Sourcing Locations

Initially, we considered filming at an abandoned factory in rural Beijing, which suits the conventions of performance hip-hop music videos. However, Beijing was under COVID lockdown during our time of filming, which made it difficult for us to go to the site together. After discussing our available timings, we decided to base our major filming locations in Wangjing, a busy commercial area in Beijing. Thematically, the urban vibe of the area corresponded well with our modernist Jazzy hip-hop song genre. Bobby lives in an apartment in Wangjing, making it ideal for us to operate our filming sessions from there, and the modern interior makes the apartment itself a good filming location as well. Despite being far from where I live, Bobby, Dima and Richard all lived close to Wangjing, which made it easier for me to arrange filming days as the group producer.

Two weeks prior to filming, I went to Bobby’s apartment to get a firsthand impression of how the set could be organised for filming. I also took a walk around the parks and other locations close to the apartment to find usable locations. There was an abundance of skyscrapers in Wangjing that were visually striking but relatively difficult to capture together with the actors on camera, so I decided to use a nearby plaza as a filming location because there was plenty of open space where we could film actors walking and lipsync at the same time. Checking out the locations allowed me to alter my storyboard plans according to the actual sets which were available and also visualise new shots which well-utilised locations which would look good on camera.

Day 1

The first day of filming started at 2pm in Bobby’s apartment. I had completed the full storyboard prior to filming, so my immediate task was to sequence the shot filming schedule. Because natural lighting was most ideal in the afternoon, I decided to complete the outdoor shots first. When filming began, we encountered an unforeseen issue when the property management staff at the plaza informed us that paperwork was required for filming with cameras on site. However, Bobby’s strong social skills helped us in striking a temporary agreement with the staff, allowing us to complete filming in a relatively short period of time.

Returning indoors, I utilised my coordination skills in streamlining the filming process. After providing guidance for the filming direction of a shot, I would go on to prepare shots that could be filmed at different locations in the apartment while Richard filmed previous shots with Bobby. This created a smooth production flow and helped us complete the vast majority of shots required for our rough cut.

Day 2

The second day of filming was focused on the car shots which we weren’t able to film during the previous session. My original idea was that from 1:50-1:55, Bobby would rap ‘picture me rolling in the five-hundred, buying roses in the dozen for the lady I want’ in the back seat of a car. I planned to film this shot in Bobby’s car, which was a Mercedes AMG G63 (an upgraded model of the classic G500, which has a subtle thematic link to the lyric of ‘ rolling in the five-hundred’). Nevertheless, Bobby’s parents were not in Beijing during our filming period, which rendered this plan unavailable. Having to switch plans, I learned that Richard’s parents were willing to lend their Ferrari sports car for our filming. (How convenient!) I pivoted to this option because sports cars have the immediate connotations of speed, luxury and wealth, which fits extremely well with our hip-hop genre conventions required for the music video. Moreover, the car had a red interior, which contributes to building the lyric imagery of ‘roses’.

Dima was unable to participate on the second day due to a leg injury, so me and Bobby went to Richard’s house to film the car shots. Unfortunately, a strong sandstorm in Beijing during the period of filming prevented us from taking the car outdoors for improved lighting, so the car shots had to be filmed in Richard’s garage. Because of the distinctive interior layout of the sports car and the narrow space available in the garage, we had to spend time experimenting with different angles to ensure that the shot quality met our expectations.

Rough screening

Upon assembling the rough cut, here are some shots which I was particularly satisfied with:

The outdoor lip syncing shots had a great effect, which I believe is mainly due due to the strong body language me and Bobby demonstrated in the shot sequence. Feedback from fellow students also suggested that these shots had a convincing effect, thus I decided to further implement exaggerative actions when re-filming other shots.

I also identified some shots which did not reach my expectations and will likely be re-filmed or re-edited.

The opening shot of pouring whiskey had an empty composition, thus further editing will be required. Ideas to consider include cutting the frame to a smaller size and gradually expanding it to original size as the shot transitions. Colour grading will also be useful for improving the perceived texture of the shot.

The previous sequence of dealing cards had a great pace, but the sequence of reading cards was slightly lacking. Editing the shots in a card-reaction, card-reaction order slowed the overall pace of the sequence and produced a sloppy presentation. Considering the more punchy lyrics in the first verse, I believe that having a faster pace of editing would deliver a more coherent viewing experience. This sequence could be improved by using faster cuts between me and Bobby in a card-card, reaction-reaction order, which would make the standoff atmosphere more tense and exciting for audiences.

The outdoor shot of Bobby’s solo rapping was good in terms of filming quality, but we agreed that Bobby’s body language was too tense and looked unnatural on camera. We will have to find another afternoon to redo the shot under similar lighting conditions.

I planned a transition where Bobby walks into the door and the camera pans to my lip-syncing. However, the current composition and pace of this shot are quite rough and need to be refined for the final cut.

These two shots had similar problems: in fact, many of our shots were filmed with this centred, mid-shot composition which presents a bland, ‘default’ effect and makes the overall music video seem repetitive. Both shots will be re-filmed with more variety in terms of composition, and the mirror-shot may require a change of location because the background reflected in the mirror distracts the visual focus of the shot.

Day 3

The third day of filming was also conducted at Bobby’s apartment. Having experience with the previous shoot, we headed outdoors first to redo Bobby’s solo rapping shot. We filmed the shot from a lower angle and revamped Bobby’s action sequence. The overall effect of the shot was significantly improved, but a slight issue was that the sun was in a lower position than when we filmed the first take one month ago. This created some consistency issues which did not have a large impact on the final effect.

Next, we filmed the transition of Bobby entering the apartment. Following Dima’s suggestions as editor, the new version was filmed from outside the apartment door, and featured a zoom which shifted the focus of the shot to me after Bobby moved outside the picture.

Finally, we filmed a new version of the poker scenes. I added more shots of the revealed cards and betting with chips, and improved the motion in the shots. This provided the required footage for us to create a faster-paced edit of the scene and make the scene more visually appealing to retain audience attention.

Overall, the third day of filming did not completely reach my expectations due to two reasons. Firstly, Richard was unable to attend this filming session, thus we experienced major issues with lighting & filming at the same time, and also some minor issues regarding how to alter some parameters in Richard’s camera which we used for the session. Secondly, overall motivation in our group was quite low, and despite having planned out the new shots and filming schedule prior to the session, I experience huge unforeseen difficulties trying to get our production group to attend the filming session and focus during the actual session. Consequentially, the session was rather inefficient. By the end of the session, we did not finish filming all the planned shots, but my previous planning succeeded in making sure that the most important shots were redone first and that Dima would have the required footage to work on polishing the final edit.