Production Diary

Production Diary

Summertime Sadness Music Video

Summertime Sadness- Lana Del Ray

Contents

Introduction

Preproduction

Production

Postproduction

Introduction

For negotiated studies 1 module I have chosen to make a music video to show my passion and enthusiasm and also my flexibility in working different areas.  To start with I needed to pick a song preferably copyright free. However, I didn’t have plenty of time to research through copyright free songs and pick them. But I had a singer and her music videos as an inspirational material to help me through to make my project. In these videos that inspire me are the way they were filmed and storytelling just like films.

Preproduction

The chosen song is Summertime Sadness by Lana Del Ray, American singer and songwriter. Her style of vintage can be seen in her music videos such as video games, blue jeans that are directed by David Lynch. As soon as song was picked I have written the story and screenplay. The story comes from the one of the tv programme I have watched recently. It was a short documentary about Mexico and how young people get killed if they don’t obey the rules of drug mafias and cartels. While I was writing I had some scene I wanted to reconstruct from the film The Notebook and the actual music video of Summertime Sadness. From the film the traffic light and dance scene was my choice and from the video where they spin around breaking the fourth rule. I started scouting for some locations. In my head and my heart I wish to have a manor house with gardens such as Erdigg and props such as, an old telephone for opening scenes but I was unsuccessful of getting it due to budget and duration that would take to hear back from National Trust for permission. So I had to use my own house instead of a manor house. Another locations I wanted, was seaside. However, my cast wasn’t able to travel. I always had an idea of going and filming in Hoseley forest because of the interesting remainders from world war such as, tunnels and buildings. While I was looking for location I started searching for cast three males and one female. I put some notices around Regent Street art school but there no one ever contacted me. Asking one of my colleagues, Ben (boyfriend) Level 6 performing art student has accepted to take a part in my cast as well as Megan (girlfriend) who is also performing art student in level 3. My other two cast I found were Emin (mafia) and Andreas (mafia) level 3 TV production and technology students. Once I had the story, screenplay, locations, cast I was ready for the production.

Production

I had three days of shooting.

Day 1

First day of filming was interior shots for opening scene in daytime. Fake blood and fake gun was used for props. There weren’t any problems everything went fluent and well.  

Equipment

5D mark III with 24-105 mm lens

Tripod

Dolly

Day 2

Second day of filming was exterior shots of dance scenes at nighttime. I picked to shoot it by the pub in Gresford as it was easy to take equipment and lights. Lights were giving a warm feeling on the screen. It took little bit longer then I thought to film dance scene, as there was constant traffic. However it went well smoothly. After finishing dance scene we head to skate park for the dancing in the moonlight scene as the park had lights which gave me opportunity to get some good footage. Cast was very easygoing and flexible which incredibly helped me to shoot it nice and fluently.

Equipment

5d mark III with 24- 105 mm lens

Tripod

Day 3

Third day shooting firstly took place in Bellevue Park in Wrexham town Centre for spinning around shots. After the shoot, we made our way to Hoseley Quarry in Marford. We felt so lucky because of the weather. Sun was shining and helped me with the lighting. I wanted to use tunnel as the scene in ‘A clockwork Orange’ with the shadow but the lighting wasn’t enough for it. However at the end of the day we had some brilliant footage.

Also in between these days I made two time lapses by using go pro.

Equipment

5D mark III with 24- 105 mm lens

Go pro Hero3+ Black edition

Postproduction

For postproduction I have chosen Adobe premier pro Cs6. To give the video vintage feeling there were two effects used; burn and vintage film effect downloaded from YouTube. Also to give the video more cinematic feel I made a wider aspect ratio. Watching moon, walking and kissing scene were reversed to show audience that time goes in backwards. There is a small montage of all the events at the end of video as flashbacks.

  

Cast

 

Benjamin Hall         Gwyneth Megan Wroe

Andreas Wanner                                           Emin Atilgan