Prop List

For this video along with costumes we will also need props to create the right look and the right action, the things we will need are as follows:

• Camera (always handy)
  


• Tripod - enables us to film steady fluid shots, with the added advantage of creating a smooth panning effect.
  


• Pictures of Male and Female characters together so the female character can cry over them and some really nice messy extreme close-ups can be utilised
  


• Red Coat for the female connoting passion/blood and romance. By wearing just black shoes and tights underneath we keep the red coat standing out also a great connotation of the mourning colour of black underneath the coat brings the theme back to death again.
  


• Fake but real looking gun to use as a method of suicide. Guns also create and ora of danger and desperation mingled with the sense of modern life which is just what we are looking for.
  

Update: The photographs are no longer going to be used.

Costumes

For Izzy's costumes we are going for a theme of red to connote danger, passion and madness. For the fantasy scenes she is going to be wearing a red dress and for the outdoor scene she will be wearing a red coat, this way we create a visual distinguishing feature between the real Izzy and the masked ones.

The masked Izzy's will be dressed in full black to keep a sense of mystery and also to connote mystery and bleakness which is the mental state of our male character as he is being haunted by the multiple fake Izzy's. The inspiration for these masked nightmares came from some of my favourite videos by Chris Cunningham with Aphex Twin because they are so creepy and scary which was the atmosphere I was going for. (see Aphex twin below)



For Tamas' outfit we are going to be dressing him in skinny jeans and a polo shirt which follows the popular culture in fashion making him just one of the many that dress like this in so doing creating an anonymous character that could be seen as anybody. The song is indie/rock and that is the sort of outfit that would be worn by the fans as this type of music is mainstream. As you can tell from the two pictures below the band is of the same style as Razorlight so we have based the image around their style.

Razorlight ^

The New York Fund ^

This sort of fashion is sold at shops like Topman and H&M mens and is the current fashion in mens clothing here are a few examples from http://www.topman.com/

This is an example of the type of straight leg/skinny jean that we will be using in our music video along with this type of polo shirt which are quite anonymous so our character fades into the background like a ghost.

This Polo shirt is very popular with many different fashion styles and so we are appealing to a wider demographic. and as it is bland it connotes the blankness that is left in his life now he cannot find the woman.

Update: We are no longer using masks of Izzy's face because they look cheap and tacky, also we have thought of a better narrative where one of the main characters is a ghost; so the explanation about Aphex twin is irrelevant.

Film Interpretations of the State of the British Music Scene

I recently watched the film 'Once' (trailer shown above) starring Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. It is a beautiful film about a busker and his relationship with an immigrant; set in Dublin, their love story is told through their music rehearsal and recordings, which sends out the message that music is life or at least should be. On top of this it shows that real people make music and that music should tell their stories.

This film offers a unique insight into a depiction of musicians lives. The film is not cliched or main stream however it appeals to a wide audience although it was not a huge blockbuster and was filmed on a very small budget it received high acclaim and average box office revenue. This film represents the music industry as very difficult as the main character lives in a pokey flat with his dad and has to busk to get his music out there in the wide world.




Another film I watched about the music scene in Britain is August Rush starring Freddie Highmore, Robin Williams, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. This film is a higher budget mainstream film aimed at a larger audience, however it bears many of the same connotations about the music industry as 'Once' which is a lower budget niche film.

As a modern reworking of 'Oliver Twist' its the story of an orphaned boy who runs away from the care home in the country and comes to London where he discovers his natural ability to play, compose and conduct music. He seems almost possessed in his abilities as he rapidly learns to play many different instruments and write an entire orchestra's concertos in about a day and all because his parents were two contrasting but fabulous musicians, now this seems a little weird that musical ability is hereditary but after all it is a hollywoodised film.

This however is not what we are interested in for this film depicts the music industry from four different points of view, the dominant being that of the young boy (Freddie Highmore), another from his mother an award winning cellist, his father (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who is the singer in a rock band and a homeless man/squatter (Robin Williams). All these contrasting views mingle and give a fuller picture of what the music means.

The film shows the music industry predominantly through the little boy's eyes as a magical talent that comes naturally to him and will eventually bring back his parents to him. In the end at a concert that he is the star of, his music actually does bring his parents miraculously together in a crowd of thousands and August just so happens to see them in the crown and recognise who they are although he has never seen them before, this is somewhat far fetched and extraordinary but i think this is the point that the director is trying to get across. Kirsten Sheridan the director is showing us that music brings people together, evokes many emotions and is a complete miracle.

Similarly Robin Williams' character, Maxwell 'Wizard' Wallace, looks after homeless children in London who have a talent for music as he himself is musical, however although the music brings them together an awes the children he is also using the music as a way to keep the children happy as they give him all their earnings from busking around the city. So Wizard represents music as a way to make money and manipulate people.

There is another film I must mention in connection to this topic just because it is a great film and gives an insight into the irish music scene. Released in 1991 its called 'The Commitments' and the trailer is shown below:



This film portrays music as a way to interact with people and make new friends but it is also shown as a very competitive business that disguises the people behind it. For example the lead singer of the band that is formed has an amazing voice and wows everyone who hears it but behind his music and away from the publics eye he is an egotistic prat.

Storyboards

Here are some photos showing a session in which all of us in the group drew pictures of possible scene ideas and we organised them in a chronological order and stuck them to black pieces of paper to make the pictures stand out.











Here are the storyboards we made together during the session shown above:

meeting schedule

I am creating the music video in a group with Tamas and Lucy, it is for this reason that we need to meet during the week to plan and execute our video. We have free study periods in school where we dont have lessons but can do work and as a group we are very lucky because a lot of these free periods coincide together. Overall we meet at these set times.

Week 1:

Wednesday = 10.00am - 11.00am
Thursday = 10.00am - 11.00am
Friday = 12.20pm - 1.20pm 2.00pm - 3.00pm

Week 2:

Monday = 3.00pm - 4.00pm
Wednesday = 12.20pm - 1.20pm
Thursday = 10.00am - 11.00am
Friday = 2.00pm - 3.00pm

This totals up as 4 hours a week and 8 hours a fortnight not including the work we do for our group in our own spare time.

The New York Fund "Nobody's Home"

By following this link you can find The New York Fund's myspace page and can listen to the song we are using called 'Nobody's home'.

After we decided on our band we sent an email asking for their permission to use their song here is a screen shot of the email we sent them:

The band replied asking what our ideas were for the music video, we replied with the following email:

This is all we have heard from the band and have assumed that we have permission to use it as they have not told us otherwise. Here are the lyrics to the song:

Well I woke up on a Monday
With the morning streaming in,
And I rode over just like I always do

Cos when I sleep I keep forgetting
You don’t live here no more
And when I wake I keep on thinking of you

So I was walking down the street
With myself for company
For so long I getting ready to die

The girl up in the store
Says you don’t come round here no more
She ain’t seen you for quite some time
Quite some time
Quite some time

Oh baby where did you go?
Where the lights went off
There’s nobody home
Where did you go?
Oh baby we got so close
My darling where did you go?
Where the lights went out
And there ain’t nobody home
Oh where did you go?
Oh my baby we got so close



I got my finger on the trigger
Got your number in my phone
I wanna call, I wanna say
Baby wont you come on over?
And I hear those bells ringing
I hear my devil start to sing
He says ‘

So you can find me on the street
Where I been dragging my feet
Yeah I been dragging them round all night
I went back up to that store
And that girl don’t work there no more
She ain’t been working there for quite some time
Quite some time
Quite some time

Oh baby where did you go?
Where the lights went off
There’s nobody home
Where did you go?
Oh baby we got so close
My darling where did you go?
Where the lights went out
And there ain’t nobody home
Oh where did you go?
Oh my baby we got so close?

General Musings of Group Planning

The lyrics for 'Nobodys Home' are all about a man who wakes up and cannot find a woman, for this reason we have decided on two different narratives running side by side would be nice and enable us to use different shots like split screens. The narratives are from the point of view of the woman and the other of the man.

The beginning of this song is much like Paolo Nutini's 'New Shoes' song (shown below):




However we have decided that going with the norm of getting out of bed has been done thousands of times and sometimes is not very effective but boring! So we are going to do something a little bit different, if you want to see what we have planned you will have to look at the post called Storyboards, and labelled Planning music video.


As a group we have played with the idea of filming live footage of a band to integrate into the plot line, however we do not know the actual band and making a different band sing the song and lip sink it successfully is incredibly difficult, so instead to root this video to a music video we have decided to come up with a motif that does the same job, also we intend to have a few words to lip sink said by the main protagonist played by Tamas Dalmay, just saying the lyrics 'Nobody's home' as that is the title of the song as well.

We had originally planned to use masks of Izzy's face to haunt our main protagonist played by Tamas however we cannot make masks that are overly convincing and that don't look lousy. I made a few specimens and have taken pictures of me wearing them and an outfit entirely black which is what the cast would be wearing also (Shown below).

Face on view of the mask, this just doesn't look right because it does not fit the shape of the head, reflects the light, and is not as spooky as the look we are trying to convey.Side on view of the mask, we would not purposefully be trying to film to side of the peoples heads but if it did come into view it would not look great but whatever we do with masks this is going to happen, however if we use hoods as well with the new type of masks that will give a great contrast of the black hoods surrounding the very white face.

Instead of the masks shown above that are very mediocre we are going to use proper theatrical white masks that look like this:

After filming some of our footage we have decided to change the narrative a little to create a more interesting mysterious plot. Within this change we have decided that the use of masks should be discarded as it does not fit with generic conventions of love songs and they are more widely used within dance routines, which is not the look we are going for.

Our narrative now runs thus:

• Man and woman


• Man is suggested as dead


• Woman does not know


• We have a ghost of the man


• Memories

For more information on the Narrative Structure view Post entitled 'Narrative structure'

Casting

The New York Fund are an indie rock band and so for the casting we need to find people who fit this genre of music.

After laborious searches for a female and male to cast in our music video we have succeeded in recruiting Izzy Davies who has had previous experience in acting on camera as she acted in a thriller opening for some students last year. Izzy fits in with the genre of music as she is tall, with long brunette hair, on top of this she is perfect for the role as she is very pretty.

As for the male we have asked Guy Walker who has also had lots of acting experience amongst the theatre and also he acted alongside Izzy in a thriller production last year so they will be used to working together and look more authentic. On top of this he fits the profile of an indie rock star in the clothes he wears and his general look. However Guy does work on Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday which is a down side but I am sure we can work round that for the shooting schedule.

*Update: Due to unforseen circumstances guy can no longer act in our music video which is quite annoying because we had created a meeting schedule around him and now have to find a replacement actor in about 2-3 days.

*Update2: We think we have found another actor for our music video; his name is Johnny Lawrence and fits the profile in the type of clothes he wears. Also he is a music student and so will have a good concept of the music and the way in which we are trying to interpret it.

*Update3: We appear to have been plagued by bad luck because after organising the days to film, Johnny backed out on us at the last minute and left us in the lurch. However me and Lucy managed to persuade Tamas into acting in our music video which is great for the group as he is part of the group so knows what we expect, is used to working with us and also it keeps things simple to organise as we see him 8 - 9 times a week in meetings and lessons anyway. However we are not just using Tamas for convienience, he also fits the profile; by dressing him up in the appropriate clothing (see post entitled costumes) he will look just the part as he is tall, with dark hair that we can sweep across his forehead or vaguely spike up for the desired lookthat is rocked by the man below.
Rick Edwards T4 Presenter. T4 presenters always tend to follow the popular culture of the older teens to young adults around the music scene and so are always worth a look at.

This is a photo of Tamas who is going to be our main protagonist.


Unfortunately Izzy never appears to be available when we want to shoot so we are having Lucy Garstka as our female protagonist who, like Tamas, is a member of our group which bears the same merits. Lucy also fits the categories we were looking for as she is pretty with long hair and dresses in the sort of style we were looking for with the costume. Plus an added bonus is that my red coat that we were intending to use to connote danger, passion and death, fits her perfectly.

Locations

We are very fortunate in Norwich to have a great variety of locations each with their own merits and disadvantages. We even have some streets that have been used in major blockbuster movies such as Stardust in which one scene was filmed in Elm Hill in the city centre. Elm Hill is also a prime location for our music video as you will see below. As a group we went out for a walk around the city centre taking Tamas's camera with us and all in all we took 48 photos of the streets in the city that we could use in our music video and the majority of them I think we will use. We are searching for locations with a classy feel but at the same time an urban darkness to match the loss of love that our protagonist couple experience. So far we have managed this well, on top of finding locations that give it a distinct British imagery.

The photo above was taken down Old Post Office Court which is a very small alleyway which currently has some scaffolding down it (seen in the picture below) which creates a gloomy mysterious atmosphere which is great for our narrative which is quite dark and ambiguous. We will have to be quite clever when filming in this location however as we do not want a great big car permeating the middle of the screen, but with the staircase accessible it means that we can take high angle shots of the ground where the actor is, which varies the types and distances of our shots.

This is the scaffolding down Old Post Office Court which is great because it creates dark shadows and a focal point at the end where there is just light, this would be really interesting as it symbolises the male character entering the dark and coming out into the light indicating some sort of redemption or recovery which will eventually happen at the end of the video. The narrowness of the alleyway also connotes the way in which in his mind he can only focus on one thing, which is the girl. Also from this angle the alley looks quite long it shows how long his journey will be to find the girl of his dreams.

This shot demonstrates how dark the alley is allowing a chance to get some chiaroscuro lighting to give our narrative an ominous feeling. On top of this as our main protagonist is meant to be dead although the audience does not know this yet the light at the end of the tunnel is very symbolic of heaven which in the male character's case is the woman he is looking for. It also represents redemption for his previous crimes in life.
This picture was taken from up the stairs in the first picture and is a great shot for the beginning of the video providing a good establishing shot and as it is high up a panning shot could easily be used to connect the building with the street. A shot looking down the stairs can also be used which is quite nice and can be made quite disorientating as shown below, which introduces us to the characters state of mind.

These steps are also great because they are dark and twisting enabling a variety of shots and with the slatted handrail tracking shots will look great through the railings. High angle/birds eye shots are hard to get in productions like this because of the lack of equipment so being able to do one is great, also it fits in great with our idea for one of the shots as we want a high vantage point shot of our male actor to make him seem small as though his state of mind has made everything insignificant to him apart from the woman he is looking for.


This street is an old fashioned cobbled street which is just the old looking urban scene we are looking for because it is romantic but still a little grimy, also it is set on a slight hill meaning there would be plenty of opportunities for low-angled shots. However as you can see this street is usually quite busy with shoppers going from Jarrolds to Quick Spirit, it is due to this fact that we probably will not film here.


This is an archway at the Norwich University College of the Arts. We had not originally planned to film here however on walking past I just loved the way in which the archway perfectly frames the window behind it, this has a great connotation of reflective/double meaning.


This wilderness was also next to the archway which is quite nice if we were to do a tracking shot from the side to under the archway as it would show the overgrown derelictions of the town. On top of this it reflects the insanity and overwhelming emotions behind the main character.


This is Colegate Avenue which is very picturesque because of the pebble dashed walls and beamed buildings, however this has a road that gets quite a busy so it would be problematic in filming.


This side street is brilliant for what we are trying to achieve because it has wonderful uneven paving, old pebble dash walls on one side with fabulous Georgian windows on the other side of the street, which connote to the sense of lost entrapment. In addition to this it is a very long, straight, narrow street with a great vanishing point to represent our character's never ending journeys towards each other.


In our specification and points to cover we have to show within our music video a certain aspect of Britain this is why I am showing you this because it shows the top of a cathedral over the houses, we have plans to include a church scene within our video to show an aspect of English culture (albeit oldfashioned culture) and it fits in with our storyline because our main character is suggested dead, but is still walking the streets so a recurring image of churches is very relevant.


We took photos of this road because it reminded us of 'The Yellow Brick Road' and Dorothy's journeying adventure. This also has a great vanishing point but with a twist at the end which also reflects our narrative. Due to The Wizard of Oz connotations it does add a sense of fantasy to the actions of the narrative.


Because our narrative is predominantly a love story the use of water is great for fade shots and shots where faces can be seen in the water to mirror cliches within the genre. This part of the river is also good due to the slatted railings again reinforcing that this is an urban setting.


This shows the view of the river over the bridge which gives a view of the way the water reflects the sky and its surroundings which look like they are encroaching on the light swallowing it up.


The shot above shows the weeping trees over the river which add to the morbid feeling as they droop into the water as if tired and giving up the will to live.


This shows the view from behind the drooping trees branches this will give us a perfect opportunity to use some tracking shots using the effect of light across the leaves creating the chiaroscuro effect again.

The two pictures above are from Elm Hill which as i mentioned before is a prime shooting location for large scale hollywood productions like 'Stardust'. These streets are perfect with their authentic aged feeling with the cobbled narrow roads that end up like a maze which closely relates to our narrative structure.

Again this is another part of Elm Hill where we will definitely be filming, these shots also show how uneven the roads are and how often it is to find slopes enabling a variety of different angle shots like the view point down the slope and up the slope shown above. On top of this if we decide to use close-up shots of feet walking they will look great on top of the cobbles.

This is Prince's Avenue which is very much like the other places I have shown you except it has a lot more beamed buildings which would look great in tracking shots.

Update: The Scaffolding down Old Post Office Court has been taken down; there are still plenty of shadows however the vanishing point is highly diminished and so has the impact. So filming there may be irrelevant.