PLANNING PRIOR TO THE FILMING
We have scheduled shooting three times in three different locations for the filming process. Among all my media class, Annie and I were among the earliest groups to shoot. Prior to all of our decisions regarding the location we already planned what props we would need. The things we had sorted out before our first shooting are our shortlist, storyboard, prop list, and the Location & Risk Assessment forms. We ordered all our props from online shopping platforms called Taobao and PinDuoDuo. We also rented a live snake.
Shotlist -----> Annie and I worked together to finish the shortlist, this also included some alternative shots. (Please refer to BLOG# 6 as wix storage is full for the same file to be posted)
Storyboard ----> This was also shared work and I was in charge of doing 23 shots/frames. I used my iPad and Apple Pen to draw all my scenes. I am not very good at drawing and it was really challenging for me to do the storyboard.
EXPAND TO SEE STORYBOARD
Prop List
We ordered all our props from online shopping platforms called Taobao and PinDuoDuo. We also rented a live snake.
We paid around 250RMB/hour to rent it. Our music video is a concept video, therefore, we made sure that we have all props that are heavy on symbolism. For example, the snake we used symbolizes rebirth, healing, and wisdom. We bought a temporary tattoo and "tattooed" it on our protagonist to also strengthen the importance of this symbol. I had to apply the temporary tattoo 3 days prior to the filming for it to fully develop. We also purchased a real taxidermied butterfly to replicate the shot from the poster of "Silence of the Lambs". We glued a toothpick behind the body of the butterfly to be able to put it in my mouth without my mouth really touching the butterfly.
The butterfly is also a heavy symbol in our music video. It symbolizes the change and transformation of our protagonist.
CASTING!
Myryl Caccam & Lorcán Byrne
FIRST SHOOTING
Location & Risk Assessment Forms: I did all forms since Annie was in charge of initial editing. Each location has two files; a Risk Assessment Form and the Location Scouting Checklist (in PDF).
LOCATION 1 - Set Studio at Jin Li Office Building Date - October 3, 2022 👇 👇 Location 1 Scouting Checklist 👇 👇
👇 👇Risk Assessment👇 👇
For the first location we did some research and we found a studio located in Changping Beijing. It's a location we found back in September 2022, there were nine different options for the set available. We have decided to rent a studio as we have planned that we're gonna do all indoor shooting. This was a creative choice that was made so we could control lighting and not depend on the natural light which would be difficult to edit in post-production. The rent rate was 180 RMB/Hour. We booked the place from 10 AM - 2 PM. Overall expenses for the set and snake rent were 910RMB.
The picture on the left is a screenshot of the studio posted online. It looked really nice and well-maintained. However, when we arrived at the place, the building was old and dilapidated. The elevator was scary to ride and it was all dirty and dusty. Furthermore, all the toilets in the building didn't have any doors so Annie and I didn't use the toilet for almost 5 hours!
Around 9 AM of the shoot day, we met with Lorcán Byrne who agreed to be part of our music video. I scouted him to play the male character of our MV. The three of us met at Harrow Beijing's gates and booked a car to go to the shoot location. Upon our arrival, we met the owner of the Mexican Kingsnake that we rented at the location of the shoot. This is the first time that I handled a snake, although not venomous, I was still really nervous!
Another thing about our filming process is that we had a lot of Covid restriction policies that we had to follow. For this, we had to make sure that we have a negative nucleic acid test taken at least 2 days prior to the shoot day. Due to the implemented policies of the Chinese Government, we had to be very careful of our locations and this is a reason we opted for an all-indoor shooting because it might be possible that we get called out by police if we take off our facemasks publicly.
Before we started filming, I first got changed into a plain long black dress and this was the same costume I wore for all filming that happened. For lighting, we brought in several lights that we borrowed from the media department, this was a cool-warm LED light and an RGB Light Stick. Annie and I also brought in our personal equipment like LED lights and a sunset lamp. Our plan was to shoot with the snake for about 1 hour but this proved to be very difficult because sometimes the snake won't move for shots we want it to do a little "hiss". It was also difficult to shoot scenes wherein the snake and I were facing each other because the snake kept on moving! We ended up filming with the snake for a little over 2 hours. Apart from the difficulty of shooting with a live animal, it was also so stressful that in times when the snake was hissing and was still, our Nikon Camera (D5300 Model) kept on losing its focus and the overall quality of the shot is grainy. Even with all these difficulties, Annie and I were able to get some footage of the snake. For the that I was holding a butterfly, we rented a smoke machine in the studio for 50RMB/Hour. This was a horrible idea... we're not sure whether it's the fog liquid or the machine itself but every time we fire the machine it released a very terrible smell along with the fog. Unfortunately for me who's playing the artist of the MV, I inhaled a lot of the unpleasant fog from that machine for about 30 minutes.
Some shots that we also did were scenes with Lorcan, our male protagonist. His face wasn't really included in most of our scenes. This was a conscious choice as our goal was to build an enigma and to also make sure that our MV is centered on the female protagonist. This was done as the way we want our mv to be presented is a realization and transformation of the female protagonist into independence from a restricting and consuming relationship. Below, I will attach some shot list vs filmed shot comparison and other shots we were able to produce.
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SECOND SHOOTING
LOCATION 2 - Harrow Beijing Date - October 21, 2022
👇 👇Location 2 Scouting Checklist👇 👇
👇 👇Risk Assessment Form👇 👇
Our second shoot was at school, our goal for this filming session was to film the RED light on our artist and also the smokey and foggy effect as she does a little dance. We filmed after the "after-school activities" ended which was around 4:30 PM. I made sure that I wore the same costume (dress, earrings, and necklace) for this shoot to not disrupt the continuity of the theme in our MV. The black velvet curtains of the Harrow Music Room is very similar to the one in the set studio which was really good because this allowed us to have footage that doesn't insanely look different (location-wise).
We tried using the gimbal for this as we wanted more movement with our shots because we realized that for our first shoot, we had a lot of static shots. However, Annie and I had so much stress and trouble because we couldn't operate the gimbal well, which was definitely on us due to our lack of skill in operating the gimbal. Furthermore, the Nikon camera was again grainy. This led us to the decision of using an iPhone 13 Pro Max to film the shots.
For the red light background silhouette, we weren't able to produce a shot that both of us were satisfied with. It took us about 20 minutes just to set the RGB Lightstick in different intensities of red. However, it didn't really work in our favor. Due to this, we decided to scrap this shot. Despite this, we were able to produce a good shot of me dancing as the smoke machine fired and also a shadow dancing silhouette.
THIRD SHOOTING
LOCATION 3: Room 1710, Block B Zhong Lian Ya Building, WangJing, Beijing
Date: January 10, 2023
👇 👇Location 3 👇 👇
👇 👇Risk Assessment Form👇 👇
As seen on the dates above, there is a huge gap between the first-second and the third shooting. This is because of the epidemic situation in Beijing. By November 15, 2022, the Beijing Government announced a lockdown as the positive cases of covid were increasing (by standards of the country). This deeply affected not only our progress with the production of our coursework but also the learning of vital information for our exams. Despite the fact that I was just staying at home, I still got covid last December, on the exact day that we broke up for the winter holidays. This made it difficult for me to schedule a filming day with Annie. Fortunately, by the first week of January, we were both covid-free and also able to book and rent a room that had a tub we can use. Due to the school closing abruptly, we weren't able to borrow filming equipment. This made it difficult for us to match the artificial lighting we had like the first and second shoot. We tried to bring in our personal lights like 15-inch ring light and 15 inch LED Light stick. However,it wasn't good enough to create good and similar lighting like our two previous filming sessions.
For our third shoot, we found a loft that we can rent for 310RMB for 6 hours. Annie and I met in front of Harrow Beijing. We arrived at the location around 1 PM and the building was decent, definitely a lot better that the dilapidated building that we went to for the first shoot. Before starting to shoot, we had to set up the loft, first, we had the tap running so it can fill up the tub. As the tub was filling up, we did the other task of setting the bed and putting fake petals, this was quite a lengthy process because we had to separate about 1000+ plastic fake petals and scatter it on the bed.
Pictures on the left are the advertised loft for rent and on the right side are pictures we took when we arrived.
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We also reshoot the "silence of the lamb" inspired shot, we turned off all the lights in the loft and only had the ring light on, and I was also sitting inside the closet in the loft (we had to remove all hangers and stuff inside). After this, we filmed multiple insert shots of my hands cutting up the butterfly and then trying to patch it up together. In this shot, we want to convey a message of how despite obvious brokenness, the protagonist still clings on and tries to fix people who are broken and unready to create an equal relationship with them.
This is a straight reference to the lyrics of the song:
And they told me to care
When tryin' to fix your heart
It's unfair
I'm tryin' to fix myself
And not care too much about you
For this shot, we had to be very careful because we only have ONE butterfly meaning we also had one chance to have good footage.
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We also did more silhouette shots, we used a large opaque poster paper and hung it on the little space between the loft bed and the tub. So basically Annie had to sit on the little dry surface as the tub was running and I had to put my face on the other side of the paper to achieve a silhouette, almost glass-like effect.
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For the tub shots, it was honestly very challenging for us to shoot. There wasn't a lot of available space around the tub so Annie had to stand on the small tile space. As for me, I had to fit my body into the circular tub. Furthermore, I had to purposely "drown" myself in very shallow water...this was so tricky for me because...
1. I can't really move a lot.
2. I can't swim, so holding my breath underwater is difficult!
3. It was very cold, and I was still recovering from covid.
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For the bed shot, Annie and I didn't have a lot of space for an overhead shot because the space between the bed and ceiling wasn't much. Annie had to hunch her back and I constantly had to lower my body so that our scaling will match. We also shot our lipsync to the voice-over scene at the bed. I had to cry as I say the lines:
He never really wanted me to be his wife
I was nothing more than a trophy
It was incredibly suffocating
I’d find myself wanting him
Rather dead than alive…
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Crying wasn't the biggest problem as I was able to cry easily and the tears weren't enough, I just used eye drops. The challenging bit for me was catching up with the lines in the sense that matched the voiceover. Furthermore, sometimes Annie would stop and I break in character then we both end up laughing. We ended with good shots after about 8 takes.
Apart from, the lack of equipment for lights and the difficulties of the small space; I still think overall, it was another successful shoot. We were also able to take photos that I used for the digipak.
SHOOTING FOR INSERT SHOTS
As I was largely needed for acting, I told Annie that I want to do insert shots for our video. Before the lockdown, I have been practicing macro photography and videography. The insert shots of the snake were predominantly taken by me, and the opening scene for the music video of a dried rose with blood dripping was taken by me at home too (with a macro lens!).
For the most part, we stuck with our storyboard and research when it came to the locations and shots. However, there were some occasions when we would suddenly think and develop new alternative shots. For example, during the tub scene, we shot a scene wherein I was crying and looking at myself drenched in (fake) blood. This wasn't a shot that we initially wanted and we were just trying to do another "extra" shot because we finished all scenes we needed for the tub scene. Overall, most of our shots were based on the shortlist and storyboard but we still considered last-minute alternatives and improv scenes.