Production Schedule

We created the production schedule so that we can inform our cast members when they need to be around to in our video. two of the elements are being filmed in the studio, so we allocated 2 hours for each section so that we can ensure we can shoot all the shots which are on the shot list for each of the set. As the set for the second element doesn't require much of a set change we thought that it would be a quick change over for each of the sequences. The only change between the first and second sets that we are filming is the lighting and makeup, but we don't think that this will take that long. if we run over when filming in the studio, it doesn't make that much of a difference as if we have set to be in the woods for 2.00 PM, it doesn't matter if the lighting begins to darken outside as a misty sort of lighting is what we are going for.

Call Sheet

We had to collect information for contacts for everyone in our production group and the cast members we are using for our music video shoot.

Lyrics for the song - The Big Unknown : Elder Island

The Big Unknown

Take it always slowly piece by piece

You got this funny idea that youll eventually release

Naming can be costly itll never be discreet

You hold it in your dreams because its easy to believe



Beastly, peel the layers back see me/feel you right on track



Fancy enough feel feel you caught around your sleeve

feel you caught up inbetween feel shes to good to be seen

Chance it for a nice you feel it something uncomplete

Close your eyes towards the seas, while all unravel at the seams



And if the tricks dont fool enough its only us its only rough

we didnt sink enough we didnt sing enough



And if the pools not smooth its strong we'll float along

never minding that both of the oars are gone

We didnt sink enough 



Switch and row

Even with 8 hands i cant bear this pull alone 

This sinking feeling inside is to heavy a low

its to heavy a high its to heavy a low



And if the tricks dont fool enough its only us its only rough

we didnt sink enough we didnt sing enough



And if the pools not smooth its strong we'll float along

never minding that both of the oars are gone

Even with 8 hands i cant bear this pull alone 

This sinking feeling inside is to heavy a low

We didnt sink enough 

Smoke Machines

Me and my group decided that to make the woods and water set link more we should use the euphoric kind of theme. As the woods them was quite simple and naturalistic, we though that by using smoke machines would give the slow moving pace that the water scene has.

We also think that the look of the smoke will make the set more interesting looking as it will complement the movement of the fabric of the dress.

Below are some images of the effect that we think that the smoke will have in the woods.

Costume (Male)

For the males costume we wanted to go for a very simple look so it doesn't take away or clash with the females costume.

We wanted him to wear a white t-shirt but as we will be filming in November this may be too cold, so we will use a long sleeve white top underneath. He will also wear black straight leg jeans, and either black boots or black converses.

 

Makeup for 3rd Element

We want a glow rather than bright UV. To have a contrast to the first two elements without being too out of the blue. We need to work with the makeup artist so we can get the right colours. We want to use peacocky kind of colours, so dark blues, greens and purples to give the effect of exaggerated water colours, and use lighting effects to bring out the colours.

We want the hots in this sequence to be more submerged within the organza so more close up shots and more fabric surrounding her. 

Altering Costume Idea

We have decided than rather having long strips of random fabric, we are just going to use organza as we wanted for the dress to look more chic, as we have taken our main inspiration from the Kate Moss, Alexander McQueen hologram.

These are obviously by a designer so we will not be able to get the same effect but we want to try our best to get the right effect that this fabric is giving. 

Makeup (FEMALE)

For the female makeup we want to keep it really natural. We will use a light eyebrow pencil just to define her eyebrows and not make them striking.


We don't want her to have heavy makeup on her face so we will use tinted moisturiser to give her face a glow, then translucent powder so her skin doesn't shine too much in the lighting. We will then use light contouring to give her face some definition and bring out her cheekbones and natural angles of her face to make it more interesting.


We will use light brown eye shadows so her eye makeup isn't so striking and goes with the natural themes. We will use a very fine liquid eyeliner line so slightly define her eyes and little mascara as we don't want her makeup to look heavy at all.

Makeup (MALE)

As we didn't get our first choice male character we are going to have to use hair, makeup and costume to get the right effect with him. We decided that his look by itself isn't very edgy but his hair is quite long so we can work with the when it comes to styling it. We are going to use white dusty makeup on him to give him more a euphoric look to complement the female characters look and not to contrast too much.

We could then use light dusty eye shadows to create more of a neutral not so striking look as he has brown hair and dark eyes so the makeup will die it down a bit. 

Confirmed Actors

FEMALE - Esme Chapman - she was our first choice actress which is good that we have her as she is the main character so the most important to have the right look.

MALE - Angel Sanderson - was our second choice which isn't ideal as the look of our first choice is what we mainly based our ideas of the male character to be like, but we are going to use hair, makeup and costume to try and work with what we have.

Polydor Records talk - Video Comissioners

We had two video commissioners from Polydor records come in to give us an insight into the real music industry and what their roles are within it. Polydor is a conglomerate of Universal.

Their roles - Emily and Helen are video commissioners and they are the main person between artist label directors. They are given a brief about what the artist wants and then oversee the whole process of what happens after that point. They are then given a rough date for the release or when they would like to aim to get the video out by and when the artist will be available to shoot so the can prepare a schedule for shooting. They need to initially make sure that everyone who is involved is on the exact same page so everything can run smoothly over the process. They need to ensure that the artist is able to input their creative ideas as well as combining those ideas with the crew. They need to organise cast lists and storyboards etc.

Content - The content of the videos ideas initially come from the artist as they are the creators of the track and need to run ideas past them about specific meanings of the song and what they don’t want in their videos. The artist tells them the kind of message they want to put across to their audience. The creative process after this is largely collaborative between the creative crew and the artist but the artist usually has the final say.

Directors - The video commissioners then write a brief and send it to range of different directors. The artist usually knows exactly what look they are looking for, but sometimes they show them al the directors ideas and then decide between them which director they want. The more open the brief, the better. If the brief is too specific, then the directors may not be seeing exactly what they are in their minds. When it comes to choosing the director, most of them are signed to production companies but sometimes they have no representation. The production company will support the director and help with treatments and references. More than an expected, they use less experienced directors, as they tend to be less rigid.

Budgets - The budget of the music video is given to them depending on record sales and popularity, for example on social media. Most music video budgets range from 5k – 100k. The music video they talked about with us was a recent one they had made which was from a “Years and Years” song 'King'. They said that the budget for that was around 20k – 40k.

They mentioned that about a week before they shoot they are given storyboards. It’s usually a 2-3 day shoots. A week to edit, then the first cut is delivered and then they can discuss any changes that need to be made. It is usually a 6 week process to the final product.

Marketing - Most of the videos at Polydor go through Vevo to push up the view count and raise the awareness of the product. Most of the commercial artists go through Vevo because that’s where most of the money is made. The press departments at Polydor are the ones who decide where it is best suitable to market their product to make sure it is reaching the targeted audience.

Censorship - They need to sometimes make two final cuts of the video due to censorship issues, because they may not be able to show certain things on TV for example. They mentioned that if the video were to contain censored information then the target audience probably wouldn’t watch it on TV so this isn’t a massive issue. They also said that they usually try and push the boundaries with these kind of things to see what they can get away with.

Animatic Story Board (final cut)

This is our edited and synced version of our Animatic Story Board for our music video.

Animatic Story Board (process)

We drew out each frame of each different shot to make up our story board we then piece them together in a sequence of the order we thought would be most fitting for the shots, taking into consideration the angles, movements and the sets. We then filmed each frame of our story board for about ten seconds per shot. We then loaded them onto Adobe Premiere. We then learnt how to edit and sync the different frames to the song. We put the frames onto the timeline without the audio as we already put the track down onto the timeline. What I found that helped with getting the right beat with the cut was using the "M" tool which marked specific points on the timeline. SO we could go through the track very slowly to find the exact point of the beat by using the arrow keys and then mark the point on the timeline where that beat that we wanted was. We then dragged the frames which we wanted onto the timeline and then it was easier to cut them as we already had the markers where we wanted them to be.

Lighting Designer Meeting

The lighting designer went through our ideas with us and give us more of an indication into the logistics of our ideas and how it will work on the shooting day when we have to sort out lighting within each set.

Water element - He said that he thought that the water element would work well with the right lightings and that is would give a good effect which is what we wanted. He said that we will need to use different variations of blue lighting with hints of white light to be directed from above and then some darker toned blues to be lit from below to give the illusion of depth. He said that we should go with having a white light from above to create the effect of sunlight, he also gave us the idea that we should use a gobo which is like a stencil that goes over the light source to give a desired pattern, which we will use to make it look like the refraction of light on the surface as it goes through the water.

For examples of the water effect given by the gobo, we would like an effect that looks quite like the images below.

Woods - the lighting designer said we didn't really need very complex lighting for the woods as it is a pure theme and we will actually be filming in a natural environment so we don't need many effects. He said that we should need red-heads and blondies to give a more professional look to the setting and have a little more control over the set. When we get to the set and know what the weather is we can adapt our lighting around that as if it is sunny we can use that to our advantage and use the sunlight through the trees to give the ambient lighting but we can improvise more if we don't have that light on the day. 

Contrasting - for the contrasting element as we didn't want o have a completely UV and out of the blue theme, we will just increase the UV light among other lighting in the studio set to give more intense blues and bring more attention to the white in the dress. The kind of effect of the intense blue lighting will be like the image below. We hope to create more of a glow rather than a completely contrasting image.  

Set Designer Meeting

We had a meeting with a set designer and artistic director for our music video. We pitched her our idea of the three different elements. She said that the idea of the water with the dress would work really well. She said it reminded her of The Alexander McQueen exhibition with he Kate Moss hologram. By watching this it showed us that we don't need to over complicate the idea and if we focus mainly on making the dress artistic and visually very interesting it may not get boring having that as a longer aspect of the video.



She suggested that the UV theme would be too contrasting and out of the blue and wouldn't flow fittingly with the other elements. We agreed and took on this feedback to think of other suggestions of how to progress through the video without losing interest.

As it showed different lighting effects we thought this would be a good way to incorporate our contrasting 3rd element by using different lighting effects to gradually convert the pure interpretation of the white dress to by the end having it darker and using more intense variation of the blues and intense lighting.

We researched into the materials used for the Alexander McQueen dress and it is mainly made up from organza so along with the other fabrics we have decided on, we are going to use this fabric as it is shown in the video that it will create the effect we want.

Rehearsals for the Woods Scene

In this rehearsal we did with more of a realistic image for the set than we had in the water sequence rehearsal.
 We used our first choice female actress for the rehearsal to see what she specifically looked like in the sequence and how she interpreted the brief that we gave her for the dancing.
We like how the characters that we used in the rehearsal moved around in the space given. It made us realise that we need to have a variety of interesting camera angles to make the shot sequence more interesting and that the dress will make more of an impression on the set. We liked the effect that the sunlight had going through the trees in this rehearsal and would like to use this glare element in our filming.

Rehearsals for the Water Scene

We used Zell in our group to rehearsed the kind of movement we would like in the water sequence. We used a black background which we will be using on the actual set but we could not include all the water effects, so this it what it would look like when actually filming. We filmed in slow motion because that is what we will be filming in to create the water effect as a combination with the wind in the hair and the dress.
We couldn't film with the dress in the rehearsal as we have not made it yet, but this will make the shots more interesting than they seem here as that will be the main aspect of the set to focus on when filming,a s they will be the sole focus of the movement  and the shots will be based around the dress.
The rehearsal process allowed us to see what we need to consider in more depth when planning for our filming. We realised that we are going to have to create more of a structured choreography to give as a brief for the actors as the interpretative dancing from them may be different to what we actually want it to look like. We will tell them that they need to be quite slow and mainly focus on the movement of their arms as their legs and body will be covered by the dress. we will tell the to move their arms with the kind of movements of the fabric on the dress.
By doing a rehearsal it also allowed us the we should not just focus on the long shot, as its in slow motion it could get quite boring just showing the full figure, we need to think of more interesting camera angles and movements to give the impression of the dress.

Location + Set Design (WOODS)

For the woods sequence we will need fishing wire to suspend the fabrics of the dress to different parts of the trees. We want the female character to be submerged in the woods by linking her into the forest, this will give the impression that she is innocent which will then be slowly contrasted when the different UV elements make their way in.
We will be shooting in the Peaslake Woods as the branches are closely together and the will room for her to weave the dress and herself through the trees.

Issues we will need to consider - 

• getting the correct lighting - however we do want a naturally lit set but we also need to make sure we have the adapters to give power to the lights we will be using aswell. 
• weather - we cannot control if the weather will be raining, if it is I would still like to film but, for health and safety reasons we may not bellowed to as the female may get ill from being wet and also we will have technical issue with the lighting. If it is cold it wont really matter as we are going to be using more fabric on wrapped round the dress in this sequence anyways. 

Location + Set Design (WATER)

For the water sequence we need a plain set as the dress is the main aspect of the set. We will be filming this section in the studio. We need blue lighting as a small hint to the water theme but will be using different filters later on in post-production to give the effect more subtly. We will need fans to be able to make the dress flow well.

This is the kind of effect we want the set to have. 

we also want a few spot lights above her to give the effect of sunlight piercing the surface of the water. 

We will also use fishing wire to suspend the dress so we can have more control of the movement of it. 

We sketched a plan of what we would like the set to look like. 

Casting - Choices (MALE CHARACTER)

1st Choice - Alfie Barton - long hair, lanky, natural edgy look

2nd Choice - Angel Sanderson - tall, mid length hair,

Casting - Choices (FEMALE CHARACTER)

1st Choice - Esme Chapman - petite, has an edgy look, naturally pretty, big eyes

2nd Choice - Anjuli Vadera - long hair, naturally pretty, tall

Casting - Auditions (MALE CHARACTER)

We also created a sign up sheet for the boys who were willing to take part in our music video.

Alex Lesnevsky

Alfie Barton

Angel Sanderson

Callum Henderson

Gabriel Jackson

Ivan Gorbechev

Jake Lee

Max Boast

Casting - Auditions (FEMALE CHARACTER)

We created a sign up sheet for the female characters for people who were willing to be in the music video.

Anjuli Vedera

 Anna Farish

Charlotte Agace

 Esme Chapman

 Grace Quigley

Lottie Ledger

 Luella Carr

 Phoebe Belli

 Romany Henry

 Sasha Minyalio