Making Of 'Anyone But Him'

I was on Mr Hudson's website and came across this video of the making of the album version of the track and thought I would post it



It's really interesting to see how Mr Hudson developed the track, and to see it's development from it's initial stage, to the album version, and then of course to the Radio One version that we're using.

- Mel -

Photos from our shoot

The Shoot

Our shoot went fairly well, but after watching the footage back, we realised that we needed to re-shoot quite a lot and get some more shots. Both our actors turned up and were well prepared with their lip synching. We planned the day focusing mainly on our main artist who was with us from 8 in the morning until 6 in the evening (10 hours). We tried to get all the shots that we needed for him, however when we watched the footage back, we realised that there were a few problems with some shots and we thought we needed more close-up shots of him. Our next actor arrived at 4 and was with us for two hours. We had only planned to do the shots of the two of them together in this time, however when we were left with spare time at the end, we decided to do some unplanned shots of our second artist in an outside location. Therefore the shoot was successful; however we need to look back over the footage in detail to decide what shots we need to shoot again and what extra shots we can get.

-Tanya, for the group-

Our Main Actor

Our main artist is played by Daniel Erman. We decided to use him as he has the right look for the artist that we want. He also has experience in acting and singing (as well as dancing) so will be able to play the part and take direction from us well. We tested him on camera and think that he looks right for the part.

Other Actor...

Our featuring artist is going to be played by Bernard Sindano. He has the perfect look and attitude for the featuring artist, and has had experience rapping in the past, so will be able portray the part well. We have tested him on camera and think that he has the right attitude for the artist.

Setups...

Our setups for Sunday are as follows:
- White room – against the wall
- White room - by the window (camera by the door)
- White room – camera on the mezzanine level
- White room – on the stairs
- White room – camera on the floor – actor in the corner next to the window
- Stairs leading up to studio – at the top and bottom
- Hallway leading up to room – Track

-Mel, for the group -

Possible New Ideas:

CONFLICT between both artists could be shown visually. Miss had the idea of putting in a violent moment maybe at the end or we could show clips throughout. This could be like a uncomplicated and small choreographed fight, eg. both fall back against a wall. This could be done in slow-mo then have a choppy moment where we have quick shots of things like feet, eyes etc..
Or at the end we could just end with Bernard invading Daniel’s space in this plain white room, we could have a face off and then they resolve their problems, or they could face off and then Daniel leaves, deciding that he can’t forgive him and won’t stoop to his level and fight. I thought we could introduce Bernard into the room by having a foot shot of Daniel and then some more feet enter the shot (which would be Bernard’s) and then we cut to a medium shot as we can’t really have a long shot due to quite a bit of height difference between the boys.

SHOT TYPES: lots of jump cuts, eg. a wide high angle shots of Daniel appearing all alone and deserted in this bare white room, then cut to close-ups to really show his emotion.

CONCEPT or NARRATIVE? – we have to make a decision about whether we want to include some narrative or base it on concept as we need some progression in the video.

CONCEPT – making a statement about society and human relationships, eg. rich and poor (shown through location, costume etc.)

NARRATIVE IDEAS: The boys as young kids when they were best friends.
A girl – lots of close-ups and beauty shots of her looking all nice, feminine and floaty - in a nice dress. Also lots of close-up shots of things like her hair, head, hands, feet etc. Then there could also be shots of her with the boys, acting all flirty, maybe dancing around them, the boy singing to her. Possibly shots of her kissing both guys to really get the story across to the audience.
Daniel looking at a photo of him with his ex-girlfriend and best friend, showing all three of them together and happy, whilst the main artist (Daniel) was going out with the girl. This could be done in his bedroom or we could just do it in the white room when he's sitting on the floor.
Flashbacks – use dissolves

TECHNICAL: Structured and controlled camera work for most of it to achieve that high gloss, professional feel, but this can at the same time be contrasted to slightly hand-held camera movement to emphasise emotional moments.
Focus settings on camera lenses can be adjusted for close-up shots such as of the feet, where if you concentrate on something like the shoe laces and the rest stays out of focus. Also you can put the artist in the foreground in focus, with the background out of focus.

- Tanya -