Video Clips

Here are some video clips of some of the shots that we recorded on Saturday. Although they may not be used in our final music video we really like how they turned out.

Journey's End

I went to see a production of Journey's End at The Royal Centre in Nottingham. The play seemed really relevant to what we are showing in our video.


'Set in the trenches at Saint-Quentin, Aisne, in 1918 towards the end of the First World War, Journey's End gives a glimpse into the experiences of the officers of a British Army infantry company in World War I. The entire story plays out in the officers' dugout over four days from 18 March 1918 to 21 March 1918.'


I found some of the themes and ideologies of war which were portrayed really disturbing because of how real they were. The things which happened in the play are all events which really happened.. including the deaths. 
The actors playing the soldiers were brilliant and captured the emotions of war perfectly. The sense of fear I got from them was un-nerving and horrific.


I want our video to have this effect on our target audience. I want to leave them feeling like they've just witnessed a realistic view of war; something the government covers up. We want to keep it real and harsh. 


These are some photos from the play:

Just from looking at these three images, you can clearly see the look of fear and anxiety on their faces. War does strange things to people. It heightens emotions- from anger to sadness, and changes people.  It showed me how much the troops back then and now do for us, it's not about the job it's about the honour of serving for your country.  

Editing Stages

We began editing our footage today and have managed to put some of the clips together. Here's a screen shot of our work:

We've also looked at some effects and applied a couple to our footage. For example, we used the speed tool on iMovie to slow down the shots of Sam (our soldier who gets shot) falling to the ground as he's hit by a bullet. I think this effect makes the shot look really dramatic allows the music to anchor the visuals.

Another effect we used was the ghost FX tool. We used this on the shot when the soldiers resuscitating Sam turn into his girlfriend. Because the shot is quite abstract, the ghost effect makes it appear dream like and surreal. 

Although we've only edited about 10 seconds of the video, I feel like we have made a lot of progress and I'm very excited to continue the editing process.

Join The Army

I found this image while browsing on deviant art. I thought it was just a bit, well true in a sense?

Explosions

Whilst filming today, one of our actors brought along a fake grenade which we used. So, we wanted to see if there was any way of making an explosion effect when we edit the clip. These are some videos on YouTube which I thought were easy and helpful:

Last Shoot

We have one more shoot to do before we have all our footage and before we can properly begin to edit. This shoot will be in Watnall again, partly in a field near Laura's house, and partly inside Laura's house. The shots we have left to do are the shots of the soldiers in training (doing drill etc) and the shots of the soldier and his girlfriend. We are hoping to get this done within the next 2 weeks, but of course it depends mainly on the availability of our actors.
We think that this shoot will only take about 2 hours, and after it's done we will be ready to get stuck in to the editing process.

Main shots; complete!

Today we shot all of the soldiers in combat shots (and more!). We were filming in the forest for 5 hours and weren't disturbed at all. (not that we would be because the land is private). There were however some people walking their dogs but they read the signs and so knew it wasn't real. When we saw them, we told the actors to put their guns on the floor so as not to scare anyone. All of the dog walkers which we encountered were really friendly and didn't seem to mind at all. 

All of our actors were very good, and brilliant to work with. They listened to everything we said, and also put forth their own thoughts and ideas involving movements etc.

Overall, I think the shoot was a great success, I just hope all the shots have turned out OK!