Blog 17 - Rejected Footage

When looking through and editing our footage we came across this clip. We were unable to use this in our final video because the bags and other belongings of both cast and crew members were in the shot in the background. We chose not to use this as it looked unprofessional and ruined the mise en scene as the whole theme of the video is related to nature and we kept costumes simple to avoid any materialistic theme being represented. This therefore made it very inappropriate to use this shot.

The same issue occurred when reviewing this clip.

Another issue encountered when filming was lighting. The still from the clip below shows a poorly lit shot of her miming to the song. We shot this scene from different angles and as this particular shot had poor lighting it would have contrasted with the better lit shot from a different angle. We resolved this by changing the exposure level on the camera.

As part of our opening sequence we had the main character sitting up from the ground. In this shot she was supposed to look inquisitive as if she was in a completely new environment. in the first take of this however she started laughing which therefore meant we couldn't use it as it would not have matched the music or the narrative of the video.

For another section of our video we had the main character lying in the leaves whilst singing. during this clip she was wearing a crown of leaves and twigs as part of her costume. This was in realtion to the earlier lyric of 'Kings and Queens have all knocked on his door'. During the shot of her lying down the crown slipped and went over her eyes. This distracted the attention away from her singing and also meant that you could not properly see that her eyes were shut. We chose to reject this footage as we felt it was important for the audience to see that her eyes were shut to show the emotion that was in that shot.

In another section of our video we had the main character dancing on a log with two backing dancers behind her on the ground. We deliberately chose to have the main character standing higher than the other two to show the different levels of status, however during our first take she fell off the log. This also resulted in her laughing which meant we couldn't use the shot.

Another shot we decided to cut was a spinning skyward view of tree branches. This shot was filmed by holding the camera and not using the tripod. This therefore made the shot shake at some points and the speed would often change. originally we were going to have this shot after the shot of the main character spinning to create an eyeline match, however due to the poor quality and lack of consistency of speed we chose to reject this shot.

A further idea we rejected was to have the main character ageing throughout the video. This was to show her changing through life and getting closer to death which linked with the coffin theme of the song. We chose to scrap this idea however as we were unable to create shots to show the transition between her being young to very old. This would have meant that the sudden change would have seemed confusing and out of place in the video.

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