Evaluation of Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Middle of the Bed

As a practice for our advanced portfolio we were set the task of recreating 30 seconds of an existing music video. Whilst this task also helped with our pre-production, planning, editing and post-production skills the main focus was our shot composition and recreating the shots in the original video. For this task our group – myself, Mark, Harriet, Charlotte and Kate – chose the video for Middle of the Bed by Lucy Rose.

Our first job was to assign ourselves clear roles within the group. I was elected director with Mark taking the role of producer, Harriet was camera operator, Kate was editor and Charlotte was the performer in the video. The reasons we chose Charlotte to be our performer was that, as she was in our group, we could be sure that she would be able to film in our designated lesson times. The main reason however was that Charlotte fitted the characteristics for the main character and the style of the music genre. Following deciding upon our roles we had to storyboard the video (from 30 seconds to 1 minute), make a list of our locations and design a shoot schedule. Whilst we did construct a shoot schedule we did not really stick to it as we just filmed which ever shot(s) would be appropriate on that given day. Harriet constructed the storyboard while Mark and I worked out our locations list. As you can see from the shot composition comparison out locations were similar to the original. One shot that we could not recreate safely however was the shot which show Lucy Rose as a passenger in a car, so instead of this we chose to include a shot of Charlotte walking forwards with the camera tracking backwards.

The first problem we encountered was that Charlotte, understandably, was shy when lip syncing. In our first few takes Charlotte began laughing and subsequently the rest of us had to turn around for the still-camera shots. This was not the only issue we had when filming however as there were two shot which required a tracking camera, the walking shot and the bike shot. Because we couldn't use a vehicle to track with Harriet and Mark (who shot the bike scene) had to shoot those scenes by holding the tripod and walking backwards these shots were shakey. Although this did not detriment the overall video too much it would have been much improved had they been smoother. Another issue we encountered within the post-production stage was – as the song is very repetitive in nature – Charlotte often sang the right lyrics however at different stages in the song Lucy Rose sings the lyrics with a different rhythm. We did not realise at the time of filming however when it came to editing this made the lip syncing to the track very difficult, meaning we had to use different shots that didn’t correspond to the original. As my chosen song also features repetitive sections, this will be something I will ensure I take care over when shooting my video.

One minor problem which occurred was in the shot where Charlotte is position high up with trees level with her in the background. From our original locations list we knew of a good place to shoot this however we found that we could go out onto a balcony on the outside of the building, giving us a much more natural look than out of a window and also allowed us to have the effect of Charlotte’s hair blowing in the wind. The first problem we encountered with this shot was that when we were filming some droplets of rain landed on the lens which we did not notice at the time. As seen in the image:

Another problem we had was that in our only take of this section Charlotte laughed at the end. Though at first we decided not to include this part we did not film another scene with the same words being sung and therefore we had to include it. Upon reflection I actually think this provides a good natural effect though it is not in the original and when shooting my own video I will ensure I retain excess footage in case there is something useful and effective.

This task was an excellent way to understand the methods I will need to follow in the creation of my own video and the problems that I can now avoid. Though working individually on my own video will allow me to have sole control I enjoyed working in our group and believe that our combined efforts produced good results.