Planning: Casting

In order to shoot my music video, I have to cast someone to take care of the acting. However, since my video includes no humans but animals, it will be a slightly different task. I think that rather than looking for great acting skills, I'll be looking for pets that are, perhaps, closer to my home for better reach when I have to shoot, so I'll be focusing on my own comfort. The fact that they'll be masked out makes things even easier as I can make my own way to their homes and capture their footage doing their own thing instead of dragging them over to my house, complicating the process. I think the fact that I get to focus on casting and location like this will make the production much more efficient as I can worry about the footage of the pet separately, and perfecting the lighting and whatnot the next when shooting location. This way, I will have more control over these two factors, and hopefully it will help me achieve a better quality media product. However, I think I will have to be paying a lot of attention to lighting when I try to match the animal with the background as the way the light falls on the subject may be coming from a different place, which would look out of order when edited together.

I noted a few of my friends who own cats and dogs (just what I'm looking for). One friend, John, owns a few cats. I think casting a couple of his cats would be good as they're ordinary household cats. As well as that, John lives close by school, which means I could complete some shooting straight after school without having to organise it for the weekend. Additionally, John is also a media student, which means when on set, he could suggest some techniques or skills when shooting, which could help me with perfecting my shots.

He owns a small garden with a lot of greenery, and because his cats are neutral-coloured, the garden could become the set, taking advantage of the greenery and using it as a green screen.

I decided to take a visit to John's house and record some of the cats to analyse their behaviour around the equipment. I was using a tripod to mount the camera on to for better stability, however, at times I had to record it by hand or lean the camera against something to get a better angle as the tripod limited this. It was also somewhat hard to capture everything when the camera was on the tripod because the cats occasionally sprung from place to place and I had to move the camera swiftly to capture some of the movement. However, the shots came out unsteady as I struggled to keep the focus right on the subject. The movement was also blurred so the quality of the shots decreased. I think that the only solution will be to capture the movement by shooting location-wise as it will be easier to replace the background and the shot will be steady.

The cats behaved rather casually around the equipment, so the result was satisfactory. In some cases, the cats watched John as he helped me with the things behind the scenes, so he made sure the cats avoided glancing at the camera and making eye contact with the audience. Although, in some shots, this will be necessary, so we'll have to get their attention around the camera so that I capture the connection of their sight with the lens.

Here, we tested some lighting methods by using a piece of white paper to reflect some of the key light coming from the window. The cat had some reaction to the paper, and turned her head away for a moment before returning to her casual state again. I don't think that lighting will be one of the biggest problems to take care of from this small experiment when recording the footage for the music video. 

Unfortunately, John doesn't own a dog, so I have to refer to my other friend, Rebecca, who owns two cats and a dog. Although her cats are quite shy towards strangers, her dog Jack is rather confident, which could become an advantage for me when it comes to filming. As stated before, I hope to capture their natural behaviour, so confidence is something I'm looking for, and I believe that Jack has got it. Additionally, Rebecca is also a media student, which means, when on set, she can also make some suggestions for me to improve the quality of my shots.

I think the fact that Jack has long fur would make masking easier as I wouldn't need to go down to precise detail but instead feather the edge. If the pet was short-haired, I would need to be much more precise with the masking as their build is more visible and their edges are sharper, which would need me to sharpen the contrast of the masking.

Another friend of mine, Emily, owns a sheepdog who is another option to take the role of the canine in my music video. Her colouring is black and white; rather ordinary. Although I'm not too bothered by the fur colouring of the animal, the fact that her dog Bess also has long fur would make masking easier with the feather adjustments I can apply. However, her house is rather far away from school and my house, which would be a struggle to get there. I'm also not as familiar with her dog, which could put the dog in an uncomfortable place, especially with the use of unfamiliar equipment, such as the camera and tripod. Because I'm hoping for the pet to act natural in front of the camera, I believe that Bess isn't the right dog to cast for my music video.

I have also planned featuring a pair of hands to hold the evaporating hand sanitiser, enhancing the concept of melting in my music video. I'm not looking for anything too particular for this part, but the hands would preferably have to be of healthy skin and have nice proportions. 

Also, I want the hands to be as nude as possible without any nail varnish on as I think that this may distract the audience from focusing on the liquid. 

Additionally, I had to think of my location when filming this footage. I considered a few options; 

I referred to my classmates, and took a few photographs as samples of their hands. Rebecca's were potentially the right ones, however I think that there would be a struggle to get our schedules sorted and get the filming done on time as we're both currently busy and live rather far from each other. Additionally, if I was to film this part at her house, it would differ from the rest of the shots that are to be completed at my house, and would make the filming seem out of place when edited together. 

I decided to have a look at some hands belonging to males too, and considered my friend John. However, I think that this hands are rather large and not as well rounded to make the liquid show appealing to the audience. The shape of his hands are also quite sturdy and I think that when filming the hand sanitiser leaking across his palms wouldn't run as smoothly as I'd like it to. 

I then thought of using someone in my family, and considered having one of my little sisters to help me with this part, however I think that it would make corporation difficult between the two of us as they're still very young and would get distracted when filming. Following orders would be another trouble, and having to corporate with either of them would waste a lot of my time. 

I think that my mum would be able to play this role, as her hands are femininely shaped and without any nail varnish. I think that because of this, she'd be able to showcase the liquid rather well, and also because we're family, we live together and organising the filming wouldn't be much of a problem. 

Furthermore, she has studied filmography during her study years, and I think that she could provide me with some useful advice when filming the shots.