Filming: Day 1 - Newcastle Video

Here is a clip of us filming in Newcastle on our first shoot. As you can see, we are trying to get our lighting and position in frame sorted in order to take the shots which we had planned. This was eventually achieved, although the lighting may need to be improved upon by the final cut to prevent having footage too dark and poor quality for what we are aiming for.

Filming: Day 1 - Newcastle

We have now been on our first shoot for our rough cut. We took a few photos while we were out filming to demonstrate how we were positioning our lighting and to show more of the locations that we chose to film in.

Above: Becca checking the camera to make sure that it was positioned and focused correctly, which was essential given that it was an almost 20 minute long time lapse for around 5 seconds worth of footage. However, the final product from this should be worthwhile.

Above: The positioning of the camera was extremely important for this as by placing the tripod at the very centre of the millennium bridge, the image is central and positioned so that both the Sage and the Tyne bridge are visible in the final shot.

Both the images above and below show the camera man's view of filming this shot. the above image was taken as we started filming the sunset and the below image was taken near the end as it got darker.

Our original idea was to have a time lapse of the sun setting. However, the weather wasn't on our side on that day, but we decided to film anyway. We managed to get some good footage of it just getting darker as the lights were getting more visible in the river, the water was moving as were the clouds, traffic was moving and the lights inside The Sage came on which all came together to create a really interesting time lapse shot. 

We then moved on to film some of the shots with our main character when it got dark. On this night he was the only actor available to film but we still managed to get quite a lot of the footage we needed of him on his own. This location worked really well for us because it was really dark and dirty  and the graffiti also really helped to set the scene and create an identity for our main character. The identity that we want to create for him is that he hasn't got his life together and is a bit of a mess.

For our first shoot, we are confident that it went quite well and we are looking forward to filming more with our other actors and band members to create our rough cut.

Filming Locations in Newcastle

We went out as a group and had a walk around the quayside in Newcastle and also the main city centre to find some potential locations to shoot in. 

We found quite a few places as we were walking through town and we took a few pictures along the way as well as writing down the location of each place to ensure that we didn't forget where it was if we decided to go back and film there later.

Here are some of the pictures we took when we did our walk around.

This is one of the bridges that goes over the River Tyne and we thought the pedestrian access part looked really aesthetic and we decided that with the right lighting it could look really good in the dark especially with the view of the river and all of the other bridges when you look over the side.

This was directly under the bridge. We looked at this exact location on Google Maps before we went out and included it in one of our previous location blog posts to ensure that we would recognise it when we got there. We thought that all of the graffiti would be perfect for the dark drug deal scenes in the narrative especially with our lighting along with the lighting that comes from the lampposts.

This was taken from where the boys are standing in the last photo. We thought that using this location again with the graffiti would look really edgy and would therefore help communicate the dark and sinister atmosphere that we are looking to create in our video.

And then this is just below the last picture after going down some stairs and following a path. We thought that if we could get down to the bottom of this pit like area we could get some really interesting shots with the graffiti and all of the stone and dirt in the background. The arch also provides a really nice frame for an establishing shot.

This wasn't far from the last picture. We thought that this staircase could also look quite dark and sinister in the dark with the lampposts and our LED lighting. Its quite dirty and the stairs are very worn and uneven helping communicate the unstable nature of our main character.

This archway was just at the top of the stairs pictured in the last image. We though this could again make quite an interesting shot in the dark if we could get the right lighting, again with a stone archway which provides a really nice shape to the shot.

This was taken from one of the smaller bridges next to the high level bridge shown above. We want to be able to include some shots of the quayside, possibly as some sort of establishing shot maybe using a time lapse to set the scene and tone of the video as we think this could be really effective.

This photo was taken from the Millennium Bridge. We thought it might be quite nice to film our establishing shot from this bridge as you can see the Tyne Bridge in the middle of the shot and we could also possibly include The Sage in the shot as well which would be really nice to set the scene. We have had some thoughts about doing a time lapse from this bridge to start off the video as we think this could be quite effective in setting the scene.

This was a back alleyway near Central Station in Newcastle. We thought that again it looked quite dark and sinister and therefore would be even more so when it got dark to film scenes with Laura and Orrin kissing or causing chaos together to help communicate our destructive storyline.

We think that having this idea of potential locations before we film anything will really help us plan what places we are going to go to first and which clips we are going to film at each location. This will help us save time when we do go out to film as we will already have a good idea of what the plan is.

Narrative Costume Ideas

In terms of the costume which our narrative cast will be wearing, we have decided to have it so that the costume colours and style reflect the part of the narrative being told, this is a technique which has been used primarily in TV shows but I feel that we could really implement this into our video to show different things.

By this, I mean that colour can reflect a range of different moods, and similar to the way in which Vince Gilligan used them in Breaking Bad. This chart below explains in greater detail to what I am referring to as it has different colours represening the different characters in different states. For a music video, we do not need to do anywhere near as many colours for a 4 and a half minute long music video as this. however, the principal still stands.

In terms of the style, the costume could be used to reflect the mental state of the characters with the happier parts of the narrative showing the characters being dressed smarter and cleaner rather than the less positive aspects in the video which should be more scruffy and poorer dressed than other scenes.

Here are some diagrams of clothing for the characters in the narrative which Becca has drawn.

We have come up with a couple of sketches for the two main actors in the narrative sections of the video to show what we hope to create when we start filming.

These sketches give us a rough idea of how we want our characters to look. We have used a lot of black as we said before, to communicate the mood and atmosphere of the situations highlighted in the music video. We feel black clothing is the best way to communicate this in our video because it is all about falling into darkness with the relapse of the drug addiction etc.

We want "her" to also be in black because she is meant to be dark and sinister. She would also probably be wearing red lipstick as a symbol of tempt and seduction etc. This symbolism links in with the theory proposed by Ferdinand de Saussure about the signifier and the signified. The lipstick symbolises the temptation and seductive personality that we want "her" to have. She needs to be tempting in some way otherwise he would probably not be as interested in keeping her in his life by staying on the drugs. The red lipstick wouldn't really make as much sense without this meaning behind it and the meaning without the red lipstick also wouldn't be as effective. Saussure's theory states that the sign or symbol that we see on the screen doesn't make sense without the actual object along with the meaning it creates. We need to ensure that we do this in our video both with specifically the lipstick and also with "her" clothing in general. Doing this should help create the link between the temptation to the female and the drugs in the mind of our audience. 

In terms of our main character, we have thought about him wearing black throughout the video and decided that as the video goes on and he gets on the road to giving up his addiction, his clothing becomes lighter. Going from a completely black wardrobe, to a white top with a bit of black and then a completely white t-shirt by the end which will eventually get covered in "her" lipstick to represent her blood as he kills her which is a metaphor for him getting over his addiction.

We think this will really help us communicate the story and the atmosphere of each scene.

Performance Costume Ideas

In terms of the costume which our performance cast will be wearing, we have decided to make our band members wear smart/casual clothing in order to appear like a band similar in appearance to the genre that you would expect of Fallout Boy. Below are some images of Fallout Boy which we may want to think about when choosing our costume.

 

We have produced a rough sketch of the general idea of costume for our band members but of course, they won't all be the same but we wanted to just show a generic sketch of the style we want to go for.

We have kept it quite simple in the sketch because we want it to be dark to show the emotion and atmosphere of the band and the narrative as well. We will probably have the other members in the band wearing something a little more interesting however we think this would be a really good and simple look for our main singer.

Changes To Our Narrative

With further reflection on our animatic we have decided that the metaphor of the relationship being a drug is not as clear as we want it to be. We have decided that we need to work on hinting that the female lead is a metaphor for drugs throughout so that the reveal at the end creates a moment of revelation and hits with impact.

To help create this moment of impact, we have decided to make a much more sinister end to the narrative. As the main character will be giving up drugs, this involves giving up "her". In order to make this a really interesting and jaw-dropping moment, we have decided that our main character is going to murder "her" as a symbol of him getting rid of her completely. This will be made even more hard hitting with fast paced editing and lots of close ups.
This is a complete contrast to the feminism theory by Andrew Goodwin which states that women's bodies are presented in a voyeuristic manner. In our narrative, our female role is very powerful and has a lot of control over the male up until he kills her. This is directly subverting Goodwin's Feministic theory in music videos and the reason that we have done this is to ensure that our narrative comes across clearly. The female lead needs to be very powerful, not passive otherwise it would be easy for him to get rid of her. She needs to have some sort of hold on him in order for the storyline to work the way we need it to. This does put a really interesting twist on our plotline which we think will be really effective if we do it right.
We can also link this ideology of the powerful female to the theory of Visual Pleasure and the Male Gaze, proposed by Laura Mulvey. This theory states that female characters are often represented as passive objects of male sexual desire. Our female lead is going to be an object of male sexual desire, so in this way we are conforming to this theory. However, our female lead does not have a passive role as stated above. She is very powerful and strong which therefore subverts this theory proposed by Mulvey.

We think that this will make a much more interesting ending and will create more than just an 'ah' moment, something much more sinister will come as more of a shock to the viewer. If we manage to hint very subtly that she isn't real throughout the video, this could be a really interesting ending to the video as the audience will go back and watch it again and see all the clues they missed.

We did a brainstorm about different parts of the narrative and how to create a lot of interesting moments in the video.

Our Actors and Band Members

We have now decided on our actors for the narrative and our band members for the performance for our rough cut. This may be subject to change once we get to the final cut depending on the feedback we get about how well they performed in the video and how well we felt working with them went.

Our band members are:

Lead singer - Alex Booth

Guitarist - Jacob Sherreard

Bassist - James Howlett

Drummer - Jamie Adams

 

 

Our main actors for narrative are:

The main character - Orrin Reah

"The drug" - Laura Meikle

 

 

We have used some people from our own group in order to save ourselves time and effort recruiting actors who may not be able to do what we want them to do or are unreliable. Having people in the group in the video helps because they also know themselves what sort of things we want to achieve and so they can help to execute all of our ideas to the best of their abilities. This also makes it easier in terms of  getting what we feel we need filmed in the way that we want in terms of mise-en-scene, hair etc as well as the positioning of people in frame.

However, in terms of the other people we have chosen to be in our video, we have chosen them for appropriate reasons. Some of them do drama and others play instruments already so these elements all together should hopefully make the quality of acting a lot stronger than picking just anyone. We specifically chose our actors for the narrative as they are already a couple meaning there chemistry will shine through the performance making their acting more believable.