This week we're getting into the filming and editing of a kind of commercial project
That I finished recently
We'll pick up right where we left off last week
Right before the first shoot day
Now after the train journey I checked into the cheapest room I could find
Let's just say, it was minimalistic
I had finally managed to book a slot at YouTube Space London
Which is free for channels with more than 10,000 subscribers
So, I made the most of that and booked out the main studio, and plenty of equipment
Not to film with, but to use as props for our commercial about the film making process
We were shooting on the trusty Canon T3i which I still believe is a perfectly capable camera
We basically set up a situation, and then let the actors improvise
Riffing off each other, and going with the flow
For a montage like this, we usually got more authentic moments
From improvisation, rather than when I script out every single detail
Before the next shoot I managed to work out some of the simper shots in the montage
Including having my little brother act as a costume designer and a couple of friends flying a drone
And then it was back to London
Starting with a morning shoot that was a decent walk from the nearest Tube station
Once I got to the location I booked I was expecting four actors
But after a half an hour of waiting it was clear that only one of them had decided to turn up
So in the true Indy film making spirit
We completely scraped the entire plan for the day and had to come up with a new shot list
Based on what we could do with just one actor
Now I had a second shoot that afternoon
So I rushed back to arrive at Hide Park, where all four of the actors showed up
I actually think this shoot got us some of the best looking footage from the whole thing
Even though it was completely in natural light
Just goes to show that in the right situation you can get decent results without spending loads of money
Or loads of time on the visuals
Now the shoot was pretty relaxed, everyone was great and we got all the shots we needed
And actually managed to make up for some of the ones we missed, in the morning
But this whole time I'd been trying to see if I could film on a real set rather than staging everything with actors
So I was getting in touch with all of the film makers I know locally
And after getting in touch with about five different people, we finally found one
That was at the right time for this project
So I went to Milton Keynes to shoot some behind the scenes for Carl
Who you might remember I've worked with before
Now they were shooting all night long, so that was certainly an experience
But it gave me a nice variety of footage and some credibility since this was actually a real set
So over the next few weeks I squeezed in a couple of extra little shoots whenever I had the chance
Including stumbling across a much bigger budget production
So I made the most of it and got some shots on my phone
I mentioned though, I ran out of time, I needed to send the footage off to be edited
Now this was the first time I worked with a professional editor
You might know Sven from his YouTube channel -This Guy Edits-
He's got some great stuff about story telling, through editing
So I was really glad to be collaborating
But there were three main complications
One
There are five thousand miles between us so we could only communicate by Skype or E-mail
Two
There's 8 hours between us as far as the time zone shift, so we were rarely working at the same time
And thirdly
I'm just not used to working with an editor
I'm not used to having to explain my ideas
Verbally
Rather than just doing it myself
So those three things made communication
Which really is the cornerstone of collaboration
A little bit more difficult
But I guess that's how you learn
So I basically gave Sven a broad idea of what I was going for
And some reference examples of the kind of pacing I was looking for
And then he'd start assembling the cut
And this is really where it's so good to collaborate
Because he saw the footage in a completely different way
Selecting some stuff that I would have completely skipped past
And really digging around to find the story, behind the shot
Now Sven has just started an in depth series about the editing of this project
So I'll leave that in a link in the description, in case you'd like to check it out
So meanwhile I got started with the music
It's worth locking down the music pretty early on, especially with a montage like this
Now I was watching Andrew Huang's videos and I really loved these percussive tracks
And he was actually kind enough to let me sample some of his individual sounds
And use them to make my own rhythms
So I sent a rough version of the music to Sven and then he would send back different versions of the edit
And I would give feedback each time
And finally there was post production sound
Which might actually be the part of the process that I look forward to most
Because it always makes a significant improvement to the product
At a time when I'm usually thinking the whole things been a giant disaster
All it means is watching it through, and making a long list of every single thing that could make some noise
And then either finding the sound online or recording it yourself
And then painstakingly mixing all of that together
It can be a bit boring, but it makes a huge difference to the final product
So there we go that was a brief over view
Of this kind of different project
And, uh I'll see you next week