Aiman's A2 Blog

 During the shooting days, we took pictures on set for the digipak. Here are some of the raw pictures for the digipak. 

The indoor shots earned us some satisfying footage that I would scatter throughout the music video while editing. However, I am not satisfied with how the outdoor footage turned out. The sun had already began to set and the lighting was anything but desirable. Although I tried to work on that by altering the camera settings such as exposure and ISO, but that could only help us so far. I intend to fix this as much as possible while editing using basic functions and colour grading.  Moreover, since it was about evening time, most people were returning home. This was a particular hinderance and we couldn't record the performance shots of Haya walking down the road and lip-syncing.  One more problem that Zuha didn't consider a problem but I did was that the lighting in my room during the bookshelf scene was extremely dissatisfying. It took away from the aesthetic appeal of the song. Moreover, in one of the clips, I noticed that the background in the footage was quite grainy. Howev...

 

 18th January, 2024 It was finally our first day of shooting. Since the apartment was a last minute change of plan, and we had limited time, we decided to only shoot a couple of scenes in my house. One of them was the bookshelf scene. Although the lighting wasn't ideal, it also wasn't easy for us to move my entire bookshelf from my house to apartment just for one short scene. Therefore, both Zuha and I started touring my room to set up the mise-en-scene, and we gathered any and every prop we thought would add positively to the aesthetic appeal of the scene. These props ranged from my 14-year-old toy Garfield, to books, to scented candles and a rose bouquet-shaped lamp.  We also decided to take pictures for the digipak here. I also recorded a short vertical clip that could be used in the promotional social media page, as Instagram reels recorded in vertical format are most successful lately. Here is a short BTS clip:         Then we went upstairs, where...

 Due to undesirable lighting in my house, I decided that we opt for a B&B instead.Since it is my brother's there are no such safety concerns. Moreover, for ensuring further safety of the cast and crew, I could ask my mother to accompany us. Here are some pictures of the place. 

 I had primarily suggested that we record majority of the indoor shots at my house. However, perfectionism kicked in and I wasn't satisfied with the lighting, as it was not as aesthetically pleasing as I desired. Therefore, I decided that I would rent my brother's B&B for a few hours, as it had aesthetic lighting, as well as a spacious balcony with ample sunlight that could land us great footage during golden hour. I asked Zuha if it was okay with her an she agreed.  Moreover, for the outdoor shots, I decided to opt for one of the streets close to my house that cars rarely travelled on to ensure safety. And I also visit an elevated mini field often, and I have observed that it is a very pretty outdoor venue, specially during golden hour.                  

 I designed 3 logo samples using Canva. Zuha helped me by expressing her vision of the logo, and I based the logos on a combination of both our visions. Out of all three, we liked this one the most so we decided to use it as the final logo. 

  We discussed what final props we will be using for our MV. We discussed Haya's outfits and hair and makeup, and we discussed other props that could be symbolic (books, diary, bows, candles etc)