VHS Shoot And Review - Final Shoots

The last shoots were those in which the relationship began to broke down. We organised to shoot in Central London again, this time at night and near Tower Bridge. The point of this shoot was to get the footage that tied the narrative together well, as Louis and Gina were becoming less happy together, and we tried to make visible on camera.  We started off at London Bridge and made our way down the riverside to Tower Bridge, and filmed along the way, neither of them would smile and there would be very little conversation.

Looking back at the footage, as always, a large majority of the shots were unusable. We got what we needed however, and it was clear that Louis and Gina were unhappy in this scene.  We managed to get some really nice static shots on the bridge and also some of the couple talking by the side of the river with Tower Bridge in the background. This is really great footage as it means that the band image of being a British band is even stronger.

With the narrative shots almost done, we planned the final shoot day, which was the break up between Louis and Gina. We filmed this at Gina's house and had her throw clothes that Louis had worn throughout the video at Louis. Gina was also shouting at Louis and we made it so that Louis was not angry at Gina, as this would make it clear to the audience he was breaking up with her.

The footage was okay, in the respect that it flowed and narrated the story well. We felt that some shots were a bit unnecessary however, such as the shot we got of Louis closing the front door, as we thought this would slow down the pace of the argument. The acting was convincing enough to convey the narrative and all shots made sense in terms of continuity, even though the shots in sequence were not wholly continuous.

After editing the footage together we realised that there needed to be some shots of Louis leaving the house, to show his expression after the argument. We felt this was necessary as otherwise the narrative was left too ambiguous to the viewer, and summed up the story quite well. For practical reasons, we decided that we could shoot at a location closer to the school, as no shots of outside the house had been shown previously. We managed to film Louis outside "Gina's" house one lunch time in school, and review the footage soon after because we were so close.

As expected, the footage being added alongside the argument between Louis and Gina summed up the scene well. Some shots were bad and needed reshooting, but the majority were exactly what we were looking for. Unfortunately, the camera was accidentally put onto a setting which made the footage brighter than other footage. We decided seeing that the location was so close to school, the scene took so little time to shoot and it was the last shot so we wanted it to look good, we went out to reshoot the footage again, this time on the right settings.

The new footage was noticeably better and was used in the final video. The shoots were more visible, darker and had better framing.