Thanks for the cover feedback guys.
The video edit is going well. Very slow, but its going well. I like it so far, im harshly critical of my own work , so this is a good sign. I wont get cocky, its still a student music video, and I dont want anyone to expect anything more than that if we get the right to show it online.
The difference between my school in the heart of the english lakes and big US film universities is that US universities for film are heavily equipped with industry standard equipment, and students usually get budgets and grants to film their shorts with. We have to pay for it all ourselves, and our equipment is laughable when compared to UCLA and the sort. But we make do.
Of course i so wish we could have all the things UCLA and NYFS have, but thats life i guess. We had decent photo lighting, but nothing like the big softboxes they get for big budget videos which is why people always look so amazing in film. We had decent cameras, but they werent fantastic or super useful.
I also wish i could have filmed on 16mm. Film stock is very important in making a video change from cheap looking to expensive looking. Its the chemical proccess involved. Unfortunately, 16mm costs thousands of dollars and our budget was like $250. Vanessas music videos are likely to cost anywhere from $100,000 to $750,000. I think Hands On Me was probably about $20-55k. It looks very simple, but the director, the lights, the cameras, the studio, the sets, all of the elements needed = expense.
(Look up "World on Fire" by Sarah McLachlan for more on that)
All of this said - Student videos tend to have loads of super dark hard to make out shaky footage. Ours is all nice and smooth and well lit. Our actors were great. The lead wasn't actually an actress but a journalism student, but she was fantastic. Better than many actual actors ive worked with. Most of our locations rocked. The stuff in the theater is beautiful - candles all around a piano and a Victorian looking set behind her.
All in all, its the smoothest, most fun shoot any of us involved had worked on. Everyone had so much fun on set, and we are all very proud with what we've got so far.
