I have made numerous changes to the music video in post production to make it look more polished.The list of changes can be found below:
1890:
Added colour correction (adjusted "Combat" filter) to make the scene stand out and feel more cinematic.
Added cinematic bars during the narrative part which slide out as the music begins.
Added looped industrial sound effects during the narrative part as well as footstep sounds when 'Cop' is walking.
1930:
Added colour correction (adjusted "Sepia" filter) to make the scene stand out and feel more cinematic.
Changed gunshot sound effect to something more powerful.
1950:
Added colour correction (increased saturation of midtones and reduced exposure of midtones) to make the scene stand out and appear more vibrant.
1970:
No changes made as the default colour suits this section.
Green Screen:
Replaced some dance moves with better/higher quality versions.
Present Day:
Changed font to something more associated with technology and the modern day.
Added UK Emergency Services Police siren in the background (modified with "Spaceship" audio effect to distort and "Large Room" audio effect to echo, making the sound appear distant)
Below is the full updated version:
1890s begins at 0:00
1930s begins at 1:30
1950s begins at 1:53
1970s begins at 2:26
Dance begins at 3:44
Walk begins at 4:06
Present Day begins at 4:15
After reshooting the 70s intro, we headed to Ryan's house to reshoot some of the green screen dances. Unfortunately, we were unable to replicate the lighting conditions from the existing shots, meaning the footage appeared broken and unusable. The version below contains the updated 70s section as well as some of the new green screen footage. I also shortened the length of the cigarette close-up in the Victorian section:
1890s begins at 0:00 1930s begins at 1:30 1950s begins at 1:53 1970s begins at 2:26 Dance begins at 3:44 Walk begins at 4:06 Present Day begins at 4:15
As the intro to the 70s section contained too many long shots where nothing happened we decided to reshoot it. This took a while as it was too sunny, so the lighting didn't match the rest of the shots we had already filmed. We did however notice the clouds moving in, so we waited until they covered the sun and adjusted the ligting, then we filmed the planned shots. The updated shots contian a series of close-ups on the main character and make the scene feel much more lively, despite the character performing the same actions.
While reshooting the 1930s section, I searched Amazon for a green screen. This is the green screen I bought.However, as I did not buy a support/stand for the green screen we had to tape it to a wall.
We originally planned to reshoot the beginning of the 1970s section in the morning, as some shots are too long, but due to poor weather we decided to spend the entire day filming the green screen scenes indoors. We met up at Oliver's house, but quickly realised there was not enough space to set up the camera in front of the green screen. Fortunately Ryan has a large house with plenty of space.
We arrived at Ryan's house and attempted to set up the green screen in his front room. This unfortunately didn't work out, due to the family photos that are bolted to the wall. Despite this, we were able to set up the green screen in a different room after moving the furniture out of the way.
We kept the camera rolling and allowed Ryan to dance on the green screen freely for the dance sequence. While Ryan was getting changed into each outfit between filming, we reviewed the footage on the camera so we knew which shots were the best. I then edited them in Final Cut using the keying tool to remove the green background.
We also filmed a walk section where Ryan would walk from one end of the green screen to the other in each outfit. I then cropped each shot in Final Cut and placed black bars to separate them, creating the effect below:
Below is the first version that includes the green screen and the modern day section:
1890s begins at 0:00
1930s begins at 1:32
1950s begins at 1:55
1970s begins at 2:28
Dance begins at 3:46
Walk begins at 4:08
Present Day begins at 4:17
We reshot a good chunk of the 1970s section because the lip syncing looked really bad. A number of the shots have remained the same because they worked, but many have been reshot. This didn't take too long as we already had all of the shots we wanted planned out, but we still had the issue of people living in the area who wanted to know what we were filming. We also took extra care to make sure Ryan's coat was unzipped during filming so that we didn't have to redo everything again.
This version includes the updated 70s section.
1890s begins at 0:00
1930s begins at 1:27
1950s begins at 1:50
1970s begins at 2:22
After filming the Victorian section, we walked towards Albert Dock to prepare for the modern day section. We scouted the area and lined up the shot, then waited until dark so we could film in front of the wheel with the lights in the background. We had no issues during the filming of this section, we didn't even need to worry about other people getting in the way because this section is set in the present day, meaning people in modern clothing actually enhanced the scene making it more realistic.
We met at Moorfields train station at 9:00am, then made our way to Saltney Street to film the Victorian section of the music video. As this is the start of the video, we needed a narrative section before the music begins. This didn't take too long as we didn't need to worry about lip syncing. However, the rest of this section took a very long time as we needed to keep stopping due to cars coming up and down the road, and it was difficult to get the lip syncing right because Ryan also needed to focus on spinning the cane.
When we began filming the musical part we realised we couldn't use the entire wall due to graffiti and electrical posts that made it clear that it was the modern day. We resolved this issue by using the same part of the wall over and over again and cutting to a different shot whenever we reached the end.
This is the latest edited version including the updated 30s section as well as the Victorian section.
1890s begins at 0:00
1930s begins at 1:27
1950s begins at 1:50
1970s begins at 2:22
Due to the many lighting and lip syncing issues, we decided to completely re-do the 30s section.
We did this on the 20th December. This day was originally planned for Liverpool filming, but due to the poor weather we decided to refilm the 30s section as it is indoors.
This wasn't as difficult as it seems because we were indoors so we didn't have to fight the cold (or other people). We also decided to seize this opportunity to make some adjustments to Ryan's costume. The most noticeable change is the introduction of glasses. This makes his character resemble Ronnie Kray, a famous English gangster during the 1950s and 60s.
We managed to fix all of the lighting issues as well as the lip syncing issues and improved the overall look of the character.
We met up in Port Sunlight early and started filming at around 9:00am. Filming went fairly smoothly. There were no technical issues (eg. lighting, camera angles, etc) whatsoever, we required few takes, and the lip syncing looked good.
The only issues we encountered were in the form of a loud ATM machine, which was quite annoying, and a scary biker gang which drove us away from our original filming location. However, this gang of bikers may have actually helped us, as the new location we found, just left of our original location, was easier to film in. There were few cars to worry about and the sound of the ATM was distant.
Below is the new version of the music video including the 1950s section.
I made a minor change to the current version of the music video. I have changed the date text to cover the whole screen rather than appearing at the bottom, as I thought it was too small and I wanted to make sure nobody missed the change in time periods.
We met up in Moreton at 8:00 am on 10th December to begin the first day of filming. After meeting up we walked to the first filming location - Sedgefield Road - to start work on the 1970 section of the video.
We encountered a few issues while filming. The first was the amount of people who came out to see what we were doing. A few people asked if we were making a YouTube video, and one man (while I was filming from on top of a wall) asked if we were filming ourselves "jumping off walls".
Another major issue that set us back quite a bit, was one of continuity. While discussing shot types, Ryan zipped up the jacket, which is unzipped in previous shots. We did not notice this for about an hour, meaning we had to back-track and refilm a number of shots.
Furthermore, Ryan was struggling to unlock his inner man. His camp nature did not fit the character we were creating which meant a number of shots needed multiple takes.
When we eventually completed the '70s section, after about 3 hours of filming, we walked to Oliver's house to film the 1930's section.
While Ryan was adjusting his hair to suit the 30s Mob Boss character, the rest of us set up the camera on top of the tripod and dolly.
We had some lighting issues while filming this part of the music video. Ryan was appearing red on the camera and we realised this was due to the red wallpaper in the room we were filming in. We addressed this issue by closing the curtains to block out the sunlight, and pointing a lamp with a white light at Ryan. I also added a Sepia visual effect in Final Cut, creating the image above.
This is the first edited version of the music video. I have included a bit of extra footage after the 1930s section to show how the gunshot transition will look.
