Blog 17-Rejected footage

This shot was going to be used as a shot to carry on from a fade in from a shot of the boy character sitting in the same place, to represent that he had gone and the shot was look like the boy had disappeared into thin air. However when editing and looking at the story line of our video we decided that we didn't want the audience to think that the boy had "disappeared" until near the end of our music video and know the reason why he wasn't with the main girl character anymore. So we decided that the image of the boy sitting in this location (same as the image to the left) would move onto a shot where the girl came into the shot so show that they are a couple. I think this is a better idea as then the audience realise who the boy is in relation to the girl.

We decided not too use this black and white shot of the boy and girl as we felt that it was not necessary to add it in. We had all the shots that we wanted of the "past" that meant something to the video and felt that the acting wasn't that great either, we wanted to show a romantic connection somehow so thought a kiss between the two of the actors would be good but it just looked a bit too "forced".

This is one of our "out-take" shots you could call it. We didn't realise the camera was on record while having "fun" behind the scenes!

This shot we didn't use because the colours in it were too dull and there wasn't anything interesting too look at in the shot. Lady gaga is renown for her outrageous and bold appearance which comes through in all of her music videos whether its on her or in her locations. This shot doesn't convey this at all so we didn't want to use it.

For these type of shots we thought that the reflections would look really good and interesting on the water from the darkness of the branches. The colour contrast looks good but the water just seems to blend in too much and the camera (as it was hand held because we couldn't get close enough with the tripod) was shaky. We did think that maybe the shakiness of the camera and the colours in the shot would make the shot look quite uncomfortable and depressing to link in with our video but it didn't really.

This shot just turned out to look a bit messy and "too much" when looking back at it on the computer screen. We thought that this shot may convey the emotion of "agitated" and/or "frustrated" and/or "upset" due to the over lapping branches. We panned across the branches and zoomed in but the shot just looks really messy and in the end, doesn't really represent any emotion that we wanted it too.

We had quite a lot of rejected footage of the girl miming along to the lyrics of the song. We decided that the best way to get the miming good and use a range of different lyrics and different times in the music video was, for me (actress) to sing along to the whole song in one position (e.g standing) and then sing it all again in another position (.e.g sitting down) and so on. This worked really well when editing as we had such a variety of shots and all the lyrics if we needed them. However, we had a lot of footage of the miming that we didn't need in the end but we thought it was better to have more miming lyrics than not enough.

On the right, this was a slightly low angled shot as we wanted to show that lady gaga was in control of the dance she was going to do and show her powerful character. The middle screen grab shows a long shot of some dance moves and the image of the left shows the floor dance sequence we tried out but that didn't work as i (actress) fell on the floor. The dance movements didn't really work out correctly. We decided not too use these shots as the dance didn't fit in with the timing of the lyrics or beats of the music so we re-thought out the dance moves and did it in time with the music and used those shots instead.

This shot is of the girl lying down on the floor with the camera at the same level as the girl (on the floor) and then the camera movement goes into a pan down the girls body. This idea came from the "the male gaze" theory. We had learnt about it in other media lessons and its where the camera acts as the human eye/point of view of a male's perspective. It has the feelings attached to it as being "sexy" and like girls are just sex objects. We wanted to include this as lady gaga uses a lot of sexual annotations and movements in her videos but we didn't want to get too "sexual" in our music video as the song was meant to be about true love and quite innocent atmosphere to it through the beat and the lyrics. However we decided not to put it in our final version of the music video as we thought that the wooden floor ruined it a little and also when the camera finally got down to the girls feet, the black background has ended so there was a door which didn't look very professional.

This is a single shot of a series of different positions that the girl did in this location. It was going to be used as a time lapse so we would speed it up a lot. However the lighting wasn't very good and the sun was shining straight at the front of me (the actress) therefore there is no definition in the top of me and its too much contrast from that to the black leggings and red top underneath/bottom half, also to the background. Either the sun was shining too much or we had set the white balance incorrectly. Also, at the end of these series of shots, we wanted to zoom in on the girls face but the zoom was not smooth and in the end, didn't end up focusing on the girls face at all probably due to lack of communication between the director and the actor which we then learnt from for the future filming.

We didn't use this scenery shot because of the lighting conditions. The sky was a too white and bright and there was nothing special about this shot. This shot also carried on into panning to the left. However, there was a car moving on the road behind the trees with the camera speed and it was obvious to the eye and we thought it ruined the shot a lot.

This shot was meant to represent a clock ticking away time. This was tried to be shown through the action of the arms moving at different angles in sharp straight up and down movements to represent the two hands on a clock. However, the action didn't work out so well and i don't think it ended up looking anything like a clock hands moving (my fault as i was the girl!).

These two screen grab shots are of one of our timelapse shots. We decided to use a blue door as the background to the girl as it was a good contrast of colour against her outfit, hair and also the red bricks to either side of it. I think that these shots are compositionally good as the door really frame the girl well. However, there is section on the right hand side that made the shot look unprofessional. Also, we had filmed another timelapse effect shot with a background being a dull grey and looking at both different locations/backgrounds in contrast to each other, we found that the grey background added to the emotion of the song and the actions that they girl was doing (crying, sadness etc). The blue background seemed to cheer everything up a bit too much and could contrast the effect we wanted to achieve.

Compositionlly i think these shots are really good. I like the colours used and the way that i, being the girl in the shots, have used the bars as props and to frame my face. However, the location isn't something that lady gaga would have chosen in one of her music videos and seems a bit "grotty", "rusty" and "dirty" looking. These shot don't fit in with our story line and its not something that would link into the work of lady gaga at all.

This was one of our first filming sessions we ever did and also one of the first ever shots we filmed. Although we did use this type of shot in our music video, this particular shot i was walking up the stairs too fast and there was a shadow on the wall behind the legs that distracted from the walking therefore we didn't use this take.

This was a shot following on from a shot we used in our music video (pressing the play button on the music player). The reason why we didn't use this shot was because we felt like we didn't really need it there. There was no relevance to the song and as the lyrics had just started, we felt we needed a more impacting shot than this one. Also, the camera pans to the left but it's not in a straight line.

For the audience to see the letter and it's text well, we thought that it would be a good idea to hold the letter up in the center of the shot. However, when looking back, you can see the hand and arm of the person holding in and there is too much going on in the background (for example, the tripod!!). We found a much better way to show off the letter in a different shot that not only is much clearer but also relates to the emotions through the purposely shakey camera use.

As it's clear to see my the screen grab of this shot, it was out of focus. Therefore we didn't want to use it as it would ruin our idea and not make the makeup stand out which we wanted it too, as to link into lady gaga's style and apperance.

After the shot above, this shot comes after it and the camera zooms out from an extreme-close up of the lips to this screen grab shot. Although a perfectly good shoot from zooming out. We wanted to focus to be on the makeup and not neccesarly the girl. Therefore we decided that a zooming in shot towards putting on the make-up would be better suited for this idea and we used that in our final music video.

This is an added bit onto a shot we actually used in our final music video. It shows the girl clearly walking out of the front door and to the left and then she dissapears out of shot. We shot this shot as we wanted her to walk out of the house via the front door and then the shot fade into the forest location to represent her changing location and moving somewhere else during the storyline. When editing, we realised quickly that we didn't need this added bit on where the walks fully out of the door and goes out of shot and it worked better when we cut the shot half way through and faded it into the forest shot. Also, we didn't really want any of the houses behind to be seen in this shot as it wasn't important to the story line and also the fade idea wouldnt have worked so well with her going to the left of the shot.

These shots were meant to be the beginning to a dance but we found that they didn't look right when editing it all together and the location just didn't fit in with the others. Also the camera was on a slight tilt with made some of the background lines on the wall seem wonky. Altough, the middle screen grab i do like the position of myself (the actress) as i think it is a very "lady gaga"-like pose. However i think it would have looked more effective if it was on a very plain background. The screen grab to the right is of the actress walking towards the camera with strong eye contact. Again, this is something that lady gaga does in her music videos but when editing the final video together, it didn't fit anywhere and we had more interesting and compositional better effective shots to put in.