Planning Sessions

For several lessons we continued to plan for our music video project, and analysed various messages and morals which the lyrics could portray. We worked together as a group around a table to discuss narrative and performance ideas as well as camera angles and shot type ideas. We made three mind maps- First Ideas, Narrative and Camera Shot Ideas, all of which are displayed throughout this post. As the group discussed our ideas Andrew wrote down everything that was mentioned, no matter how achievable so that later on in the process we can narrow down certain ideas. It also allows us to incorporate everyone’s ideas, ensuring equal input from each member in the team.

Initial Ideas

After we had chosen our track, we had an initial brainstorm of ideas in a form of a mind map which were our first thoughts on the track as a group. We discussed the themes, our own individual ideas and our interpretations of the plot. To start with we came up with certain themes like isolation, anger, trapped, vulnerability, secrecy and mystery. We then had plot ideas such as a broken relationship, fear/phobia of love, mental abuse and mistreatment. With the lyrics ‘Not Made’ and ‘Not Designed’ in my head I mentioned using a mannequin as symbol for her boyfriend or the model boyfriend that the artist sings to, wants and imagines- hoping for the perfect boyfriend and model relationship. The word model links to the fact that that is what a mannequin is. Shots could include her laying next to it singing to it. The group thought this was a great idea however Sophie, who we will be playing the artist will have to overcome her fear of mannequins to do this section. Furthermore, we discussed using the drama room for the mannequin shots- this will give a darker more mysterious setting and feel to the video which links well to the rock genre aspects of the song. (Click on the mind maps below to bring up a larger, clear version)

Narrative and Shot Ideas

We then worked on ideas for the narrative and plot of the video because we thought as a group that it was vital for music videos to flow and contain a visual story throughout, not only to give it a structure but to also to engage the audience and make them interested in what the character is singing about. This is where we all liked the idea of including pre-song material- something we found from our research that is used in many videos before the music starts to establish the story and create a cinematic feel. We thought that we could display the location of where the girl lives to create a sense of depth and believability around her for the audience and then show her arguing with her boyfriend to establish the narrative of the song. With close ups of items that have been messed up in the room during the argument before the boyfriend leaves and the song starts.

We then developed the mannequin idea discussed previously, involving the character wanting to design her perfect boyfriend, because there were faults with her current one. Therefore in addition to the mannequin shots we intend to include a section set in an empty shop with her singing around the clothes and mannequins and acting amongst them. We acknowledged that this would require detailed and specific planning and organisation to try and contact a shop to see if they were willing to open their shop for an hour after closing hours for our use. We then discussed having a section in the song where she picks up clothes tags, which would have negative traits of her boyfriend on as she picks them up, these could include coward, bastard, violent. We thought this would link well to the idea we had in our first planning session about her designing her own boyfriend, linking to the words ‘made’ and ‘designed’ from the song.

When further developing the mannequin ideas, we came up with including the other members of our group, who could have black whole body suits on, pretending to be mannequins and choreograph a routine where the singer moves between us, pushing parts of our body around to the music as if she were designing our posture and shape. This again links to the line ‘I’m not designed for this’ and would portray how the girl wants to design her own life. This idea comes from wanting to include a choreographed routine to enhance the performance aspect that is typical in female artist videos and to make our video different and more ambitious to what others have done before.

We also had the idea of the singer/ character in the video having two different sides to her like a split personality. One side would be innocent, naive, vulnerable and upset about her boyfriend (which would hopefully gain sympathy from audience) and the other side would be confident, sexy, angry, violent and destructive due to her experience with her boyfriend. This idea links to the different sections within the song- the verses are much slower and emotional that fit the innocent side whereas the chorus is much faster and aggressive and so suits the sexy, confident and aggressive side. Moreover, this would show different layers to the character and hopefully make the video more interesting. This idea would help us mimic the style of female artist videos who have various images and wear different costumes throughout the video.

We then discussed wanting to incorporate something being broken or smashed in this video to show her frustration and link to the more rocky sound and upbeat tone as the story reaches a climax at the end of the song and video. However we all understood that this would be a difficult effect to film and then edit a lot to enhance it. It could also be quite dangerous however we will make sure to act sensibly and professionally if we do decide to use this idea. We also discussed the idea of including mirror shots in our music video because it is an interesting angle and it will portray the singer’s normality . We could also show her split personality as we can edit the shots so she looks at herself in the mirror seeing her normal side and then she changes to her other whilst still looking in the mirror.

Camera Shot/Angle/ Movement Ideas

The group decided from the start that we wanted to ensure that our video really does look and feel like an authentic and realistic music video. The way to do this is to make sure during filming we film each sequence from a range of different shot types and angles so in editing we can keep cutting between them to avoid long takes. Therefore with fast cutting between multiple angles the style of a music video will effectively be created (Pete Fraser). From watching previous year's work this had been where people had gone wrong- too many of them had long shots because they did not have enough angles to cut between, this made their work seem more like a short film with music or a trailer. We also decided that Sophie would actually sing while filming so when it comes to putting the track over her, it will actually look like she is singing rather than bad miming.

• We had the idea of a zoom/ establishing shot to begin the music video, to reflect the audience starting to look into the character's life and getting closer to her. I suggested filming outside looking onto a window in which the girl and boy are argueing inside to further create this feeling.
• We had ideas about putting Sophie as the singer in front of the green screen and filming her singing the whoe song. Then in editing we can create a grey/white background for these singing shots with microphone and microphone stand (that creates another convention of a music video in which the artist actually performs the song), and select sections which we feel singing is crucial. This also gives us a back up if one of our other scenes or narrative ideas fails, therefore we can fill the time with the singing sections.
• We also discussed ways of using the screen more creatively, by having paint, blood or ink dripping behind her in certain parts of the song as she gets more aggressive"or angry within the song. Obviously this would be difficult to achieve however at this atage we are just getting down all the ideas we can and perhaps can adapt or simplify some of the more ambitious ideas at a later stage.
• We also had a very optimistic idea of having fire behind her while she is singing towards the end of the song. That is if we could edit it well enough for it to look realistic, appearing to be engulfing her. This would represent her frustration and anger towards her boyfriend/partner or issue she has to deal with.