Technology in creating the music video

Technology played a very big part in the creation of this music video - there was no cutting and gluing of film - that much I can tell you!

One of the big advantages we had was access to the filming studio that we have here in college. This facility we have been told has the same specifications as a BBC Training Studio - which we feel quite proud and very privileged to have access to. The studio contains three HD Camera's with green screen technology and state of the art computer equipment to back it up as can be seen from the piture below. This facility aided the creation of our black background shots of Maddie singing on her own and allowed us to provide the lighting we required with the various lighting equipment in the facility. The camera's also have monitors mounted on them which is for the autocue which allowed Maddie to refer to them in perfect sync with the music if she needed to and aided our video and the lip syncing we have aimed to perfect.

For filming which took place outside of the studio at our outside locations we used a handheld camcorder / digital camera to film our footage. This in itself presented us with some issues. The camera itself wasn't too good at filming in the dark/night despite using the light on the front of it. So we had to compromise by using a handheld LED torch strip (rectangular torch) to provide different strenghts of light depending on the shot we were going for. However for the most part, these cameras were great in providing the material we needed in natural light and weather conditions.

We found ourselves using a variety of equipment to aid the filming with the handheld camera. The primary piece used was the handheld camera jib - which you can see being demonstrated by the chap in the promotional picture below.

This allowed us to get shots which involved moment but also provided accuracy and was used in various shots, especially at night time. In the night shots where you can see the singer and the actor walking down the steps at the end and also when they're kissing and the camera goes from out of focus to in-focus on close-up - the jib proved to be a vital piece of equipment in providing accuracy during these shots.

We also used a small steadycam frame which is a rectangular frame which the camera screwed securely on to and allowed steady shots to be filmed. This was used mostly in the filming of the shots at Manchester Science Park of the lift and running up stairs scenes. It also proved useful in nightshots involving both singer and actor walking past each other along with a variety of other shots we have done.

We found ourselves carrying a tripod to mount the camera but only using it once. We found the accuracy of the jib and the handheld frame to be perfectly fine and they also provided more flexibility than the tripod could provide us. The one time we used the tripod was also with a tri-dolly (wheel mount) for filming the short clip where Maddie is entering the lift.

On to the software side of the production, we did the post-production work in Final Cut Pro on the dual-screen Mac editing suites we have here in College. Final Cut Pro proved invaluable to the creation of this video. Down to the editing, shot filters and attention to accuracy - it would have been very hard to create without it. Final Cut Pro is a general piece of editing software used by the industry and having the ability to use it in college was not something we took foregranted and used the software to it's maximum potential to achieve our music video.

In all, technology played a very big part in the creation of the music video, it's quite hard to image the filming world of the past where many hours were spent with long strands of film and manually piecing them together.