Friday, 29 March 2013

My Film Shoot Clips

Once I siad that I had finishes the first shoot I knew I would then have a lot of clips to watch to see what ones were good and which ones were bad.  This took some time but was so much easier to work with after wards.

- All movie clips I had from this whole shoot was 65 clips
- All test shoots with sisters were taken out which left 36 clips
- I then had to sort through bad / unwanted videos clips which left 25 clips to work from.

With these 25 clips I had to decide what parts of the clips I wanted to use for my final film editing.
Here below I have shown 16 print screens of the actual film clip, obviously you cant watch every single clip, but I plan to show at least one of the un edited clips within this blog.  The uploads take quite a while because of the quality of the clips so I will try to show a couple so the general idea of the clips before editing get shown.




From these clips screen shots you can see how I have placed them next to each other, and see how the general idea of the shoot looked.  I asked my model to perform moves and I filmed each one.  On the narrowing down process, a lot of it was watching the moves and deciding if they actually looked good and how to change them.  I really liked the outcome of shoot as a whole but it is really hard to see how it will fit together properly yet, I'll have to wait until editing on application. 

Tuesday, 26 March 2013

The First Film Shoot !!

The first film shoot with my model went great!! The problem with working with film clips is that it makes it a lot harder to show as work or in a work book because you cannot fully see what it is about or how it starts out if you cant watch the film clips, so I thought I would display everything I have done as snap shots.  These first two images show a big list of all of the film clips from my first shoot.  

First Red = Not to be used at all, because theses are not film clips, but images taken on film setting. 
Orange = Test shoots, so also not to be used at all. 
Green = are all of the good clips of my Model to be used together to make the film. 
Other Orange = Maybe's, clips that are ok but not exactly what I want. 
Other Red = Bad clips, clips that went wrong during shoot, so not to be used at all. 




















It is really hard to show all of the separate clips that I have produced for the first film shoot because, it takes so long for them to upload onto each blog so I cannot show every clip that I have made and i would have liked a way of shoeing this, because then you will be able to see the difference from the separate short clips to the final film when all together.  Here below shows an image of my film clip folder, I have lots of clips of my model performing different moves on the pole in front of the bright white background that I set up. I think that the set up looks great and that all of the short film clips went very well. Th set up looked a lot better than I thought it would along with the shooting.

Sunday, 24 March 2013

My Pole Shoot Idea - Focusing - Blur / Sharp

So once I had decided the set idea for this pole shoot and the what i wanted the overall film to look like, i had decided about the background colour of white and the lighting, what else I wanted to look at was the focusing of the dancer.

I have placed four images from my test shoots showing the focus difference.  I think that I prefer the blurred option a lot more and think that blurring will make the video more interesting and will give the film a sense of mystery. I want it to be out of focus and blurred also to help take away the sexiness and sexual side to pole dancing and hopefully show more of a dance approach.



Saturday, 23 March 2013

Test Shoots for the Film Shoot

With it being very difficult to show every short clip than I can for this shoot, I have decided to include print screens of everything that I have done leading up to this shoot.  Here are some images from my test shoots.  I set up the background to a bright white as before and I used my sisters and my test models.  The problem I faced with test shoots is that I would never really get a sense of what The films shoot would look like because neither of my sisters know how to do any pole fitness moves.  The only thing that I could really test was the lighting and camera positioning and camera settings. 

I knew that I wanted to crop close into the body to show closer body movements so knew that the camera had to be centralised to the centre of the pole, this is because most of the moves that can be done on the pole usually start and end around the centre of the pole. I will probably end up shooting some where you see the floor, because obviously all moves start with the dancer on the floor and then climbing the pole to create the moves.  

For my tests I just asked my sisters to moves around the pole, on a spinning pole so that I could see just how each film clip would look.  Once the camera is set up, its actually quite simple to use the filming setting, so therefore it is all about how I set up the lighting for the shoot that makes a difference for the film.  The other thing to consider is the focusing on the model and movements, this is something I tested out throughout these test shoots here. 



Making sure that the background was a bright white was the main thing to make sure with these test shoots.  I wanted to have white really white, but i think there ended up being a light pink tint to the background due to some pink on the walls, this shouldn't be a  problem as it is something that I can take our and change when it comes down to editing. Here shows more images of each test clip that I used, they are all marked in RED, because it is easier to show that they are definitely not being used for the final shoot, so I don't get confused with all of the clips I have done. 


Thursday, 21 March 2013

My Pole Shoot Idea - Slow Motion

For my Pole video shoot I plan to shoot in SLOW MOTION.

The reasons behind this is because I personally think that the idea of slow motions will make the dance seem more noticeable and will bring the attention to the movements themselves.

I also would like to try to have a less sexualised side to the film and not have any sexiness shown.  Obviously, someone's idea of 'sexy' could be different things, because of the kind of clothing she is wearing, a lot of people could argue that, that in itself is sexy.

I want to have my slow motions because I feel that if the dance was in real time it would seem more like a sexy tease of a dance, it would also go too quickly to even see anything.  What I am trying to exaggerate on within my whole project is the actual movements of the body and in my previous research I have been looking at different examples of filming and have realised that when a film is in slow motion you really concentrate on the moves of the dancer in film.

Some examples of earlier research are;

Dance Short Films 1 - Slow Motion Ballet post - this film is beautiful and simply looks stunning in the air.  This particular film titled super slow motion is exactly what is shows, all of the dance moves are in super slow motions and look absolutely amazing. I personally would love to shoot like this but i definitely do not have the right equipment for this type of filming.

James Pickett - this film shows two dancer in slow motions and it looks very interesting.  The moves are strange and moves from foreground to background but I do think it looks very good. I am using this one as my main source of research for my film.

I am looking forward to shooting the clips, watching them in real time and seeing what the outcomes like in slow motion, I think it will make the film a lot more gentle and interesting.

Wednesday, 20 March 2013

My Pole Shoot Idea - Background Colour & Lighting

I chose to have the background white because i want the viewer to focus on the body movements more so than the pole dancing.  I am trying to show less of a sexual side in this film but rather the elegance of the moving body.  I want to show that there can be two sides to the pole dancing and want to exaggerate on the general dance and skill of the motions and movements.

A bright over exposed white background will give this idea off the best because if it was for example, on location, in would signify the sexual side, in bars and strip clubs, i also think a colour background would have made it a very fun colour and then the seriousness of the shoot and the meaning behind it wouldn't be shown at all and it would have also looked more like 'tease' film.

Here below I have shown two images of the exact layout for the shoot that I used.  I wanted to have an over exposed background so the only way I could achieve this look for my shoot was to place two of my lights behind the white background.  I used cushions to hold down the backdrop so it was pulled nice and tight.  Here it looks strange because you can actually see the lights in the images.  When looking through the film camera and also when cropped in, this makes the background very bright.  I like the overexposed look in film clips and have looked at this in my earlier research in other dance films. I think it will make the dancer stand out and give a sense of innocence rather then the provocative side. With this set up I also have to crop in so that I do not get the top of the ceiling in shot.


I'm happy with the choice of white background and also happy with the room now.  Im so glad I decided to shoot at home, it meant that I did not need to go out anywhere or take any of my lighting equipment with me.

Sunday, 17 March 2013

My Pole Shoot Idea

Once I knew that I was swapping from normal dance to pole dance due to me knowing a lot more about pole dance to dancing as I have been to a 6 week course in pole fitness before. I loved it and found it so interesting how the body can move round the pole.

I am linking my two modules together between this module and my major practical and for both I am working with dance photography and now both are pole dance photography.  In this film I wanted to show a different side to pole dancing - i want to show how it can be looked at differently and doesn't have to be looked at as if it is a sexual thing.  Pole dancing as a business and activity has really seen great results this year, with so many people wanting to try it out. Because I had tried it out before university I know what its like and also know what it is like watching a film on a pole video.

Everyone see a sexual side to pole dancing which is strip tease and strip clubs, but there are also a lot of pole competitions around the world because it holds amazing skill and body skills to be able to do it properly.  I want to show a short dance films like all of the ones that i have earlier researched in this blog and want to show a film that can have a similar resemblance to them kind of dance films.

One film that I have used in this blog that is similar to the idea that I would like to convey is James Pickets video of dancers. I would like to just film lots of separate video clips of my dancer creating and producing different moves on the pole and around the pole.  I want to show how the body movements link in with the body and mind.  The body and mind is what I have previously researched and have thought about for the whole project.  I would like to show how the mind connects with the body in a short dance film, that shows a slow motion movement of every move.

This makes me excited to shoot and see what the outcomes will look like - I have test shoots planned out and have decided that the shoot will be in my home studio. I am excited to get started.

Friday, 15 March 2013

Locations for the pole Shoot

I needed to fins a location to do my film shoot.  Now that I have decided to shoot my Pole dance idea I needed to find where to shoot, Or where would be best to shoot, with space for a pole and lighting equipment to go. My plan was to look around at possible areas an locations obviously inside, for the pole, and work from there if I could fins a good enough space to use. 

The Mick Jagger Centre
My mum works in a bug Music Centre in Dartford that hold big music events and dance shows and dance groups.  I have shown some images of when I went to have a look at some of the halls, This is actually one of the smallest halls they have there which just proves that I don't need anything bigger than this room. The lights would have been great to use to add some dramatic or soft colours to the background of the film shoot.  I considered this a lot for my normal dance videos but it is a problem when it come to my pole idea because the ceiling is way too hight to put a pole up. So I would not be able to shoot in here for my idea. 


Claire's Pole Fitness Studio's

The second idea for locations for my filming the shoot at Claire's Pole Fitness class studios that she has.  The would seem like a great idea as the studios are huge and have so much space to set up lights and backdrops. The problems with this begin at having to pay to rent the studios at other times than her class sessions.  I usually take longer than I need on shoots and wouldn't want to be paying lots of money to rent the studios for the shoots. But here are some images of the possible studios below:

Crayford Weights & Fitness Studio, Kent


Dance Union Greenhithe, Kent

KTB Studios in Dartford, Kent

These studios look fantastic and would have worked perfectly for my other dance film idea too, there each have tall mirrors and a lot of space around where each pole would be.  I think this is a great idea for the future in this line of work because I would perhaps need a small team of people to help me with getting all of my equipment to the right studio and then set up, and this would all be whilst the model/dancer would be there and it would take too long. So although they look nice, I don't see it possible in the her studios. 

My House

I already had my house and my spare room as the option all along but I wanted to see if I could find somewhere with more space and maybe a higher ceiling so that I could go further back out. But I knew that with a pole it is hard to find locations that had the right places to use.  I though that my room is fine and started to set up backgrounds and test it out.  Like mentioned earlier, I used to do pole fitness myself and have already got my own pole, so I have set that up in the spare room which is also my studio room too, and here is what it looks like. 

Friday, 1 March 2013

Contact so Far ...

DANCER : 
Claire has already agreed that she would do the shoot for me and she is also the subject for my Major Practical Project involving still long exposure images.  In both I am trying to convey a different approach to Pole dance and not necessarily show the complete sexual side to the dance.  But as far as contact is involve, She seem very excited about the shoot too which make me really happy as I know that I will hopefully have some amazing outcomes.

MUSIC :
I obviously am creating a short dance film,  and I would like to include some music for the background of the film.  The clips that I produce will have the sound taken away from them completely and my original ideas were to interview a group of dancers one by one and interviewing them about what they think about dance,  this was going to be layered on top of a peaceful calm piece of music.

My mum works at the Mick Jagger Centre and works with a lot of different musicians, this man below is a composer and works for many different clients regarding sounds for books and adverts etc.  This was great opportunity because he was going to just watch the film that I have created and then come up with his own ideas mixed with ideas that I has advised and he was going to compose a completely different and original piece of music for the film.  This is still and potion at this point as I have not yet had the first filming shoot.