Group meeting: #3

In today's lesson, we came up with the idea to photograph almost every aspect of our filming process, and so we have decided to use before and after shots of our actors/stars. By doing this, we create a personal relationship with the stars and their audience, as the spectators get to see them in a casual way, and can relate to them more specifically.

We did this, and this moment (looking back) was when we first noticed that our original idea wasn't going to work. After trying and trying to get the mise en scene from our first idea to be bigger and bolder, we also realised that we had to admit defeat and change song and idea. The typical boy-meets-girl kind of narrative is not only simple to create but is also a bigger connection with location and mise en scene. This in turn will help us to create a solid and steady music video because we can relate to the narrative situations ourselves.

Idea change.

What was the cause for the original idea change?
We previously chose the song Voodoo Child by the Rogue Trader. After analysing the up to date footage we came to realise the idea was going nowhere and that it would have been more of a struggle to try and build upon it. Reasons for this was that the location (drama studio) was restricted, the mise-en-scene was not coming through and the flow of the narrative was not happening as we pictured it to.

What is the new song choice and idea?
The new song we all agreed on is Sparks Fly by Taylor Swift. We were aware not to choose a popular artist as it would be impossible to measure up to their style but as there is no video for this song we will build it around our chosen genre and style which is edgy punk so it's not similar to Taylor Swift's style who has been described as 'America's sweetheart'. The theme in her songs are based around romance/relationships and she makes this clear through her performances in the narratives for each video such as physical actions, facial expressions and emotions. The idea is the typical boy meets girl narrative but it will be a split screen showing two scenarios of two different couples. Olivia Hartland-Robbins and Josie Crandley will be casted as the female roles. There is not set location, I (May) will be filming the video in various locations such as school, Kingston, Richmond Park, Olivia and Josie's house. 

As a group, we just felt as though nothing was working with our old idea, and we chose the song Sparks Fly, because both Olivia and Josie know the song really well, and have imagined a fitting music video in their minds every time they listen to the song. Again we struggle to find a boy to be in our video, but with the option of filming in the Christmas holidays we can now extend the search. Our current idea is to have a boy with two girlfriends, enjoying both of their company until one of his relationships start to go horribly wrong (the one with Josie) and they start to argue, so eventually he walks out on her and stays with his other girlfriend (played by Olivia). As if the narrative wasn't already incredibly emotional, we decided to add in a plot twist of Josie then falling pregnant, and leaving the video on a cliff hanger.

As Josie and Olivia know the song so well, they have delegated specific lines between them, and have started to make progress with the story boards in such a short space of time. The idea change was sudden and stressful but I think we can pull it off, considering how well we work as a team and our close knowledge of the song. We looked at Taylor Swift's other videos, because we obviously understand that she is a HUGE artist, so we did not want to copy her image or her type cast/stereotype. We have chosen to make one of our girls an edgier character (Josie) and the other a laid back and classy character (Olivia). This helps us to establish a difference between us and Taylor Swift.

Progress...

Today we are importing and uploading the footage we have taken so far!
We have noticed that a lot of improvement needs to be done concerning the type of shots and the acting involved within the performance.
We also need to improve are mise-en-scene as it lacks imaination.

Although we tried to perfect this idea, we just couldn't get it to work. The camera movements lack relation to the narrative and so we decided it would be better to just change our idea and song completely, so the camera angles and shots could be easier to detect and would be more accurate to the theme we are trying to portray.

Band shots

Hajrah

Olivia

    Josie

    Ellen

Day One of Filming: (by olivia)

These are photos from our first day of filming, we took various stills of the band in performance, of our staging and set and the instruments we used.
We faced a couple of problems whilst filming in the beginning, as the studio we needed to use was in use, we had to set up in the smaller room. Though we did manage to get into the bigger room in the end, where we played around with the lights and stage.
Even though we had solved the problem of lights and staging, we thought the back ground was a bit plain and we then found the purple sparkly back drop in the props cupboard, and thought it added dazzle and also was an extra prop in our party scene.

fashion inspiration

Our fashion inspiration strives from many different celebrities. A few a chose to focus on include: Ashely Greene, Jessica Stroup and Amelia-Lily. These celebrities are all famous for different reasons and each individualise their clothing choices.

Permissions

We sent Sony BMG an email asking for their permission to use The Rogue Traders song Voodoo Child. This is our copyright post.