Filming our music video

We filmed our music video throughout a period of weeks. We started by filming outside Ally's house and down his street. We filmed him coming out of his door several times from different angles so we could later decide which shots to use that looked most effective. We filmed him walking down the street from behind him, so we couldn't see his face. We made this creative decision because it shows that he is moving on, but he is by himself. He kept his head low throughout this part, this is because even though we cannot see his face, we know that he is feeling down and alone. He ended up at a bus stop, this makes it clear that he is going to be travelling somewhere. After we finished and we looked through the footage, we noticed that some of the shots were too wide and we all decided it did not look right. So we later went back and filmed some of the shots again at a closer angle. We thought this would be a better idea because this would show the audience what he looks like so he is introduced to the viewers. We were able to refer back to our original storyboard because we already had these ideas set out before filming.

We then went to a park in Kidlington and filmed Ally with Shannon (the girl that he is in love with). We did this because we thought that we would play this footage behind Ally in the lecture theatre scenes which were later to be filmed, to emphasise the feeling of loneliness and the fact that he misses her now. We only had to spend one day filming this part because we went there knowing exactly what shots to use (long shots, two-shots) and exactly what they were going to do (be on the swings). We chose them to be on the swings because it reflects happiness and having fun, which indicates that they had a good relationship.

In the next part of our filming, we decided to film the lecture theatre scenes. We filmed after school on a few occasions. We had the projector with the filmed flashbacks uploaded onto the laptop we were using. We decided that the majority of shots we were going to use were going to be close-ups. This is because this way the viewers could capture his emotions. We used zoom on the digital camera to show that we can film many different ways. After looking at the footage, we decided we needed to go back and film some more because some of the shots were zoomed too close to his face and this did not look professional. This idea was also on our storyboard so we knew exactly what we were doing.

After the lecture theatre scenes, we started to film Ally's solo scenes to continue with the themes rejection and loneliness. We went to the park with the pond next to it. We went on an autumn day, we thought the colour of the leaves on the tree's portrayed a very romantic setting. We filmed him sat on a bench by himself, looking down on the floor. We filmed from both sides and from the front, so we had as much footage as possible to choose from. Throughout a number of days, we filmed him walking by the tree's alone, this makes it clear to the viewers that he is lonely. We used a tracking shot so we could see his facial expressions through out the shot. We filmed him walking by the pond from a high-angle shot, walking away from the camera. We thought we could use this as the last shot because by him walking away from the camera, it is a connotation for him walking away from the situation and moving on. We added this particular setting that wasn't on our storyboard at first. The reason for this is because we thought it was the perfect place to emphasise how he still loves the girl.

Once we had completed all of Ally's solo shots, we went back to the same locations and filmed him with Shannon. We were going to use this footage as flashbacks, this shows that he is thinking about happy times of when they were together. By using the same locations, this emphasises that it is her he is missing. We also added this that wasn't on our storyboard. We did this because our first plan did not create enough lonliness without Shannon.

Once we had completed all the filming of the scenes by the ponds, we thought our music video needed another element of rejection. So we decided to go back to the bus stop and film him ringing Shannon. We then introduced Shannon to the music video by using a high-angle shot of her sat in her house (realistic setting) receiving his phone call and rejecting it. We could see her rejecting the phone call through a close-up of just the phone. By using mobile phones in our music video, it does not only just create realism, but it also shows us using an inter-textual reference which is proven to be important in new music videos (Goodwin's Theory of Analysis).

Lastly, we needed to film an opening scene for our music video. We filmed Ally in his house (creates realism as this scene will follow him coming out of his house) playing a guitar. We chose to make him play a guitar because this is a genre convention of Alternative Rock so it does emphasise the genre of the song and music video. We used close-ups of the guitar to show we can get the visuals in perfect time with the audio track.