Our cast trying on costumes

Seeing as we were buying costumes for our cast as well as asking them to bring in costumes, we wanted our cast to try on all three costumes changes to see what they look like, and to see if we need to get anything else to improve the outfits. Our first outfit is the 'barbie' looking outfits which are long dresses which we will accessorise with pearls and other pink jewellery. Our second outfit is their dresses but they are altered/ wrecked to make them look more edgy and less princess like to show the band breaking out of stereotypes. Our third and final costume is their 'own clothes,' which shows what the band look like in real life/ their aesthetic to show them being themselves having successfully broken away from gender stereotypes. Here are the outfits:

(order of girls from left to right: Cat, Gi, Connie, Lottie)

Costume 1:

Costume 2:

Costume 3:

Overall I was pretty happy with the costumes and how they turned out, however there are a few things I am going to consider altering/ adding:

1. Lottie (our lead) is going to have the same dresses as the other girls, the dress just hasn't come yet however it is in a different shade of pink.

2. In Lottie's second costume, we need to figure out possible ways to alter her outfit to further the 'edgy,' look. Her dress will be destroyed, however, I also want to add more accessories, and Adrianna our art director is going to think of hairstyles to do on her for each look.

3. For Connie (our guitarists) second costume, I also want to further her look by ripping her dress to make it shorter and possible adding a fishnet top underneath her dress and gloves to make it more individual. I will also see if she can wear ripped tights in her second costume.

4. For Cat (our bassist) I also want to improve her second look. I am going to cut a slit in her dress and safety pin it. As well as this, she can wear a choker, and a belt. 

5. I will change the jacket Cat is wearing in her third outfit to a leather jacket. 

All girls will wear doc martins/ boots in costume 2 and 3 and Lottie will be wearing heels in costume 3. The shoes before hand do not matter too much, because you cannot see what they are wearing on their feet due to the length of the dress.

Buying costumes

After looking on amazon for our dresses, we found one company who sold different shades of pink and the dresses can be altered to be two different styles as well. If we were to get these dresses, our group agreed on buying two each, one that we destroy, and one that we have previously destroyed to save time. Here is the possible dress:

pink dresses

From the website multiple of the dresses are listed for prime delivery, meaning they would come the next day, however this is not the case for all sizes, so we would have to get the sizes of our cast before purchasing them which we can do next. Here are some images for the dresses we like most:

We may also decide to put various accessories on these dresses, like flowers, or bows and sequins. As you can see we can change the straps of the pink dresses to either cross or not cross across the chest.

Spread ability

Spread ability is a theory created by Henry Jenkins in which he states, "If it doesn't spread, its dead." This essentially means that if a media text isn't easily sharable, it will not be popular/ won't become 'viral.' He says there are two ways in which a video can be spreadable. One is through technology. If you make something available to share on multiple platforms for example YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter etc... It will spread more easily than traditional media text, for example print, because you can send the media text to friends and family. A second way he says something can become viral is if the video aligns with someone's taste, values, agenda, opinions and sense of humour. 

One example of a video gone viral is this one:

This video shows a kid putting a pumpkin on his head, which is quite sweet and humorous. It aligns with people's values of children being young and innocent, and childhood being something that should be cherished, hence why people may like and comment on the video.

This second video is of a dog hitting its owner, which is very humorous. This is once again one of the ways a video is likely to go viral.

We can use these platforms and interests to help spread our content more effectively and in turn will create more exposure for our band.

Lighting presentation

For our meeting with our lighting designer, my group had to make a lighting presentation which is explaining what we want the lighting to look like for each set. This is important so we can communicate our ideas clearly to our lighting designer, here is our presentation:

 

Advanced editing workshop

Clapper board is on an iPad in our case, and tells you the time in milliseconds as which the film is running. It helps you know they time frame so u must use it in every shot. When using the clapperboard to sync the shots and music it is called picture syncing. However, when you use sound to sync the shots and music e.g using a drum beat, it is called sound syncing. 

It is helpful to label your shots and to group the same type of shots together for example videos of the bassist, as the labels help make the shots distinguishable. It also helps to organise your timeline so you can save time trying to find the footage you are looking for. You may want to organise videos like performance clips for example which are shots of the band performing, not nonlinear sequences. All performance cuts should be dragged to the beginning.

When cutting, it is highly important that you listen to the music and cut to it don’t just put in random non-linear/ performance if there is a guitar riff for example. When cutting to music at the very beginning, it is really important that when the singer starts singing, the camera must film the lead’s face when they are singing the first line. This is so we can establish who is singing, as they will most likely be the main focus of the whole campaign, and this music video is advertising them to contribute towards their star image. With regards to the other artists in our band it is important to also film group shots. This is so that the audience can establish that our lead is just singing, not also playing an instrument and to show the audience who is who.

It is key to cut with movement to make the song flow smoother and so it isn’t disjointed, as well as incorporating lots of nonlinear sequences next to the performance, so the music video does not get repetitive and boring and to also show the ‘personality,’ of the band members outside of performing. It is also key to leave colouring till last, so the footage is clean and edited, meaning no time will be wasted colouring unnecessary footage. Another way time can be wasted is by making a ‘rough cut,’ of the video. This is because we may feel rushed to make a finished product which means our editing may be sloppy, or not as good quality as it could be. 

It is important when we do spend time on editing that we only focus on making ten seconds at a time to our best ability and then move on, so that we do not get hung up on small details and waste time. Similarly, editing sessions should only be one hour at a time so we do not get tired of editing and the quality is not as good much like other tips mentioned previously. Finally, it is important to not show anyone the edit until it is finished, as their opinion may influence our own view of our music video, which may lead to changes that actual worsen the video.

call sheet

We constructed a call sheet for all of our cast and crews so we can contact them if they do not turn up on time on the shoot day as social medias like snap chat will not be as effective as a phone call for example. I have blacked out everyone's email and phone number for privacy.

shooting schedule

My group created a shooting schedule for our day of filming on the 10th of November after half term. It is a table of timings throughout the day where we will be doing certain parts of the shoot. For example doing hair and make up, breaking for lunch, shooting non linear footage in a certain back drop and which people we will need for these specific tasks. We made this because, it means that on the day we will be organised and know what we are doing, so we do not lose any valuable time when shooting. Here is our schedule:

Confirming our back up cast

Seeing as Covid is unfortunately still a factor that plays into our music videos this year, it is important that we have a back up cast in case something happens to one of our cast members the day before meaning they are unable to perform. We chose one person for each back up role.

We have already spoken to a few of our back up cast choices and we will speak to the rest to let them know they are a possible choice for our video and if they are willing to be a reserve.

rehearsal test shoot reflection

Reflecting on our test shoot, I believe we were able to get a lot done, from seeing how the band can be arranged in more interesting ways than just generic stances, for example incorporating levels, like Cat standing on a chair. Similarly, we were able to try out some non sync stuff which we may want to put in our video. We were limited slightly, because a lot of our non linear stuff is to do with wrecking objects, which cannot be achieved easily in a test shoot because this would cost money. However we got the cast to rip up some tissue instead to see how that would look, which seemed to work well. 

We also asked everyone to bring in some clothing which we could possibly use in our final shoot. This was important, because it links in with the star image of the band, and how they collectively look together in costume.

rehearsal test shoot

We did our test shoot on Wednesday and in it we managed to  do all we had planned beforehand. We added videos of Lottie stepping on the camera, Connie and Cat pretending to hit their instruments on something and the band switching instruments. Lottie also brought in a potential costume to wear. 

Rehersal test shoot plan

We messaged our band on our WhatsApp group chat to organise a day where they could come in and we could try out some shots and sequences which we may want to use in our sequence. We booked the armadillo room for activities as we knew this would be the time where people were most available, we also booked it for the Monday back as Wednesday would not be possible because two of our members would be on a school trip.

Our plan was to:

1. Film the band in their 'rock' outfits in a wide shot. 

2. Film close ups of each member in their outfits.

3. Film them ripping up paper to see how the destruction might look.

4. Film them interacting with each other both with and without instruments.

We wanted to do these things because; if they have clothing which we could include in our video, it will be cheaper. Also we wanted to see what the destroying of objects will look like, and how it will hopefully look interesting, and finally to see the chemistry between each band member and see if we could including their interaction in any of the final video.

development

For our development of our concept each group member decided to focus on a different task. Because Adrianna and Bashy are better at art, they collaborated in drawing the set design whilst I focused on the timeline. Georgie helped brainstorm ideas for what we could include in our timeline. We needed to focus primarily on ways to incorporate non linear sequences to fit into our video as well as our performance that wasn't just breaking things. Therefore Georgie and I made a list of around 20 non linear ideas, around 10 being breaking stuff and another 10 being interacting in the room with each other and messing around. 

As well as finding alternative narratives to not trashing the room, we also had to find realistic ways to break stuff without it being to pricey, this is because we are meeting with aa set designer next week, and they need to know what stuff they can lend us and then return without it being unreturnable. Also the set design that Adrianna and Bashy are working on are similarly important to show the set designer as they can grasp what kind of aesthetic we want our set to be. 

We achieved all of these targets and produced the following:

1. a timeline with nonlinear sequences

2. Set designs for each set and a visual prop list

costume ideas

My group brainstormed some possible ideas for costumes and Adrianna drew them out. We know that we wanted pink dresses which are prom like dresses however not actual prom dresses because that would be too expensive, we wanted a ripped version of these dresses, and a final outfit of them in their 'normal,' outfits. Here are the sketches:

Moving forward, we need to meet with our cast to talk about possible items of clothing they can bring in to match the aesthetic we are going for. We will also need to look online for affordable long pink dresses which will arrive fairly quickly, which I think can be achieved if we look on amazon.

Timeline

Seeing as Adrianna and Bashy are quite good at drawing, they both worked on the majority of the set design, so I decided to do the timeline. First my group drew out a basic timeline in which the chorus, verse, bridge and any key moments occurred and at what time specifically they occurred for example 1:35. 

I used this timeline as a basic guide when doing a more detailed one. Me and Georgie both came up with ten moments we could put into our music video, mine being how to trash the set, and hers being what we could do outside of trashing the set. From there I organised these ideas into destroying set, performance + positioning and inserts of activities the band could do that don't involve destroying the set. I then listened to the song and divided up the categories with the majority of the destruction happening halfway to the end of the song. And Most of the inserts being near the beginning. I divided up the performance fairly evenly throughout the song. 

It is important we do a timeline, as it is crucial in physically organising our ideas as a group so we can see them more collectively and also so when our group moves onto the storyboard we are able to know more precisely which shots we need to draw and at which point in the song.

Storyboard

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