our artist. When we edited the shots from this location we had to alter the lighting slightly due to the clouds making the shots look darker. However, this didn't pose as an issue as once we had changed the lighting, the shots fitted in well with the rest of the video.

Amongst these locations, we filmed in a variety of other locations in order for our video to look more interesting and appealing to our target audience. Like the original 'Happy' music video, we chose to create multiple narratives so therefore had to use a range of locations. However, we always made sure that the locations we chose had lots of space so that we could conduct a number of different shots and angles with ease. This was needed as a lot of our shots involved dancers, therefore their moves could be more advanced if they had the space. The majority of our locations are also outdoors, this is because we wanted to take advantage of the nice weather as this makes our video look much brighter and interesting to the audience. Also filming indoors can pose as a problem due to it being hard to find a space that is not used by other people or filled with objects that wouldn't be needed in the video.

These are some of the other locations we filmed in, the first was an open spaced field which gave us plenty of room for the dancer. Like our other locations, we wanted this one to be quite simple, so that the main focus is on the dancer and our artist. The screen shot underneath shows one of our dancers in front of a green screen, with the background of a gratified area. We decided to film with this as a background as it fits in well with our target audience and makes it look interesting and appealing. This green screen background gave us inspiration for our Digi Pack CD inlay, as we decided to use graffiti.