Blog 18- Creative Camera Use

When filming our music video, we used a lot of creative camera use:

Rule of Three

Here we decided to make this shot more aesthetically pleasing we decided to use the rule of 3, where the screen is split into three columns and you place your character in one of them. We chose to position Lucy on the left of the frame and we think that this shot works really well. It is a strong composition as the narrow depth of field allows the audience to concentrate on what the singer is doing, without being distracted by the background.

Slow Motion Filming

To make this shot look better we decided to use slow motion. This works really well as we put it in a part of the song that slows right down. To change the speed of the shot, we held down the Control key, then chose speed and reduced it to around 60%.

Timelapse Shooting

This is one of the most effective pieces of our music video. We filmed the sun going down and then after capturing back on the camera, we used the same method of slowing down but instead sped up the clip to about 8000%. This created the impact of the sun setting in a few seconds when really it took a couple of hours. We then reversed the shot so at the beginning of the film we have the sun coming up and then at the end we watch it go down again.

Reflection

Here we creatively used the reflection of the stream to show the dance routine. It gave the routine a twist that we would not otherwise have achieved had we just followed the basic procedure of filming them head on.

Establishing/Panning shot

Here we used an establishing shot so that the audience can begin to imagine the surroundings that this video is being set in. We used the tripod and securely fastened the camera so as to achieve a clean and well cut pan of the forest, beginning with the tree tops and moving down towards the water as it pans around. This shot works particularly well at the beginning of our video!

Use of fading/cross dissolve

We particularly like this effect of cross dissolving that Florence uses in her video "Rabbit Heart"and wanted to achieve something similar in our own video.

We used the cross dissolve as the song got slower and it worked really well as it cut between shots of Lucy/Florence singing. I really liked how the fade changed from the medium close up to a mid shot without you really noticing as it flowed into one shot to the other so nicely.

Extreme Close up

We wanted to use extreme close ups of the boy building the coffins as the song is ambiguous as to who he is and so we wanted him to be a mystery in the video as well, never truly showing the whole of him. The close ups worked really well and we reduced the speed so that they were doubly effective.

This was a similar extreme close up that was used in Florence's "Rabbit Heart" video.

Use of angles

Using fast edits we managed to make a small dancing scene into a really interesting shot by filming the same shot multiple times from different angles and then when editing putting them all together. This shot changes so as Lucy/Florence is lifting her arms the angle changed so that you are viewing the same routine from the ground.

In conclusion our group used many example of Creative Camera use that effectively made our music video interesting to watch. Editing ensured we could pick out the effects that we felt worked the most and use them to the best of our ability. Our camera creativity and knowledge of how to edit them well together really did benefit us into making a good music video.