R & P Post 32: Test shoot and rough edit

Our rough cut

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Our schedule for the test shoot week

The test shoot and rough cut were extremely important during the pre-production stage of our project. They allowed us to shoot initial rushes of our ideas in a test shoot, before editing a rough draft version of our final music video - naturally this proved extremely useful, in our opinion, as it was a chance to identify aspects of our shoot which worked and conveyed our initial ideas well & those we could improve. We were also able to add any final adjustments to the video, such as tweaking dance moves, lighting and shot types.

For the test shoot week, I felt that we were far more focused and organised than we were the week before with rehearsals, and we stuck stringently to an agreed schedule (our group are Group 2 - highlighted in green). Although the length of time between the Monday and Thursday sessions could have caused a problem, we ensured that we still continued to work on any pre-production preparation for the shoot including prop and set design, such as posters & wallpaper.

We had to ensure that a plethora of props were completed
in time for the test shoot - this included myself & Georgina
cutting and sticking the numerous dwarfs and posters.

We were able to direct our efforts into
other areas when not filming, such as
set design and especially the rough cut

Unfortunately, our test shoot was directly before our final shoot. This meant that sadly we were totally unable to edit a rough cut between Friday - the last day of the test shoot - and Monday, when we began our final shoot. I helped Phoebe to produce a rough cut at every possible opportunity when not shooting towards the end of the test shoot week and also later during the main shoot week, though as a result of this limited amount of time we were only able to construct a rough cut until the middle of the second chorus.

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left  Some of our initial feedback      right  Phoebe also collected some target audience responses

Whilst in the studio, we filmed both the shots which we had planned and noted on our shootboard, as well as extra experimental shots. We were then able to assess their impact when editing, and decide if they were suitable or not. During editing we also noted as a group that we needed much more movement and shot variety, as the abundance of static shots in our rough cut meant that it was a visually boring, lacklustre music video.

Please see below for a list of improvements which we were able to draw up following our test shoot and subsequent rough cut:

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A list which I constructed going forward detailing
improvements and how we can go about achieving them.

Hopefully we will be able to use these going forward as a reference point when completing our final shoot and edit. Despite our group being unable to receive feedback for the second part of the rough cut, in hindsight we did still gain a really useful insight into how our project has been progressing and the target audience's reaction to it.

After the test shoot...