Aesthetic Exploration

 MOOD AND STYLE OF THE MUSIC VIDEO

Trial shoots and our learnings.

 What did we as a team learn from the trial shoots that were taken?

When conducting the trial shoots, we were able to extract key takeaways that have helped us in our task of completing this shoot with better precision, accuracy and also being able to get a qualitative final footage that would be used in our blogs.

From our previous AS level media studies syllabus, we were taught about different types of shots, and we learnt that using close up shots, for example, when the letter burning shot was shown, it was shot using a close up shot and that close up shot allowed us to emphasize on creating an impactful and stronger visual for the audience.

While holding the cameras we also had encountered a difficulty of not being able to get still and focused shots on the character in scene. So the way we had to overcome this difficulty, was very simple. We simply used breathing techniques, such as taking deep and long breaths and holding it to make sure that the camera did not move as much as it was happening when we were not breathing properly while holding the camera

Roadblocks for shooting

 Problems we faced while shooting

When filming in the gym, even though we were using professional equipment, we had still faced a lot of difficulties when the shots were being taken despite the advantage of having good footage with high quality. 

Thought the quality of the footage may have come out to be appealing to my partner and I we had still faced a lot of issues. For example, we had a disadvantage of limited space in the first gym, which did not give us much room for the character to perform the movements that were intended to be performed. If we had better space, we would have gotten a wider range of shots with better angles that could have been put into the final cut of the music video. 

In the second gym, it was shot in a gym that was spacious, however, the gym was old, being 15 years old or more. Due to the circumstances of the gyms old age, we were not provided with good enough lighting to allow us to define muscles on the character. This would affect the consistency that we could have achieved with the lighting. However, though the situation was partially in our favor, we were still able to capture shots that were honestly very staggering. 

Another issue we faced while filming in the gym was that we had a lot of background disturbances in the 2nd gym location, this was because it was a public gym and we could not stop people from entering. The reason as to why the first gym was empty was because it was private and it allowed us to focus on the character without any disturbances in the background 

Boxing Trial Shoot #2

 Boxing Trial Shoot #2

This was the second opportunity that I had received to shoot for Boxing, as it was mentioned in the previous blog, the shots were not very appealing to me, however, this time I had made sure that I had worn fitted and more compact clothing to make myself look sharper on camera, and so my figure could get a good proportions in terms of my costume. 

 This is a shot of me rolling my hand wraps, it is a shot of my preparation.

This is a shot that was taken on the camera of hitting the punching bag. 

Boxing Trial Shoot #1

 BOXING SHOOT #1

I have been boxing for the last 8 years of my life, and I had 2 opportunities' which was taken by me to film myself punch the boxing bag and test out cameras and the angels taken. Overall the shoot was very fun to do and I had a lot of fun throwing my punches with a lot of force so it could look appealing in the camera when it was being shown. I had noticed that during this shoot my muscle was not being defined properly which is one reason I was not confident with the outcome from the snippets of the shoot that was given to me. 

A trial shot my warmup to prepare for the final shot 

 

This is a shot of my final shot on the punching bag

Role Allocation

 Role Allocation 

Here are our cast and the roles allocated to them

This is Mustafa Gaffar, he is a student at the school we study in. He plays the role of the teenager, we thought he would suit the teenager, because of his physique and his over facial aesthetics.

This is Anshpreet Singh Sahni, He plays the role of the father who catches the son eating in the car. We thought that he would be the perfect actor to play the father due to his mature look. 

Behind The Scenes

 

Behind The Scenes

Here are some behind the scene pictures that were clicked while shooting for our music video.  

This is a picture of Me, filming a scene where the car is being parked

This is a picture of my partner and I handling the camera to film the car scene where the teenager is caught eating his junk food by his father. 

Lakshya and I filming another scene of the car parking 

Day 1 of shooting the gym scene where the teenager is shot doing different movements

Day 2 of shooting the gym scene, this is another shot of him sitting on the bench, and where we are taking a close up shot of his face. 

Technical Trials

 Here are a few pictures of us testing out the waters, with aspects related to the shot, how the shot looks and how the sound is heard on the mic. 

Regarding the technical trials, as per our experience, the technical trials were done on the final shoot itself, this was because we were extremely confident and we trusted the equipment that we had utilized for the shoot of the music video, and to match our expectations, the technical trials had gone smoothly as advanced cameras, and mics were used to capture moments that will be included in the final music video 

Location Scouting

This explores the 3 gyms we had scouted for. This Blog shows 3 exhibits and shows the space, lighting and overall vibe of the gym that we are looking for in the music video.

Exhibit A 

Exhibit A is the most likely and competent gym of all variants, this is because, despite it being less on the size of the gym, it provides us the correct form of lighting which would make it more convenient to define muscles, and since it is a relatively newer gym, it also gives us a more variety of equipment to get better shots and newer movements  

 

Exhibit B

Exhibit B shows a combination of good space in terms of the size of the gym, it provides us with ample amount of equipment to get various shots in, however, the only aspect that the gym lacks is the aspect of a dark theme and the availability of good lighting to help us define muscles and get good shots 

Exhibit C

Exhibit C shows a good combination of colors that could set the vibe of a very gothic, dark themed video, however this gym lacked the advancement of equipment which means that it would have been a little difficult task for us to get multiple shots of movements and exercises for the character to execute. 

Regarding make up.

Collectively deciding on whether we should use make up or not has been challenging, because we were confused and a little worried about the characters final look on the screen, however after the trial shoot we shot, we were satisfied with the characters final look. 

To also add on, we also did not decide to utilize make up due to the fact that we wanted our characters to maintain their natural skin tone, to symbolize rawness and could also have potentially helped us deliver that gruff and unfiltered look onto both our characters 

Character Auditions

To find out the best suitable actor to play our character, we had taken the pictures of different people, along with their profile. We looked at their overall sharpness, hair type and their physique to make sure that it is suitable to play the role. 

Exhibit A:

Body Type: Bulky; almost like a powerlifter (strength athlete)

Facial Hair: Thick bushy facial hair

Hair Type: Straight hair, although due to personal reasons, it would be covered if this is the actor that is selected. 

Background: No athletic background.

Exhibit B

Body Type: Non-athletic physique, lacks muscle definition

Facial Hair: No facial hair, no stubble as well to give the gruff look

Hair Type: Straight Hair

Background: No athletic background

Exhibit C

Body type: A little on the bulky side, however is still lean to give an atheltic look

Facial Hair: stubble visible. to give the gruff look

Hair type: wavy bushy hair 

Background: volleyball player.

Exhibit D: 

Body type: The sweet spot between lean and bulky, has clear muscle definition 

Facial Hair: has shown signs of stubble although its very light, could possibly give a gruff look. 

Hair type: Thick curly hair 

Background: Bodybuilder, has worked as a model.