Casting Information

George Watkins

When it came to picking actors we had to think more about availability of that person than the quality of the actor given the short time period we would have to film with it getting dark very early meaning we had a small window of opportunity to film.

Our music video has 2 main characters, a boy and a girl, then we needed around 8 or 9 other people to take part in the house party scene. For the main character of the woman I had 2 different options who were both fitting for the role however one girl’s availability wasn’t as good as the others who goes to the same school as us which would make things a lot easier so the female we went for in the end was Molly Collier.

Picking a main character male was a lot harder than finding a female due to a lot of the options we had in mind or friends who could help us out being busy during the time we wanted to film with hobbies and jobs getting in the way so in the end as a group we decided that using a group members brother would be the best for us as we could guarantee their availability and they agreed to be in the video so in the end we picked Tom Watkins for the role of the male.

For the members at the party this will be the easiest casting we will have to do as they will not necessarily have to act or sing just do what they would usually be doing at a party so we shall gather a few school friends together, a rough split of boys and girls to help us create the scene of a party. 

Draft Shotlist

George Watkins






http://www.slideshare.net/gwatkins6/rough-shotlist-for-music-video

Audition Information

We didn’t have a massive auditioning process when looking for people to be in our music video due to the lack of availability of a lot of people we could’ve had in our music video as we needed people who were similar ages to us 18/19 year olds. In our music video we needed over 10 people which include;

-          Man (main character)

-          Woman (main character)

-          Waiter (pub)

-          10 people for party scene

For the main character woman we knew someone who fit the bill perfectly as she is into performing arts and music so we could guarantee she would play a good part in the video, especially as we had seen her act in school performances before. As for the waiter at the pub we decided to pick someone who worked there that we knew as we think they would suit the role as they would know what to do in this role as they would do the exact same thing when they were working.

When looking for male character options were limited so we didn’t really have an auditioning for the male main character we just had to go with what was available.

We also didn’t feel the need to audition the people who were taking part in the party scene as there was a large number of them and the role is relatively easy therefore we did not feel the need to put these characters through an auditioning process.

Lighting Notes

George Watkins

The lighting within our music video will of course change due to the nature of the locations we are filming for example our first scene involves some naturalistic lighting of the sun shining through the curtains in the bedroom backed up by what you can see in the shot is supposed to give of a morning/ early afternoon type feel to the timing of the first scene. As the music video progresses we will have some more naturalistic lighting but this time the shot will actually be outside as the man (lead singer) is walking from his to the bar.

As previously mentioned we are going to be having a house party scene in our music video which brings in high key lighting/ strobe lighting as we may have a lot of bright lights in the dark room and set the scene up to look a bit like a disco. These examples of lighting will be used throughout the music video however in one scene you may not be able to identify the type of lighting as we wish to add in some black and white flashbacks purely down to the fact that we can make these flashbacks with a black and white tint as black and white are some of the main colours associated with Indie/ Pop , for example the song that we are doing for this coursework  task which is 'A Change of Heart' by The 1975 has a music video filmed entirely in black and white so we have used that video for inspiration in a way when thinking about how we are going to film our music video.

 

Ideas For Magazine Advertisement

George's Magazine Advert;

This is my idea for the first magazine advert I am making for the artist I am inspiring to and referring to throughout this blog, this band is ‘The 1975’. After looking at several different magazine adverts and looking into the genre of Indie/Pop I came up with a final idea I then had to make on the computer.

Some of the features I added include the bold title of the band and the song name which is rather simple and stands out very well on the dark background, the information text telling you that the song is out now, our record label, ITunes logo so customers know where to get the song and 5 star ratings from 2 different newspaper companies which are all features I have taken from examples online and used them to good effect for myself.  

Some of the key factors I considered to make the advert look fitting for the genre was to make it black and white as these are common colours associated with indie/pop for example the song we are re-creating ‘A Change of Heart’ is filmed entirely in black and white therefore I wanted this to be the main feature of the advert, as well as this I also needed an image for the base of the advert which I could revert to black and white. The image I used was one I took myself whilst on a visit in Finland which I particularly like and also feel it could be used on my magazine advert as some magazine adverts and digipaks of the Indie/Pop genre I looked at have empty but nice looking landscapes or nature related landscapes on them hence my decision to use this image. 

Billy Parker

This is my original idea for a magazine advert. I have chosen to use the rectangle which is iconic of The 1975 because I know that they have built an image around this rectangle design and I want to make our magazine advert recognisable to my target market. I have used simplistic fonts because it fits in with my research on indie magazine adverts as well as it fits in with The 1975's adverts. I chose to put the name of the artist on it's own at the top of the page because typically in the indie genre the bands are trying to gain exposure and so putting the name of the band at the top in order to try to catch the attention of consumers. I also have chosen to use a black background with white font because not only does it fit with the indie genre and the artist themselves, but it also links with some concepts of the song 'A Change of Heart' with there being conflicting themes throughout the song. On my magazine advert I have also chosen to not use any social media platforms as I believe it will cramp up the bottom of the page and it will mean that the simplistic and professional look will be lost. I also chose to use reviews on the magazine advert to try to sell the artist and single.

The image I have selected is of the character in the music video. I have chosen to do this contrary to the typical magazine adverts in the indie genre because I want our magazine advert to link with our video and digipak, and basically our whole music video is about the character. The photo I believe has significance to our video for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is a visual which you actually see in the video so people will be able to instantly relate the two. Secondly, the photo has a lot of significance to the character in our video. For example, there is a large amount of black taking up the screen which could connote how the character is in a dark stage in his life. There is only 3 forms of light, whcih are the lamp post, the speed limit sign, and the character's white shirt. I believe that there is a large amount of significance in this photo. we see the sign is in between the light and the character, which could have connotations of how there is danger in the character's life and how in order to get to nicer times in the character's life he will have to face the troubles. The character is facing away from both the light and the sign, which could represent how the character is trying to ignore the troubles in his life. The white of the character's shirt may be representative of how at heart the character is trying to do well and he is trying to do the right thing. White also connotes innocence, which could further represent how the character is young and isn't ready for the rest of the world which could be represented by all of the darkness in the photo.

Ideas For Digipak

George Watkins -

This is my first idea for a digipak, I have used the same image on this digipak as I have on one of my magazine adverts however this one is in colour unlike the magazine advert so there is a slight difference, the picture of the sunset will be on the inside of the 6 faced digipak so when you open it up you can see this image and the CD which will have the same image on it which it covers up on the background image, my reasoning for chosing this image was to keep a running theme between my digipak and magazine advert to give the album I'm promoting a similar look on a media platform. As for the 3 faces that are covered with black and white smoke these will be the front, 1 inside cover and back face once the digipak is folded together, I decided to pick black and white as these are colours associated with our genre of choice and it also makes the title stand out as well as all the other writing on it, as for the smoke I used this as its plain and simple so it makes whatever is on it stand out. The bottom left face which will be the first inside cover before you fold the whole thing out to see the sunset image is our record logo ‘25 records’ to show the institution linked with the marketing and the production of the music video. 


Billy Parker

I have chosen this as my digipak idea for a number of reasons. mainly, the colour pink is significant because of the feminine turn that the band's second album took.

Animatic Storyboard

Location Scouting

George Watkins

In our music video we used a number of locations, the locations we used are as follows;

-          2 different houses (Including rooms such as a bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, living room and hallway.

-          Pub (Car park and pub garden)

-          Country roads (For driving scenes)

When it came to finding to houses to film, any house would do the trick but we decided to use the group member’s houses as we wouldn’t be reliant on anyone else to be able to film in these locations and it is important we have 2 different house representing the boy and the girl’s houses seen in our music video. In the girls house the rooms that are seen are her living room for the scene of the party and also a scene where the girl is chilling on the sofa and then receives a text. A bathroom for both the boy and the girl to look at themselves in the mirror to sort their appearance out after a rough night. Her kitchen for when the boy and the girl first begin to talk at the party. And finally the girls (or any) bedroom for when the boy and girl are seen together the morning after the party.

The second house is the man’s house where you don’t see as much of it as the girl’s house, all you see in the man’s house is the bathroom where the boy gets ready to go to the party and also an exterior shot of the man walking into his house after returning home from the pub.

Another location that we used momentarily was some country roads we used for the driving scene, the reason we used quiet country roads was because they weren’t too far from our houses, quiet and also had very plain naturalistic backgrounds so the main focus would be on the car and the boy driving the car.

Another one of our main locations we use for our music video is a local pub which we use for the scene of the pub car park and the car pulling into the pub, this pub is very close to the location of the country roads, the pub is called the Rose and Crown. The reason we chose this pub is because the roads outside of the pub are quiet making the film production easier and also it had an empty car park which we also needed for filming. The second pub we used was also another local location the Angel which we use for the scene in the pub garden where the man and women meet before their argument begins as the girl finds out the boy has a girlfriend of which he has cheated on with her.

Props Information

Billy Parker

List of props used:

• Alarm clock

Originally we planned to use a real clock where you can see the values of the time clearly and easily, however we decided to change and use the digital alarm clock to show the use of technology to represent the age of the characters. 

• mobile phone (broken)

For our film we planned on just using two random phones however the actress in our work had a phone with a broken screen which we thought would fit nicely in our work and so she allowed us to use it, which also lead to some more links with lyrics and visuals in our work.

• mobile phone (working) 

We made sure to use an iPhone for the male character as opposed to other phones because this shows how the character is sociable as well as is interested in using the most recent technologies. 

• Bottles of wine and beer 

We used a lot of wine bottles in the party scenes as well as beers, which we thought would be suitable for a number of reasons. The idea of a party and drinking alcohol usually is associated with slightly older demographics than our characters (our characters are 17, commonly the ages expected would be 22/25) and so we thought about ways to show that our characters aren't actually allowed to purchase alcohol by using their parents', again showing their low age and immaturity 

• Plastic cups

We chose plastic cups as they are common and expected at house parties. 

• Menus

We used actual menus from The Angel pub because we thought it would be the best way for us to have professional looking menus rather than creating them ourselves. The features on the menus are not significant to us anyway so it was just a matter of what would look better.  

• Car 

The car we have used is an old Ford Fiesta, which is because this was the car that our actor was insured on and the car had to be seen driving on roads so it was our only option. I also believe it looks good and realistic that the character would be driving a car like this and so it doesn't seem out of place and it is quite a common car for the age demographic so the car represents the low age of the characters. 

• Hair brush and aftershave

We chose to use a hairbrush and aftershave in the later scene because not only does it show the male is getting ready to go out again but it also shows he is at his own house and so the audience can see that he is in a different location than he was earlier in the video. 

Costumes Information

George Watkins

As the narrative of our music video is very life like we will not being going for any extravagant costumes for the actors in the video, in fact we have gone for a very plain look. The actors we wish to have consist of a man character who is a male that is seen singing a lot of the song in the video and also a female which is a partner of this male that will be seen several times and also some extra people who will be seen at a party and also in a bar where one of our scenes is filmed.

The costume we have decided to go for which our main singer will wear is a mix of black and white colours that we have taken as inspiration from the band The 1975 as their lead singer often wears black and white clothing as these colours are commonly associated with the Indie/ Pop genre.

For the rest of our characters we have concluded that they will be wearing clothes that you may see being worn by teenagers of 17/18 year old's at a house party so for instance dresses and jeans and a similar dress code we hope in the bar however we may not be able to determine the dress code in this location as much due it being an open to the public location.

We have considered about changing the lead singers costume during the music video as this does commonly happen in music videos so we have decided that perhaps he could be wearing something different at the start of the music video to what he is wearing come the end of the music video to relate our music video to many others such as the attached music video below where you can see that the lead singers (Will.i.am) costume differs throughout the course of the music video. 

Photographic Storyboard

Billy Parker

Filming and Editing Schedule

Our group set a target of 4 weeks starting from the 24^th of October to the end of November to create 3 rough cuts of our video and be given feedback on them and make improvements if need to, the make these rough cuts we would need to film 114 different shots and edit them together and then collaborate the visuals with the song that we are using for this task.

To save time we are roughly editing our clips from home using IPads and IPhones and also recording the videos on our phones as we believe they are better quality than the cameras available and also one positive we have of editing at home is that we are making better use of time as we are not waiting to edit during school time as we can do it from home.

To be more productive with our timing we have decided to set out our filming schedule so we film all shots in one location before moving onto the next just in case we miss out any shots from that location or things start to become confusing and time consuming as we may have to film in multiple locations in one day. We use several different locations in our music video and multiple different naturalistic lightings, we do not have a preference on which order we will film our music videos however we will order it in terms of what’s available to us on that day.

Lighting also comes into play with our schedule as it gets dark very quickly leaving us little time to film using the ideal lighting we want so we have tried to schedule our filming so that we film all shots when its dark in one location or a close by location at the same time and all shots at dusk at the same time and so on.  

Draft Storyboard

Billy Parker

Inspiration From Other Media

Billy Parker

For our work I would like to get a few references in the video from other media texts, specifically other The 1975 music videos. This is because the fact that the band also do the same thing in their videos constantly hinting towards their older videos and work. First of all, I feel like the first piece of inspiration will be the existing music video for ‘A Change of Heart’. We will be taking inspiration of the male female relationship with the focus on the male and how he seems to mess everything up which is a plot line we will also be using.

 Another example I believe I would like to reference their music video ‘Robbers’ and take it as inspiration because the video is extremely interesting and it depicts a relationship which seems to be a prequel to the song ‘A Change of Heart’ which is the song we are doing. I will want to use some of their techniques of showing arguments between characters without sound through uses of shot-reverse-shots and reaction shots. This also features a lot of flashbacks and foreshadowing which is something we would like to take inspiration from and use in our work.

I also want to take inspiration from ‘Somebody else’ by The 1975 with the twist ending because I personally find it curious and interesting which is something else we would like to incorporate.




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