Demonstraion & Execution

I was supposed to use an LED light with my fingers wiggling in front of it to simulate the warm glow of fire flickering onto Will Farrant's face. I was going to do this by using a 12v to 180v adapter and amp for a car's cigarette lighter socket.

But unfortunately, because of budget constraints I just couldn't afford one at the time. This was a major major set back and a difficult obstacle to overcome. So I had to think quickly as to how I would pull off the effect without it. At first I thought I could use the flash from my phone, but it's lighting was just too harsh. Then I thought I could use my phone and play a video of a roaring fire on full brightness, right next to his face. But even at full brightness, it just wasn't bright enough! 

So in the end I had to add that effect in post. I did think by masking and keyframing a Strobe Light effect over his face, lowering its opacity right down and randomising the strobe intervals. And to an extent it worked, but I fear that my audience will just think it's a camera settings mistake, and that its just an unwanted flicker. 

In future, I'll make sure I can actually afford everything on my budget, especially the most vital things.

You can see my attempt at fire flickering on Will's face in the music video embedded below at the 3:20 mark. I think it went reasonably well. When I conducted a focus group they were able able to tell that it's meant to be fire flickering on his face, so I'm happy with that!

I also needed to be able to film Rob whilst chasing after him. This is a very ambitious shot to achieve but thankfully, with the help of a steadycam, it was far more achievable. I did a few practice shots when I got to the location, after previously practicing in length the day before. 

The steadycam wasn't going to give us those smooth and fluid shots by itself. So I had to make sure Rob was running and a speed that's fast enough to show that he is actually running. But slow enough that'll have a chance at following him worth the steadycam. To help sell this effect I also got rob to exaggerate his facial expressions and arm-swinging movements. I did this to really make him look like he was running as fast as he possibly could. 

I also made sure to film as wide as possible so that there was the possibility to stabilising it in post without cropping out Rob from the frame. Which came in very handy as I needed to employ this method. 

You can see the chase shot I captured as the opening scene in the music video embedded below. I think it went rather well, and although I dip down quite a bit sometimes, on the whole I was able to keep Rob in frame for most of the shot.