Daheem’s A2 Music Portfolio

While my group members took care of rest of the clips, I shot the kids playing in the park scene with my brother accompanied by my mother because my father didn’t allow me to go anywhere else for shoot outside anyone’s house so I had to burden the other three with the responsibility of shooting rest of the clips alone and personally shot the park scene.

I went at 4:30 because at this time mostly families come with there kids and the environment is really lively. Secondly the daylight was very suitable at this time, not to bright nor dark.

Giving a little behind story, the three boys that I shot were very poor and sold coloring books in the market next to my house. Me and my brother talked to them that where there parents were and why were they out here alone. They told that there other took care of there baby brother and the father was sick so they had no choice but to sell coloring books in morning and then go home in evening before it got dark with a bit of money they earned. There story was really disturbing to hear but what i realized is that after all that they were still smiling and happy for what they had. We gave them some money to take home and bought them ice creams.

Seeing smiles on there faces really made me smile

This proved to be a very productive day as well. We covered a lot of clips in this day which included girl waking up, playing with pet and friends watching Netflix scene. I brought all the camera and light equipment to Fatima’s place as well as the props including popcorn bucket because she was really reluctant about this shoot taking place at her home. All the actors came on time , although Arooj was unable to come.

The girl waking up scene was a bit technical to shoot from all other clips as we had to shoot a few times to check what lighting proved to be better and which camera angles worked the best.

After getting over that shoot we moved on to the shoot of playing with pet. Now the actor intended to shoot this scene wasn’t able to give up to mark performance so Iqra then decided to act in the scene. However it was a bit difficult to handle the dog to achieve what we wanted because obviously we couldn’t direct the dog so Fatima had to be camera ready always so that as the dog became calm and looked good enough to shoot. So it took some time and a few takes.

Moving on towards the movie scene, first we all went with Fatima to get popcorns to the nearby supermarket which was quite fun honestly, helped us get our minds refreshed. As we came back home I quickly set up the lights, Iqra helped with placing the right filters and adjusted the camera location. On the other hand Fatima turned Netflix on, on the TV and prepared the props and room accordingly. All we had to do was to sit and laugh at our own jokes and gossips. We girls knew how to act in this shot because this was all too familiar!

After this I started pacing up because I had my arts class, which I really couldn’t miss in any chance. As a whole the shoot went really well with everything well organized

This shoot was meant to reshoot the artist solo performance because the first one wasn’t a successful one. I kept this shoot also at my place because firstly I had great outdoor space to shoot and secondly the equipment was readily available with me needed. From the last shoot we had learnt a lot from the previous shoot and the most important was that indoor lighting wasn’t suitable for the shots we needed and we needed open space in front of the artist so that the dolly in could be possible easily.Fatima’s brother agreed to do the shoot as the artist last minute. Although he was a bit hesitant, especially with Fatima in front but performed well.

Iqra arrived first with the background so I got it ironed and hanged before Fatima came so that we could save time for the preparation of the jacket. As Fatima arrived we quickly started working on the jacket together. This step was a bit time consuming but the jacket turned out to look amazing according to the theme.

The artist himself however wasn’t able to perform and dub as openly as we wanted to show that care-free attitude. We had to take a lot shots again and again to make to achieve the result we wanted. Nevertheless it turned out to be much better than the first shoot we did.

After Fatima went with her brother, I decided to shoot the roses scene with my brother because coincidentally I got fresh roses at home. I got the car parked right outside the house and shot the whole scene on the pavement because it wasn’t really safe to shoot it on a road or even nearby streets due to traffic.

I shot the whole scene myself an directed the actors too so it was one view shoot. Honestly it didn’t require any technical camera movement and was easy to shoot, however I had to make sure that in the shot where match on action was required, the angles were correct.

It was a successful and quick shoot and Iqra helped with taking the bts for me.

This shoot was scheduled to do shoot maximum video clips as possible which were, the 12 AM birthday surprise, finding forgotten money and girl dancing in the mirror, with the availability of the actors and props needed.

Before everyone reached at my place for the shoot, I gathered all the props needed for the shoot including:

• birthday hats
• cake
• candles
• tinsels
• full length mirror
• pastry dish

After collecting all the materials needed, I placed all the equipment, used in the previous shoot as well, a side. Checked the camera memory card and battery before using it and then once checked all the lights as well just incase.

Arooj arrived at my place to discuss the placement of lights and camera angles. She also gave a few suggestions on where, at my place, we can shoot the clips. Iqra and Fatima came a bit late with Ghulam Fatima. Regardless of this, we started as they arrived because everything was ready and we saved time in this way.

For every shot we made our roles accordingly as we divided the roles with each of our strengths and weaknesses.

We started with the indoor shoots which were the dancing and surprise clips. While starting with the dancing shoot, it was really difficult to figure out how to achieve the shots we need including the girl’s reflection and herself both without our own reflection of shooting from behind, but turned out that it was actually quite simple that we just had to shoot from left or right side adjusting ourselves just behind the the girl’s shoulder. It turned out looking very professional in slow-motion with the whole loyal look of the room where we shot the scene Fatima was the director and assistant of the videographer, Iqra was the videographerI  was responsible for lights and Arooj was the directors assistant and helped me with the lights.

Moving on towards the surprise scene, I made the pastry birthday ready and made Arooj wear the hat with me to make the whole surprise more realistic. We wanted to make it look effortless and it turned out be be very lively and gave a personal feel. The problem that we faced was that how to adjust the lighting indoor to give which related to 12 AM but lit the whole place, but soft LED light really did the job. This was shot by Iqra, Fatima was the director and I and Arooj were the actors.

Onwards to the outdoor shoot, that was the finding lost money scene, we chose the place right outside main entrance door in my house and the reason we chose that location because there are few steps before the door and as Fatima steps off them, it gave a very natural look as if she is actually going out. The background colors of the door and window looked very vibrant and the plant shade added up to it. One thing that we discovered while shooting the scene, is that we didn’t need to shoot the scene from different angles, only needed to dolly in or out according to the action. Fatima was the actor in this shot, I was the director, Iqra was the videographer and Arooj assisted me.

Altogether, it was a very well managed shoot and we achieved what we planned. Its was shot all according to the shot list and we honestly completed with 3 hours.

I reached school at around 1pm and Arooj also reached at that time so she helped me with taking the equipment inside the school from the car. I called Iqra as well as I reached school as she already had a class that she got free from. We carried all the shooting stuff to the room where we had planned to shoot.

The room was quite congested due to benches and tables inside but the wall we had planned to use was empty and had a lot was space in front so different camera movements  could easily be done.

First I set all the bags, with the batteries and filters, aside and open the lights and tripod to place according to the spot artist was supposed to stand in. I turned everything on to check if they are working well according to the requirement of the shoot.

As we waited for Fatima to reach with the jacket and hover board, me and Arooj went to find double sided tape and black chart papers from school if possible so that we could cover the windows in the room incase we needed low key lighting for dramatic effect. We did found the tape but not the chart papers so as we returned to the room we both found our stuff lying outside the room and Fatima Iqra rushing around to find the principal because they weren’t allowing us to shoot in the room anymore especially at the time when our artist was on the way. We talked to every possible person in charge to tell them that we got written permission from our principal but they asked for her signatures and we didn’t have them. She wasn’t even in the school so last minute we had to cancel the shoot location and had to figure out another location.

Iqra contributed to have shoot at her place because Fatima and I weren’t getting permission so Iqra and Fatima left with Arooj in her car and I reached a bit later with my equipment because it was such a big responsibility to take such heavy and expensive equipment and and wanted to have the burden to lie on me rather than others.

When I reached they had already set the background inside Iqra’s hallway. Although the location wasn’t planned at all and the location and lighting wasn’t up to the mark. We still had sort things out as quickly as possible so that we had some shoot to work with. Nevertheless we did what we  could to make the shoot fruitful.

This whole shoot didn’t work out the way we wanted but gave us a lot of experience on how things are actually supposed to work in a shoot and how to manage it