recently we were assigned the immensely tedious task of remaking shot by shot the Britney Spears Oops I Did it Again MV. we watched it through a couple of times and counted the shots. after that i used keepvid to hijack the video from youtub into quicktime and then on into final cut. after every cut in the MV i used the razor blade tool to separate them. this way, when the animatic was drawn i could use the snapping mode to fit the images in exactly in time with the original MV.
the next stage was actually filming - we did this by watching the clip off my laptop and mimicking it as we went along. we had location scouts who found everywhere as similar to the video as possible. then we also had choreographers practicing the dances. as we shot dance sequences or lip-syncing parts we'd often play the track so we could hear it in the edit and sync it all up.
our director was good at telling people what to do and most of the time they did what was said. unfortunately our assistant director couldnt make it that day, so as well as cinematographer i also had to semi take on that role too. being the cinematographer was similar in a way anyway as i had to position actors and props and have locations in the right place at the right time.
it was all hard work though as it was such a hot, humid day + indoors. we got through it though and ploughed through even though the morale was low.
if we did this again i'd suggest we do it earlier in the day and straight away so we dont get exhausted so quickly. also, more time on choreography would be great, especially if scenes involve both lip syncing and dance moves. editing this thing was easy so no problems there really.
people couldve been more cooperative (naming no name(s) beggining with M...) as a lot of the time people were just sitting about chatting - really they couldve even been involved in the acting, or asking if anybody actually doin stuff needed help.
