Fashion for our music video

 I this lesson Chuffy and Layla were looking at set design and how eveything would fit together. Meanwhile, Sarah and I looked at fashion in the video. I found photos of different vintage 60's clothes to stay with our 60's photoshoot theme. Here I printed out all the photos i found and then annotated what i liked in them and what we wanted to include in our video. Here are the annotations and photos;

Overall i really like the striped, dark, smokey eye look. I think it makes girls look very sexy and mysterious, and it would suit Emma very well so I think we should definatly use this in our music video. Both Sarah and I really liked the "short socks" look with heels. It adds a cute look to the fashion. Fur jackets are definatly a must in the video. We want it to look vintage/60s/old school and old fur jackets would fit perfectly here. They show elegance and wealth which would work with the glamorous photoshoot we are trying to portray.

Casting Extras

We decided it would be vital to have extras working around our video so our photoshoots would look like real sets. We wanted most of them to be boys as we want Emma to be very flirty. It would also help her stand out as she is the only girl, getting all the attention. The boys will be moving sets, wolf whistling etc and she will be dancing for them, teasing them etc.
Here are some of the boys we found would suit the part;

Maxim Baldry

We like the look of Maxim as we want to have a classic good-looking boy, tall, brown hair, and tanned skin. He is the type of boy that girls would want to impress and girls would want his attention. He's quite young so he could easily get tempted by a pretty girl dancing etc. He is also an actor so he has experience of direction and wouldn't shy in front of the camera.

Maxim is our top boy but here are more photos we found of boys we feel fit a similar description to that of Maxim. We have spoken to them and they are all confident enough to take part. As they are in AS year they are allowed to be in more music videos. That is why we have left the AS casting to later, beacuse it was not as urgent as the A2 cast who are only allowed to be in one video.

Names in Order of appearance;
Maxim Baldry
Archie Clarke
Hendrik Speelmans
Jack Flammiger
Oliver Scott
Theodore Bhat
Toby Baring
Will Van Der Woude
Greg Fellows
Gil Hogarth

Me and Chuffy wrote them all an email asking if they would be willing to participate in our music video. We asked them to keep in mind that we have asked first, just incase anyone else wants them. Luckily they are allowed to do more than one so this shouldnt be a problem.

We sent out an email to all of these boys asking whether they would be willing to participatein our video. The objective of the email was to make it appeal to the boys. We wanted to make it sound fun and excited and an oppertunity they shouldnt miss. We also had to include flattery to make them feel wanted. Here is the email;

Props List

As Chuffy and Layla work on the storyboard and Sarah does costumes, I have organised the Props list and thought about what we might need. We have to send off a finished props list to the designers so we have the best possible chance of getting what we need for our music video. Upon listing what we need I have figuered out that this may turn into quite a high budget production as we need cetrain things to look like sets, but theyre are a lot of extras needed in order to keep the set interesting. Emma will also need a lot of little things on set to play around with to keep the music video interesting.
Props List
gramaphone
table of sweets and cupcakes etc
camera
photography lights
light reflectors
dressing table and mirror
lights on the mirror
lots of make up kits/brushes/glitter/lipstick etc
feather boas
1 clothes rack + clothes (including tights shoes etc)
jewellry (like pearls) hanging from the mirror
1 screen for her to get ready in front of (White Cotton)
Backlight
Small round tables x4 (+chairs to go with tables)
Cafe till
Flowers and vase's
wine glasses + alcohol bottles
Juke box (if possible

A lot of these things we would have to supply ourself but we, as a group, have found things to donate or ways we could get them. For example, we can borrow the photography stuff from the photography department, a clothes rack from the drama department. We have found someone we can borrow make up sets and brushes from. We will have to work together to find all of the things on the prop list.

 

 

More storyboard planning

In the lesson we looked at the Dior advert and worte down all the locations, and everything the girl in it did. We then thought about what we wanted Emma to do and how we would fit our locations into the theme of the video. We have to decide everything we want her to do before we shoot the video. This is because the last thing we want is the video to be boring, and that is our biggest threat. As we have quite a simple idea, it could easily get dull to watch and people would not want to watch it again. So as a group, we went through and brainstormed what we would make Emma do throughout this music video to keep in interesting.

 

StoryBoard discussion

Today in our lesson we decided that the cafe/bar set might be too difficult to show the audience that it is an actual set. We decided we want 2 photoshoot scenes and the cafe will be a porper set as one of the photoshoots. A key factor is that we want the video to look like a behind the scenes of a photoshoot. This means that all of the places HAVE to actually look like a set, instead of real. This means we must do all of the filming in the studio and not on a real location. This makes things more complicated as we will have to get all the filming done by 3 as thats all the time we have in the studio. All the set changes will need to be very efficiant and we will have to know exactly what we want them to look like and how we want to place things. I think we should make a role sheet of how and what time everything needs to be done so we can be organised and just move quickly from one scene to the next. As we are having 2 proper sets we need to ensure that we cast boys working on set and girls or decided how many extras we need just to make it look like a proper photoshoot. Here is a video displaying the kind of feel we want, it shows exactly the "behind the scenes" look we are trying to create.




I have been thinking about extras we will need for this shoot due to this change and here is what we will need in order of importance;

1) Photographer
               Comes with photography lights, and camera etc
2) Make up artist
               A table with make up, brushes etc
3) Workmen
               To move the sets around carrying tables etc (possibly around 6 to help the busy look)
4) Assistant for the model
                Walking around with a clipboard

Timeline

In our group meeting we had to make a timeline for our music video to set a clearer picture of what will happen throughtout this video. This helped us see if there was either too much going on or not enough. We decided there would be 3 different sets. And we would use tracking shots through the walls too move from one set to the next like in this video The only Exeption by Paramore;

Our sets were decided as a dressing room, a photoshoot and a cafe/bar. This means she can interact with people in these different places so the video doesnt get boring as just her. The timeline shows when we want animation, what she will do in the different parts of the song, and when she will move throughout the song. Here is our timeline;

final choice of song

We finally decided on Anti-Love Song by Stereo Total. After looking around the web for every french, cheeky, bridget bardoux-esq song we came across this one. It is by the same artist as the origional advert and the only thing that we have to accomodate for is that its a little bit more "sexy" rather than "cute". The girl we have chosen can fit this theme perfectly though so it isnt really a problem.

Sets

So far we have 3 enitial ideas for set;

1)Dressing room

 

The dressing room has to look;
-girly
-pretty
-happy
-expensive and glamorous looking
-must look like a set (to keep the fairytale theme)

set 2) Cafe/bar
we want a cafe/bar so the main girl can interact with other people eg. flirt, dance etc. This must also look cute, and glamorous to fit in with the theme of the song and video.
Set 3)a photoshoot. We want the girl to be messing around on a photoshoot, so its like we are filming from backstage. People can be doing her make up, working on set etc and she will be teasing the boys on set, and playing around with props etc.

 

 

 

Finding the girl

We had 4 girls in mind to make the main for our music video, and decided the earlier we find the cast the better, as otherwise another group could have secured the girl we wanted first, and for our video, the girl was crucial. We decided to do a screen test of the 4 girls to see how they would act in front of the camera. To get a better idea of what we were doing i researched screen tests amd saw how they were carried out etc.

we emailed the girls the link to the inspiration advert and the song we were using and asked them to come to the studio for a screen test, which they all agreed to, although one girl watched emma do the screen test and decided she didnt want to do it anymore so this made us realise the screen tests HAD to be private, so no one else would get scared and pull out. At least we learnt from that experience.We started out letting them listen to the track and then they had to do 3 poses of how they thought the girl should be portrayed in the video, we were looking for fun, sexy and confident mostly;

Leah Chapman;

Emma Hodgson

Anne Sophie Van Der Wouden

Here are the 3 poses the models chose when they heard the song. This depicts how they would portray the girl and what they think they should be like. They all are quite fun and playful and flirty which shows the song has a definate theme to it. They all did very well and it was a hard choice to make.
After this we brought certain props for them to work with like a jacket, chair, nail polish etc and a sheet with a backlight. They had to use these props as they chose and incorporate them into their movement to the music. Looking back we had a few problems with the screen test as we didnt have the music because of a mis-communication so we should have prepared that earlier to ensure a smooth run of the screen test. We also probably should have prepared more props and all had a clear view of what we wanted as at time we could be vague at directing the girls. Overall I think it went very well and we found the perfect girl for our music video; Emma Hodgson.