Problems I Might Encounter

Practical
One of the most important practical effects in the music video, will be illuminating the officers face with the warm flicker of fire. I plan on doing this by using a multicoloured LED light that I booked out from the college. I've done research into how I can achieve an 'flickering' fire effect, and it's actually really easy! It's free too, which is the best part. All I need to do is wiggle my fingers directly in front of the light and it'll perfectly simulate flickering fire! 

One issue I can see me encountering is being able to power up the light as it does not use batteries. For this scene we'll be filming in an abandoned shed in the middle of nowhere so it's important that I figure out a power source. 

My idea is to buy an 3-pin power adapter for a car. This will allow me to power up the 3-pin plug for the light, simply from the cars v9 socket . I have already sourced a 30 metre extension cable which is more than enough distance than I'll need and we can park the car right next to the shed.


Another issue I may face is not being able to stabalise the 'chase' footage of Rob Kingdon. As stated in my blog post on setting up and testing the Steadycam, a great amount of my music video will comprise of shots of my protagonist running through the woods. I will be trying to style it after the running scenes in the music video 'Hunger of the Pine' by Alt-J.

These scenes will be difficult to achieve as I don't want to have the camera on a tripod, recording boring motionless shots of Rob running through the woods. I want to give it a sense of fast movement and make the audience feel as if he's being chased, and that they're the ones chasing him.

One issue I can see myself facing is not being able to get stable-enough shots of him. Even though I will have use of the steadycam from college, which I know is balanced already, I still need to be able to run as smoothly as possible and steer it properly. A lot can go wrong.

So to counter this I will practice running with it as many times before as need be, until I know I can achieve a stab-enough shot. I will also try run as slowly as possible and compensate the speed adjusts in post production to correct it. And I will make use of the stabilisation software in Adobe Premiere to help stabilise the footage in post. Lastly, I will shoot very wide-angle shots so that I have the option in post production to zoom into the footage during stabilisation, and still not crop out Rob as he runs in camera.

Theoretical 
A big problem that I hope I don't have to face, is not having confident actors. As I'm using complete beginners to star in these major rolls, it's very likely that they show signs of insecurity, which will make the characters personalities suffer. As my characters are meant to be very confident, outgoing individuals. 

To combat this I will really focus and care for my talent. Make them feel as comfortable as possible. Make them know that they can do as many take as they need to get it right. And constantly reassure them that they're doing great, and how much I deeply appreciate their help, which I do!


Technical
I might face an issue with my fog machine, as I got it on sale, have never used one before, and don't have great experiences with machines of this kind. The trouble has already started as I ordered the fog machine 10 days ago and only just got a message from paypal saying that my order had been cancel! Why it has been cancelled? I have no idea! 

I've been on the phone to them for 2 hours and have sent back and forth quite a few strongly worded emails. And have gotten no where. I won't ever be using them again and have since ordered it again, but on my executive producers account. 

But I have a friend that is a mechanic, and shall be using him to fix and control the fog machine, should there be an issues with it. Alway best to be prepared!