THE FILMING

After getting our actors kitted up into their army costumes, the next stage was to capture the strong bond and friendship that this group of soldiers had. This was of vital importance to make the enemy attack a more distressing sequence of images for our audience, in order to show the sheer velocity of our protagonist's memories. Plus this also adhered to our narrative in showing Ollie and Dan's close friendship, giving Dan's death a bigger impact.

We have chosen to do a music video however, so we understood that the video could not be too dark (according to music videos modern conventions), yet we still wanted the music and lyrics of the song to enhance the clips our audience would be shown, therefore we wished for a video to have a powerful meaning and message.

Using wide angled shots we managed to capture the bond of the army soldiers, showing their interactions with one another and by using close ups of each of their faces gives the audience a glimpse of the people they will be following. 

'Alice' arrives after a little while to join their group as we wanted to subvert the stereotype that it was mainly men in the army. She is clearly well accepted into the group from the hugs she gives the other members, showing equality within their job.

Our main aim however was to focus on the friendship between 'Dan' and our protagonist. It would be their friendship that is lost and enhanced in 'Ollie's' mind. To do this we decided to film them play fighting to emphasise the fact that they might be closer than the others were. By choosing play-fighting for them to do was also an effective idea as it highlighted their youth. This could increase the emotion felt by the audience as they were so young and naïve to be fighting in the army, and the attack was so unexpected that you feel tremendous empathy for them.

These shots are quite key in the themes of foreshadowing we have used in our music video. The position that our actors hold here is particularly significant. This shows them at their best, with Ollie above Dan laughing. However this theme is also repeated when Dan is dying and reflected in the image below.

This image shows their closer bond and reflects the emotions of the situation. Their proxemics have become closer as the reality hits. I really like how we have used a reflective shot to mirror the progression in their journey.

After showing the relationships between the soldiers we began to add in long shots which gave the impression that they were being watched. 

Next we headed over to a large clearing which featured a giant puddle to which we thought was the ideal setting for our next shot. The idea of this shot was to have our soldiers all chilling around the water when 'Lewis' gets unexpectedly shot.

Amongst this we showed shots of the enemy watching them and getting ready to shoot. We made the enemy clearly distinguishable through the use of a gas mask, however we chose to also have him in army gear to show that although they are fighting, we are really the same and its humans killing other humans.

We chose to use a variety of different shots highlighting both the onlookers view and point of view shots were used to see the attack from the enemy's part of view, looking over the young, innocent victims.
A variety of different shots were also used for the first death of the group. Using the sun as a link motif to death and heaven which we have used in this scene but also in the major death scene with 'Dan'.

Once Lewis is dead, we show the split in the army team, and our main focus comes onto Ollie and Dan as they seperate. Dan (the best friend) takes on the enemy soldier, complimenting the fast key change in music which the speed of the cuts.
We intermix the 180 degree tracking shot of the band with shots of Dan fighting the enemy, along with Ollie finding the bodies of his diceased soldier friends.

 

 
Ollie then finds the bodies of his friends which spark up anger for him to go and kill these enemy soldiers. Not only this but Dan is nowhere to be seen - so he must find him.