Studio Production: Trailer Test Shoot & Production

On the 16th of February, the DOP and myself filmed the test shoot for the show's promotional trailer. It was decided before filming that I would be the camera operator wearing the GoPro for POV footage. Due to availability and the fact that it seemed appropriate to practice the run through in the test shoot and be prepared for the official shoot - rather than test the GoPro myself, for someone else to then take over without practice.

Filming

Following the guidelines of my script and shot list (presented in a previous post), the DOP and I practised creating POV shots by her viewing the live stream of the GoPro on an iPhone app and giving me direction on my movements. Due to the lack of props available on the day of the test shoot, there was a lot of improvisation, including my outfit and Jordan outfit - acting as the teacher (both out of costume and in regular clothes), and props that are scripted as certain items being entirely different, including cereal and milk becoming the items of coffee granules and orange juice, a neck tie becoming a scarf and a toothbrush and toothpaste becoming a pen and hand soap. We felt that putting our effort into décor and props for the test shoot would be unnecessary as the focus needed to be solely on rehearsing the movements and appearance of the GoPro to have it fine tuned and prepared for filming the trailer.

Two shots of the test shoot were however filmed on a Sony EX1 camera, this was intending in planning, as the Sony provides a clear reveal of who's POV the audience is witnessing while remaining as a steady and stable shot on a tripod - yet still with the POV experience due to the character breaking the fourth wall.

A test POV shot of eating 'cereal' that went successfully

Editing
When editing the test trailer by following the script, it felt like a simple process due to almost every shot being a single shot, meaning that they didn't need to be cut together as the clips would if they were, for example, shots of characters having a conversation. Due to the change of location and actions, the shots were able to connect side my side.

GFX
However, the addition of GFX 'School Morning Rules' seemed to be what tied the edit together, working as transitions between each task that the character carries out...

'GFX' example

For each GFX-style title addition to the edit, I simply added a stretched image of the blackboard template created by the DOP for the production's Style Bible, with Titles laid over the image on Final Cut Pro. I think the end result had the desired effect that I intended, as it follows the theme of the show perfectly and has a soft, young appearance for the young viewers. However, this will need to be improved when editing the real promotional trailer. As the stretching of the chalk in the blackboard image is quite obvious and unappealing to the eye, and it will also appear to be more effect to have the text look as if it's being drawn onto the board rather than flat cuts between text - the animation of the text will be done by the DOP, as decided.

Sound

A downside of filming with a GoPro is that the sound quality and volume is very low, so an extra sound needed to be improvised. For example, when the teacher said "you're late" during filming, it was extremely quiet and of bad quality when I reviewed the footage. So I then recorded him saying the same line on an audio device after filming and laid it over the footage. This was a quick fix for the test shoot, but brought to light that we would need to use a Zoom and a Rode Mic alongside the GoPro when filming to capture clear sound quality.

Although most sound effects will be added in post production even in the official trailer. For example, the sound of the backpack being zipped up and the sound of brushing teeth in the test shoot cut was added in post production from Freesound. Due to the fact that the camera angles of the GoPro won't allow me to actually eat or brush my teeth without losing my hand from the shot, the post production sound effects will simulate the desired effect of me doing so.

As the official soundtrack for Teach 'Em A Lesson is not yet finished, I decided to use a different soundtrack from a copyright-free website that remains childlike sounding and upbeat, I then tried to cut around the music to make the edit flow. The track is Ukulele by Bensound.

Below is the edited test shoot trailer...

What will change

• The animation and appearance of the 'school morning rules' GFX
• The quality of costume, props and décor
• The addition of looking into a mirror during the 'tie' scene for variety (as suggested by our tutor)
• The addition of eating a sweet after brushing teeth and adding a lot of sugar to the cereal - to follow a new idea that everything the student does goes against the 'school morning rules' (also suggested by our tutor)
• The camera angle of packing the backpack for shot variety
• Adding the presenter's voice over to the outro of the official trailer

What will stay the same

• Using blackboard GFX
• All of the tasks carried out in the script
• Most of the camera angles

Testing out shooting the trailer proved to be extremely helpful and allowed us to figure out where to make changes and improvements and what will work for the real thing.