Casting: Confirming The Shoot Date With The Cast

Casting: Confirming The Shoot Date With The Cast

Thankfully, all the performers responded to my email stating that they were all available for the new shoot date.

Casting: Contacting Our Cast About The Shoot Date Alteration

Casting: Contacting Our Cast About The Shoot Date Alteration

Although as a production group, the change of date didn't really effect us, the availability of our cast was a potential problem. I sent out an email to all of them asking to confirm that they can make our new shoot date whilst also asking their costume sizes.

Change In Shooting Date

Change In Shooting Date

Our shot date was originally the 22nd of November but because myself and Eden as well as all 6 girls in our cast, are in the school musical and aren't allowed to miss the rehearsals on that date, we've been moved the the 24th. This change was easy for us but we were concerned that some cast members may not be available.

Rehearsals: Feedback

Rehearsals: Feedback

After having the first rehearsal with Eden and the dancers, we showed our teacher and Eddie the footage showing the basic structure of what I'd choreographed so far. I wanted to make sure that we were all on the same page with the style of dance as well as hacing a foundation to use in terms of planning out the shots that we wanted to get.

Rehearsals: Dancers In Second Element

Rehearsals: Dancers In Second Element

Today, Eden and I scheduled a rehearsal for the five dancers in the second element. This was different from the choreography from the auditions so it was important to try and get as much done as possible in the time we had. Unfortunately, one our dancers, Alice couldn't make it so as well as choreographing the dance, I filled in to allow the other dancers to get a hold of what it should feel like. It also helped me see if the choreography flowed well from a dancers perspective. The rehearsal on the whole went very well getting the majority of that section choreographed and filmed so that they could all practise or refresh themselves as well as for Alice to learn.

Afterwards, we took the opportunity to talk to them about all the costume they'd need to bring on the day as well as how the day will work overall as most of them hadn't been in any music videos before. We wanted to make sure they knew exactly what was going to happen as well as what was expected of them. 

Below is a compilation of shots Eden filmed during the rehearsals with annotations describing the process. Fundamentally whir we did was work shop some of the choreography I'd made, seeing if it suited them, how we'd position them and how this would effect the framing.

Storyboarding: Final Shot List

Storyboarding: Final Shot List

After meeting with our set designers again, we decided that we will film our elements in reverse (so 3, 2, 1) because our set for element 3 is the most complicated so will need the most amount of time. From this, I have devised a clear shot list that includes all the basic shots that we want to get on the day. It will help us on the day to have this list to ensure that we have everything we need. There may well be other shots that we do on the day but these are the ones that we deemed vital. 

Storyboard: Animatic Storyboard

Storyboard: Animatic Storyboard

When creating a storyboard for a film, the process usually ends when all the shots have been arranged in the order or a similar order to how you see the final edit looking. In the music industry, it is taken a step further and brought to life through the process of creating an animatic storyboard. Below is a link to the animatic that Eddie edited together: 

Storyboarding: Example of Animatic Storyboards

Storyboarding: Example of Animatic Storyboards

In the industry, the storyboarding process is taken a step further creative what's called an 'aromatic storyboard. This involves taking the sketches from the storyboard and editing them together along with the song. Below are some examples:

Although we won't have as many sketches to cut between as concisely as the examples, it was good to view others to get an idea of what we can achieve.

Talk With Industry Professional, Phil Tidy

Talk With Industry Professional, Phil Tidy

In today's class, we had a talk about the industry from Phil Tidy, who has produced undirected hundreds of music videos and commercials as well as owning his own production company named 'Squire' and co-curated 'BUG' at the BFI.

He began by talking to us about how the music industry is worth about £4 billion to the UK every year with around 150K people working in some way. He elaborated on how he feels that through the proliferation of hardware and content, video and film were becoming easier and cheaper to make nowadays with something as simple as an iPhone and iMovie. The progression of technology as laid the foundations for a huge group of people who are making very low budget but high quality material and have a growing audience supporting them. Although for our music video, we are fortunate enough to have a vast amount of impressive equipment, in the industry, certainly when you first start creating music videos, commercials or films, you are often given an incredibly small budget but it's how you stretch that money and use what you have around you, that really matters. He said, 'it's far more interesting to see people finding creative ways to conquer or flip a problem on it's back and use it to their advantage than to simply avoid it and find some other way around the issue that usually involves spending a lot more money'.

He then went on to talk about music videos specifically and how he sees them more as commercials for music. When he first started creating music videos, the process would happen almost entirely without the contribution of the artists until the filming whereas nowadays, the artist/band have huge contribution over certain decisions, especially as consumers will build a star image based on what they see in the video. From his experience, he said that the artists/bands that he’s worked with either has loads of productive ideas and views on the outcome of the video whilst others have been very stubborn and hard to negotiate with. The artist/band are the product so they have to be presented in a way that their target audience will want to consume.

Phil described music videos as being a portal to other creativity and unique experiences. Music videos allow 'so much freedom of creativity’, they are demanding and require you to be ‘multidisciplinary’, or certainly learn how to be and how these two things are why creating music videos are such a good way of getting into the industry. They allow you to show off your unique creativity in a ‘suitably ridiculous’ way and teaches you so much about the industry which will later make you more appealing to production companies as you can show they a developed show real and hopefully gain you access to bigger projects.

He then went on to talk about the basic structure of the production process of a music video i.e. getting a brief (a description of what the record label and artist want from the video), developing your own treatment based on the budget, then writing up the contract and also seemingly obvious yet neglected steps such as planning out expenses for travel and other catered needs.

His process when developing an idea for a video is to come up with the performance element which is largely influenced by the artist and record label, then a narrative that will allow you to cut all your elements together and create a basic structure for the edit. Finally, he introduces a concept or some animation that will add some quirkiness to the video that would help create the star image and yet again tie all the elements together.

He concluded with a quote by Michael Anderson who said that ‘music videos came along in the early 80s and unblocked a constipated film industry and were a creative playground of experimentation and fun making ground for talent.’

Costume: Final Decision For The Artist

Costume: Final Decision For The Artist

Once we'd seen Yasmin in all the possible costumes, it was time to make a decision on what costumes we were going to use.

For the first element, we were pretty certain before we saw the costumes that we'd be happy with it. We very debating whether to have a red dress or playsuit but in the end, we thought about current fashion trends that our target audience would find appealing as well as using the red and black colour scheme.

For the second element we had two choices:

This decision was slightly harder. We liked that the second option was off the shoulder which was a quality that we had planned from quite early on; however, the first option is slightly more figure enhancing which would add to the sex appeal for our secondary target audience. 

Before making the final choice, I remembered that in the photo shoot that we did in order to develop her social media, she was wearing a strapples top meaning that on any of the really close up shots, she looked like she wasn't wearing anything. As our genre is Indie Pop, a convention that we need to adhere to is the use of close ups therefore, the second playsuit would present problems as we think it would be inappropriate to suggest that she's not wearing anything. 

For the third element our main decision was between the cropped tops that she'd wear under the coloured mesh top:

This decision was a lot easier for us to make because it was such a subtle difference. The mesh top will be reflecting red, blue and purple so we didn't want anything else in the costume to distract from this. Therefore, we went for the first option as it's more minimalistic as the second one has a lace pattern.

Here are our final choices:

Element 1                               Element 2                                   Element3 

Costume: Seeing our Artist In Costume

Costume: Seeing our Artist In Costume

Now that we’ve finished researching into various costumes as well as finding out our performers sizes and organising the purchase of the costumes, it is important to see Yasmin in her costumes before the shoot. It is better for us to do this sooner rather than later so that if there are any issues, we can make the necessary alterations. 

We had a few options for certain elements so we also needed to choose what costumes we'd use in each element based on what we think looks better, what appeals to the conventions of the genre most as well as taking into consideration our performers opinion. Below are photos of Yasmin in her costumes:

       Element 1                                                  Element 2

       Element 2                                                  Element 3

Element 3

Costume: Seeing our Dancers in Costumes

Costume: Seeing our Dancers in Costumes

On the day of our shoot, costume won't be something we have time to worry about. In order to make sure that everything fit the performers and the look that we want, I asked the dancers to meet me and show me the costumes that I asked them to bring as well as elements that we were providing.

Firstly we looked at the costume of element 2 which will consist of back and side light so the costume will have to accentuate the shapes they make.

For the third element, I provided some denim 'mom' jeans for Chrissy whilst Eden provided the black mesh top. Daisy, on the other hand, had these elements of the costume herself, however, we still wanted to see them in costume to make sure they look similar enough, that everything fits and that it fits the style we're going for.

Costume: Dancers Sizes

Costume: Dancers Sizes

We need to start ordering our costumes so it's important that we know what sizes we have to get and/or if the dancers already have elements of the costume. I messaged all the dancers to try and get this information.

Costume: Ideas For The Dancer’s Hair

Costume: Ideas For The Dancer’s Hair

Initially we were thinking that we would style the dancer's hair differently depending on the element with the girls in the first and third element having high, slick ponytails and the dancers in the second element would have neet buns. However, when reconsidering this with the costume and the camerwork, we desided that with the lighting, there may be some moments where we could exploit the dancers long hair within the choreography. We don't want their hair down because we like the slick look but we want some length.

Therefore we decided to have the dancers in high ponytails for the duration of the video. This also contrasts to the artist making her appear more bold and glamourous. 

Costume: Ideas For The Dancer’s Makeup

Costume: Ideas For The Dancer’s Makeup

We don't want the dancer's makeup to be too eccentric pulling the focus from the artist however, we did make precise descisions. With the lighting that we're going to have, there's a possibility that their features would become washed out so we will use foundation as well as contour to sustain a realistic yet non washed out look. The contour will help with the colour but also define their bone structure. Their eye makeup would be dark similar to the artist but not as harsh

Costume: Developed Ideas For Dancers

Costume: Developed Ideas For Dancers

After our second meeting with our set designers and developing the costume ideas for the artist, we thought that some changes to the dancers costumes where necessary. So for the first element, we considering having the dancers in grey rather than black because the black would end up merging with the black of the walls making them even harder to see with the back lights.

In the meeting, our teacher and designers brought up their concerns with using all black costumes and/or dance attire because in previous videos it's looked naff. However, with our second element we don't think that any other colour other than black would give us the desired effect. Although they won't be in typical leotards and tights, we were then concerned that they might not like us using the dance shorts and sports bras. After justifying why we think that black would look best in terms of giving a slick look and also by contrasting the first element, our teacher and designers agreed that our second element could be an exception because black would be suitable.

Costume: Ideas For The Artist's Makeup

Costume: Ideas For The Artist's Makeup

Our ideas for the artist's makeup in the first and second element haven't changed much as we want it to reflect the dark and mysterious atmosphere created by the lighting. Her eyes would be quite dark with a smokey eye including eyeliner, relatively harsh contour to extenuate her bone structure like her cheek bones and jaw line and black lipstick for the first element and red for the second. 

For the third element, we would want the eyes and lips to be lighter but nothing else would really change. We would also like to have some gutter around her cheekbones and eyes to give a festival/indie theme that will appeal to our target audience.

Costume: Ideas For The Artist's Hair

Costume: Ideas For The Artist's Hair

Similarly to our treatment, we still want the artist to have c=slicked back hair in the first two elements making it look sophisticated with a 'wet look’.

However, for our third element we it will be down, potentially with some of it braided to avoid it covering her face, but the majority will be down so that Yasmin can use it. She has long and thick hair so she'll definitely be able to do what Eden and I like to call 'hair-ography'.

Costume: Developed Ideas For The Artist

Costume: Developed Ideas For The Artist

After conducting more research into similar artists, I began to reconsider the initial decisions we had made to do with our costume for the artist in our video. From the 4 artists I looked into (Tove Lo, Lana Del Rey, Maggie Rogers and Lykke Li), I found that a lot of their costumes where very casual and appealed to their target audience. Any costumes that were used that weren't so 'casual' were rather glamorous allowing for two sides of the artist to be seen within the video. 

This got me thinking as to whether the costume decisions that we'd made would actually be effective in terms of attracting our audience. I presented this query to my group and we can to an agreement that the costumes didn't vary enough within our video any way as well as not engaging the viewers. We agreed that we still liked the idea of the artist wearing a jumpsuit in the first two elements but not necessarily a dress because it seems too glamorous. 

For our third element, we were thinking that if we're trying to go for a more urban looking location/set, then surely the costume change should appeal to that. Therefore, for the third element, we want the artist to wear denim mom jeans with a colourful top and potentially a denim jacket to have an urban, double denim look.