Cry 'Havoc' And Let Slip The Dogs Of War - Music Video

Cry 'Havoc' And Let Slip The Dogs Of War Music Video (my edit)

On Monday 28th April 2014, we filmed a series of shots to be edited into a music video.

The style that we wanted to film in required filming in a circle around the subjects of the shot, and to get this effect in a simple, yet very effective way, we used a camera dolly. A camera dolly is basically a tripod on wheels, with a seat, which is set up on a track so that it can be pushed in the same way every time. 

As there was a very large group of us making this music video, we had to plan and organise it all very carefully and precisely. We decided as a group who would be doing each production job, camera operator, dolly operator, wind machine operator and lighting operator. After deciding who would fill each role, we arranged everyone else into groups of either three or four people, and made sure everyone had an action to do for the shoot. The idea behind the video would be to shoot everyone doing an action or movement of some kind, at 50fps, and then in editing, slow it down by 50% to 25fps, so that the final video would be slow motion. In order to make this effective, we made sure everyone had an action or movement that looked good in slow motion.

We also had to plan our time very carefully as we only had a certain amount of time with the space we were using to film in. We counted the amount of groups we had to shoot, decided on the speed at which we would film, and then figured out how much time each group would need, if we gave them one rehearsal and two takes each. We then gave each group a set time to be back on location to film, and we had a production team member with his eye on his watch at all times and to keep telling us how long we had left for each shot.
For the first hour we were in the space, everyone that would be on camera went out of the room to go and get themselves ready, buy any last minute props or costumes they needed, and practice anything they felt they needed to. During this hour, the production team practiced their roles, and practiced using the equipment. As the dolly operator, I had to practice pushing the camera operator, Liam, around the track, and I also had to work with some of the other production team members to lay down a speed at which to walk while filming. We set up a metronome on the computer and played it through the speakers so that I could hear it over the director's voice when filming. We had several practice runs of shooting all the way around the track, and changed the speed of the metronome several times until we got it right.

After the hour was up, we had the first group come into the centre of the dolly track and tell us what they were going to do, and we explained the timing to them. We told them when they would need to start doing their action, in what order, and how long it would need to last for. We then did a rehearsal, where we didn't actually record any footage, but we did the routine and had the subjects mime their actions. After checking that everyone knew what they were doing, and making sure that we had all the lighting, wind and camera in the right places and at the correct angles, we shot the first take.

We repeated the same process with every group that came in to be shot, giving some of them a second take if the first one didn't go exactly to plan for any reason.

At one point during the day, we had an issue with the dolly. Myself and Liam were practicing our route for a shot again, as we had finished filming the groups in the centre and were about the film the larger group outside of the dolly track. While we were moving around the track trying to find a good speed to shoot at, two legs of the tripod came off the tracks and the tripod, camera, and Liam almost fell to the ground but luckily, due to quick reactions, there was no disaster, just a slip up. Along with the rest of the production team, we worked to solve the problem and make the dolly 100% safe again, and ready to use for the rest of the shoot. We found that a strap holding down one of the legs of the tripod had come unfastened at some point during the day, but nobody had noticed it. We refastened to strap, and made sure it was as tight as we could make it so that it wouldn't come undone again, and we tested it slowly without Liam sat on it, then tested it again with him on it. We found that we had fixed the problem, but we did a few more test runs just to make sure we all felt safe and ready to start shooting again. We also made sure that, for the rest of the day, we kept checking the equipment to make sure all safety precautions were in working order. 

 Once we had made sure that we were safe and able to carry on shooting, we organised everyone into pairs, and positioned them all around the outside of the track, each pair one behind the other. We gave each pair a number, between one and nineteen, so that we could make it easier to cue them when they were on camera. When filming, we started at number one, and went all the way around the track filming each person do an action when they were on camera. After each person had been shot, they switched with their partner, so that on the second time around the track, we could shoot their partner. Again, we rehearsed it before actually filming, to make sure everyone knew what to do and when to do it, and so we could make the the lighting, wind and camera were in the right places and at the correct angles. After a few rehearsals, we did a few takes, and finally got the end result we hoped for.

Also, during filming, we started further around the track than we needed to, so that each clip had a few seconds before and after the actual shot. This is so that, during editing we all had a bit of space to put transitions between shots.

Finally, after we had all of the footage we needed for the music video, we gathered everyone together into the centre of the track, all facing in the same direction, and we arranged it so that some people were sat, some kneeling and some standing, so we had a clear view of everyone. We then got people to blow bubbles, let off party poppers etc. so we could shoot it as an extra shot if anyone wanted it during editing.