Filming: Last scenes and finishing up

Filming Last Scenes

The final day of the filming was the day where we crammed all of the missing pieces and the improvements of shots together. We went back to the same location behind Hyde Park in the evening to film with the car. The highlight of the filming that night were the shots where the protagonist gets mugged by the DJ's and also the shots where the DJ's are singing in front of the headlights of the car that is present in the background.

The coolest shot that we experimented on that night was the curving pan shot, where I basically loosened my Manfrotto tripod so that the camera was able to pan at a degree of 360 and adjusted the tripod legs at a rather slant and diagonal angle. The outcome looked nice and fitted the music video theory of lyrics and visuals. The camera being tilted in different angles represent the unbalanced body of the protagonist and how he is struggling to keep himself stable, emotionally and physically from the brawling.

Here are some gifs and photos of the filming:

via GIPHY

Filming Day 3

Filming Day 3

On Monday the 12th of December, we took the final scenes for Faded 2.0.

We started filming at 5:30 pm in the late afternoon at the back of Hyde Park. The props used for the filming were:

-Canon 5D Mark II
-14 mm lens
-16 mm wide lens
- Longboard

Longboard

The purpose of the longboard is obtain a track shot of Au walking along the road, and as a stand for high angle and low angle shots on top of him walking.

The main purpose for the filming on the 12th of December was to get all the shots of the main protagonist of the  music video and to answer the enigmas in the music video as to why it is filmed in such a drunk and faded way.

Additional Scenes that we also need are scenes where the protagonist drinks in the car and a montage of events before the present period when the protagonist was drunk.

Here are the photos and a gif of the filming:

After seeing the footage, we thought that the lighting was good, however, it did not fit the criteria of "Nightlife", as a result, we scheduled another filming at the same location on another day to film the sam scene but darker. 

Filming Day 2

Filming the Choreography and Street Scene

On Sunday the 27th November and Monday 28th November, we are going to film the choreography and the street scenes.

Monday: We travelled to my dad's film studio down in Meng Jai district Bangkok to film the choreography scene. For the choreography scene, we wanted a white background in a white room to represent the protagonist's internal thoughts. There will be three cameras set in the room at different areas of the room. Also, a small camera with a stabilizer will also be taken handheld for close ups of the dance moves and the dancers.

Filming Studio

On Tuesday evening, we left school at around 5:30 in the late afternoon to Meng Jai, a district in downtown Bangkok. We went to my dad's studio at his office to film the dance scene.

Equipment:

Canon 5D Mark II
Manfrotto Tripod
Stabilizer
4K Studio Lights
Blue 4K filters

As we settled into the studio, we started setting up equipment with the help of my father's crew who set up the 4K lights that is hazard in high voltage. We adjusted the tripod of the camera in its initial composition whilst the dancers were rehearsing their routine. As the lighting became in place, I adjusted the White Balance on my camera to 3200 Kelvins in order to match the lighting of the studio to make a blue/grey mood.

The first few takes were videos of the three dancers dancing together in the frame of the camera. First two takes were done zoomed out to the entire body and the other two taken zoomed into the body. The shots were also taken with a shake pan on the tripod to give a mood of a shake due to the dropping of the beat to the music. The other takes, we took the video of the dancers dancing on their own individually. The process was completed around 9:30 in the evening through number of breaks and takes and overall, everything went well.

This is the footage of the atmosphere of the take:

In conclusion, the day we filmed at my dad's studio went well, there was a little problem in time management which should have been done earlier in the day. But the outcome would still be the same because the scene does not rely on natural lighting. But it would have benefitted the dancers and the crew because some of us live far away and still have other pieces of work to do.

Here is a vlog of the day where we filmed the dancing scene: 

filming day 1

Filming Night 1

On Friday 18th November. We went out to Muang Thong Thani at around 8pm to film the car scene. Two cars were used in the filming scene. One car is used for the lighting and the other, is the main prop car that was used for filming. Our friend from outside of school, Phut provided the mercedes benz s-class for us in the filming and he was kind enough to drift his car and drive around the car park. During the filming, we took different types of shots of the artists and the car to create different types of moods of "being drunk" which will later be supported with the Mirror effect during post production. The filming consisted of many pan shots, either from using the Canon 5D or the drone, we used pan shots frequently because it strongly signifies the mood of being dizzy, moreover it is similar to something of being distracted and all over the place when you are drunk.

Equipment Used:

Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EOS 750D
DJI Phantom 4 Drone
GoPro Hero 4
RODE Microphone
mini tripod
Manfrotto Tripod
Lights from the car

The whole filming as a whole went well, we managed to get all of the shots we wanted. However, if we were to improve our filming, we should have used 2 cars for lighting or had filmed earlier as the sun is going down. 

Here is footage from the filming

We finished the filming by 11 in the evening. But staying up late to finish the filming was worth it. We received all the footage needed.

Filming: Timelapse

Timelapse footage

Last Sunday afternoon, our group went around siam square to film timelapse images of cars passing around Bangkok. Also, we took slow motion footage of those in the slum areas playing football and playing sports. The main purpose of taking timelapse shots is too emphasise the thrill of the city and urban life. Slow motion and timelapse images portrays the busy life of the city and also the clear detail in population and life. Also the beginning of the video, timelapse and slow motion videos tells the audience what they are expecting from the music video. Slow motion and timelapse talks about the protagonist being drunk and faded.

Here are footages of timelapse videos.

Digipak Photoshoot

For our digipak, we were inspired by the theme of Trap Music, being an urban and street. So the scenery and feel would have a city feel with urban clothing and nightlife. We were inspired by many different artist digipaks. These inspirations vary between catregories:

1) Composition: In terms of this, I was inspired by DJ Dillion Francis' digipak "Money sucks, Friends Rule". Where the design splits into sections and adjusted in random directions as if breaking down the face of a human.

Another idea that the team decided on was using a scene from the music video and produced photoshop edits in order to produce a trap digipak cover. What Oni 8 has discovered was that Trap Music has no boundaries in terms of concept,  however, the genre of music needs to follow its urban background and mood, with an addition of techno and rebellious nature. As a result, we came out with this.

Here are some of the backgrounds that could possibly be part of the digital cover. Another element that we need is our logo printed on the front cover of the digipak or at the back. In terms of inspiration, the digipak has been inspired by many different artists trap and non-trap, but still have the element of street and urban culture.

Back Story

First, it was Eminem's album cover "Recovery" which features him walking to the distance on the Detroit 8 mile highway. The picture is significant and has intermedia references to street culture, his own personal life and his music. The 8 mile road is a located in Eminem's resided city,  Detroit, a place where he grew up, discovered rap and had most of his struggles before coming into the music business. Moreover, the clothing is the same as Eminem's character "B-Rabbit" in the movie 8-mile which talks about struggles and the will to fight. 

The second inspiration is Skrillex "Leaving" album cover which shows a photograph of a road in black and white filters gives a sense of street culture and explains its own story under the name of Skrillex. 

What I want from this digipak is a story and a background towards the protagonist in the music video. Being a drunk person who had a problem with life, now being introduced by a new lifestyle through three DJ's (Dj Mustard, DJ Snake and ZHU) the people who made the tune of Faded 2.0. The protagonist gets mugged, but after being beaten, he discovers his life's purpose and that there needs to be a significant change. 

Other Pictures 

For the digipak, we also thought of adding photography of actual live DJ events. As a result, we were able to obtain photos from the time where our group members were performing and electronic session at the school's disco. The flashy lighting and the actions of the DJ's on staged igniting the crowd was a perfect fit because it gives an introduction for not only the protagonist about the "high end" lifestyle of partying, but it also influences the audience as well to change their life's perspective, adding a "colourful" life for the crowd. 

Planning: Label Logo

Logo

These are the two different logo designs that we did for our music label "Oni 8". The reason we chose this name was because Oni 8 has a similar pronunciation as the word 808 which is a a specific drum system that Trap and other EDM artists use for their DJ sets. Our heavy influence towards trap music led to following other professional records that uses the pronunciation of the word 808 such as 88 rising that highlights some trap and rap artists such as Keith Ape, Desiigner and Lil Yachty.  More importantly we come from asian backgrounds, therefore we follow the closest urban culture in Asia, Japanese culture. That is where we thought of the word Oni which means "Demon" in Japanese.

First logo

For the first logo, we made it as Japanese as possible from our inspired music label 88 rising and the Japanese culture behind asian rap and trap. The strokes of the brush are inspired from Japanese ink painting and the strokes represent a smooth vibe to our song faded 2.0

Second logo

We did a second video to put in our music video, linking to the scribbling effect that we had already did. Moreover, the scribbling links to the media intertextuality of many other trap artists and record labels that had scribbling effects such as OWSLA and Jack U

Composition

We kept the logo in the middle to mimic what all other trap artists do to their logos whether on music videos or their record label logo itself. This signifies that the label is the music's creation, without it there would not be the song and also to use for overlapping footage on the MV like Trapnation which gives a shoutout to every type of trap music out there.