The workshop day was so much fun that it was hard to believe that it was a compulsory part of our A-level coursework! Even though the day was long, I didn't get particularly tired because we had plenty of breaks and all the dancing got our energy and adrenaline constantly pumping. I particularly enjoyed the freestyle dance scenes, because we all got to just stand there and completely let loose, dancing like crazy, and the more energy you put in, the better the footage looked! This was the kind of thing I was looking forward to, as although I'm not really into acting, I have been dancing for years and I love it so it was great that everyone got to specialise in the areas they felt most confident in, as well as trying out new things, as I tend to shy away from being on-camera for most media projects.
2. What did you learn from participating in the workshop?
I learnt what it was like on a real music video shoot and how long the hours are. I also got the chance to work with professionals like Jake who are great at their job. We were told that it was important to shoot the entire song from one set-up, even though that's not what we did during the workshop as we were re-creating a video rather than creating our own, so we knew actually what footage we wanted. I also learnt the importance as having to constantly be on standby in case you are needed for your scenes or if you are needed to fill in for anyone, like when the band needed a break. Although the day was scheduled to end at 6pm, we were prepared to be there for another 2 hours in case everything didn't go exactly to plan, which of course it didn't, and usually doesn't in a real shoot either.
It was exciting to work with really expensive professional equipment too, especially the track which I'd never seen in real life before, and the camera the video was shot on was amazing and made everything look so nicely shot even before editing. I also learnt how much lighting is used on a typical indoor shoot (a lot!) and how hot actors and performers must get in front of them. We were also lucky enough to be able to watch the live footage from the camera on a monitor, so we could see straight away what the shots looked like when we weren't on camera ourselves.
I am so pleased with the footage; we were all looking forward to seeing it over the weekend after the shoot, and on Monday morning when we finally got to view it it looked just as good as we'd hoped. The camera makes such a difference, as even if we'd shot the exact same footage on a standard video camera it wouldn't have looked anywhere near as good. It was also very funny to watch ourselves dancing and getting really into character!
Our group decided not to edit the footage into an exact replica of the original 5ive video, as otherwise there would be multiple versions of the same thing amongst the classes. Instead, we made our own version that differs slightly but still uses the same choppy editing, jump cuts and slow-motion dancing. This gave us some creative scope and the video a fresh look.
4. How do you think your workshop experiences will impact on your approach to next term's music video coursework?
As I mentioned, a valuable lesson to learn was to always shoot too much footage rather than too little, because storyboards always change, so shoot the whole video from every set-up whenever possible. Apart from that, it was good to see who the best performers are, as the 5ive members especially did a great job, which is useful to know as it may impact our casting decisions next term.
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