VHS Shoot And Review - Starting Out

The first shoot we ever did was at a party. We wanted to collect footage for the Beginning of the video, where Louis and Gina are dancing, smiling and socialising. To make sure we knew exactly what footage to get, rather than take a shootboard, which we assumed would get lost quite easily, we stuck a post-it note onto the camera, making it clearly visible and easy to access for members of the group. However, we thought that to make the archive footage of the couple seem more authentic to the viewer, we were open for spontaneous shots to be filmed along the way. All footage was collected and some unplanned shots were achieved, making the first shoot a success.

Looking back at the footage later on, there were a few problems. We had not anticipated the fact that the VHS camera shot in 4:3, which meant that the footage, in comparison the studio shots, had two thick black bars down the side of the screen. Also, because the technology was not very advanced, features like image stabiliser and auto white balance were not part of the camera, making the footage dark and shaky at times. We were pleased with the footage overall, but now knew what we could do better for the next shoot.

Starting on the next shoot, which was planned as Alexander Palace, Chip Shop and Louis House, we used the knowledge gained from last shoot to plan this one more carefully. We took a tripod this time, and after discussing the issue of the 4:3 VHS ratio problem with the technician, we organised to take a second HD camera that shot in 1080p, which we could hopefully use footage from to create a VHS look in Adobe After Effects. We managed to get all the shots we were looking for with time to spare.

The footage was great, especially as we now had two different angles that we could switch between. The shots of Ally Pally were outside in nice light and all the shots were visible, the chip shop scene was a little static but useable and the stuff from Louis house was really good. Problems with the footage however were that the VHS shots were a bit shaky at times, and we didn't realise just how HD the footage from the HD camera would be, but it was really good quality. This raised issues with how authentic the footage would look after conversion to VHS. Overall though, some really great footage containing a lot of what we planned to obtain from the shoot.