Golden hour

I needed a "look" to my film, and so have decided to give it the Golden Hour look. I chose this because the tone of the song and the plot reflect imperfection and ends on a depressing note. I thought the soft oranges would create a reminiscent effect - in a similar way to the sepia "old film" look, but a lesser version of this. This gives the viewer the idea that the the video is about the past - which in the narrative, it is. The ending of the film is also a soft, sad ending more than a cold dark one, and so I feel the colours fit.

I thought briefly about filming during twilight, but that would not work due to most cameras being unable to take in enough light at that time, and so creating bad quality footage. Therefore, I decided to do what I did with one of my test videos for the light effect, and use special effects to make it look like twilight - although at the time I did not think I would use the effect again. To test this briefly, I used Photoshop (very similar to After Effects and Premier) to artificially change the look. I feel it was fairly successful and fast, and I learnt some things about how to shoot footage to later edit.

Don't shoot when the sun is strong and out - overcast weather is easier to work with, and strong prevents shadows appearing which would show the effect to be false. It also prevents strong reflections which would ruin the effect.

Shooting during twilight is inadvisable, but shooting late in the day means shadows are longer, which is vital. It can also give a slight orange glow as the natural effect is just starting - this is very much worth doing.

Interestingly, even though the nature of the effect is to reduce contrast, my effect looks far more realistic and professional with high contrast.

The colourful clouds seen during that time cannot be easily faked, especially in video, so I will have to ignore this - it does not always happen, and depends on conditions, but it is a shame to miss out on it. I will try to cut down on sky shots due to this.