costumes

While i was away Layla and Sarah started researching into the different costumes in our video. This research is very important as our video is 60s theme we need to make sure that all the outfits fit the look otherwise the mise en scene won't quite work, its also important for us to source our costumes now so we don't have to worry about them the week before and we will be able to get the stuff we want now.
They started with Google researching 'Cheap 60s vintage clothes' and found some good websites 

A good website that Layla found was called 'Pop Boutique', the clothes were too expensive for our budgets but it was helpful to have a look at the styles.

these dresses wouldn't quite be flattering enough for Emma as we want her to look sexy and they aren't quite enough, but as the style is so 60s we will want to find something very similar. The look we really want is a Twiggy style for Emma, its perfectly 60s, girly but still has the sex appeal, but these dresses weren't enough like hers so they carried on searching.

They were struggling to find flattering enough dresses so they tried looking up 'Twiggy style dresses'

Layla found and thought a pink 'Hibiscus' dress was most like what we wanted, in further research she found an article with a similar dress in it from Monsoon

sadly the dress was sold out but it was very helpful and showed that if we researched enough we could find one that would fit in, luckily Layla managed to find similar dresses:

the meeting with the set designer

I was very annoyed to have missed this meeting and felt very bad but we all feel very confident about our music video preparations as everyone is working hard and we all know what we want the finished product to look like.

In the meeting the girls presented the idea of our music video to the designer,They went through step by step the individual sets, first was the dressing room:

We will be able to provid a lot of the props for this room luckily. It was decided that we will have cream/white flooring and walls which is what we wanted, this is simplest and what they would have for a dressing room and to make it look more girly we can decorate it with flowers, lights and pinky objects.

First photo shoot:

This is an easy set for props as we just need to same white/creamy flooring and walls as the make up room and then all the little girly props (balloons, flowers and lights) we will be able to easily buy ourselves. 

Café:

Before I left we discussed the idea of having a window as the back of the café to make it look like they are inside but don’t actually being able to see what’s behind the window. To hide that its not actually a window to outside it was decided that there would be curtains hiding most of the glass. There was also talk of using the green screen for this but we need to look into that to see weather it would actually look any good.

Second photo shoot:

They presented the psychedelic set idea and decided it would be best to either paint the back round or project it. After disusing this they felt that we should add in another shoot to make sure its interesting enough. For this we had wanted to do a beach photo shoot like it was in the Dior advert, but it got cut out so we are bringing it back in.

Bar:

It was agreed that using a bistro set would work much better and will fit the mise en scene. They asked for stalls but this is something we might be able to get from the theatre department. The set designer will provide a bar that is great, and we are also getting a checkered floor, which I think will look really good as it was common in cafes. 

Beach photo shoot:

To get changed into a bikini Layla thought it would be a good idea to use some sort of a dressing screen where you could see her silhouette of her taking her clothes of and throwing them over. The set designer has sand for us to use we just need to source a few props like a chair/sun lounger.

There was also talk of dropping the psychedelic shoot which im not too sad about, instead we could try and incorporate the silhouette idea in the between bit of the shoots. The set designer suggested we use a projector, the backdrop from the photo shoot, and we can have a ‘behind the scenes’ look as we will be seeing her body shape from behind the projector. This idea still needs more research and discussing but I think it has potential.

From the sounds of it everyone was happy with how the meeting went, there seems to have been no drastic problems we just need to organize our other photo shoot sets more. A mistake, something we had forgotten to focus on was what Emma would be doing in the bar and café scenes, so we need to go through the choreography for these bits. We will have a screen testing with all the cast to see if it works.

before talking to set designer

Unfortunately for personal reason i wasn't in school for the week, i discussed as much as i could with the group before I left. Here's the work i missed :

luckily Layla and I got the set design done before i left and i had already done the story board so they just mounted them onto one big sheet.

There was still the issue about the second photo shoot when i left but we knew it couldn't really be the burlesque idea as that doesn't fit with the rest of the sixties theme, so we were still thinking what sixties photo shoot could we do?
The girls came up with the idea of a psychedelic/hippy/flower power theme as this was very popular back in the 60s. Layla's idea was inspired by a photo she found on the internet, she wanted to have a large psychedelic back round with some white steps that are made to look like they are coming out of the back round, these would be good for Emma to use as a prop while on the shoot. When i was told about this, i wasn't sure if it fit with the type of 60s theme we were using but thought it was a great idea so the group started looking into how we would create the back drop. there were a few different options of either a green screen, painting the back round ourselves or we could print it, they left it to discus with the set designer.

Layla and sarah went through and organised all the different props that we are going to need for each individual set, which ones we would be able to source and which ones they needed to talk to the set designer about getting hold of, luckily i think there are few different props that we will already have.

Other than sourcing props from ourselves Layla and Sarah went to the school theatre department to see if they had any of the props we needed as a way of reducing costs and using what the school already has, they said they can provide the group with bistro set of table and chairs which is great!

While Layla and I finished our set design, Sarah filmed the storyboard for our animatic and Mina worked on a list of ancillary products. we also decided in a production meeting that we have at the beginning and end of every lesson that we will use the studio for all our filming and we will use the photo shoot for our other media products that go with the music video (website, digipak etc)

 this is the work Mina did on our ancillary products scanned onto the computer.

Set designing

Layla and I sat down and went through the timeline for our video step by step discussing each individual set , what we wanted to be happening in each and what we would need to complete the mise en scene.

The first photo shoot we decided would be very girly and we would fill the space with balloons tied to the ground, flowers on the floor and wall, fairy lights and such things all in light pinky colours.

We thought although this picture isn’t quite our idea the colours with a girly/ slightly sexy mood are what we want to represent in this first photo shoot.

As we were unsure of exactly what we were going to have in our second shoot we moved onto the café/bar set. This image inspired the look we want for our café but we wouldn’t have it so American, we want to make it feel more like a locals café similar to the one in the Dior advert.

To create the walls of the café we discussed making a fake backdrop which would also be good as that would be something we could have the guys carry across. We initially thought we could have a similar back to that in the picture about but instade of having actual objects we would have pictures of them, which would also reinforce the fake set look. We then could have the work men take down the back and change it to night bar lights. This idea has now slightly changed as we discussed it and realised it may not look local/ Frenchy enough so we did some more research (insparation picture below) and liked the idea of having curtains on a window so it will look like you can almost look outside which will make the set more realistically fake. We have asked and the department have a chequered floor which we really want for the café so that’s great, we just need to find the round tables and chairs.

We then had an issue as Sarah and Mina really liked the Burlesque idea for the second shoot but Layla and I worked out that it would look very confusing as we have a 60s French theme throughout the rest of the video so a random burlesque shoot wouldn’t fit in at all. So moving forward we thought about using the silhouette idea in this shoot instead of trying to involve it in her dressing room which we were finding very difficult to fit in. This idea still needs more development, which we will have to do before next Wednesday when we are presenting our sets to the designer.

Costumes

While Layla and I were doing the Set design Mina and Sarah worked on our costumes. We all new we had very much decided on the 60s French style theme, so by using the internet they researched into that sort of vintage look. These are some pictures they felt represented the look we want printed off, annotated and then scanned onto the computer:

This was very helpful cause we all looked it over in our production meeting at the end of the lesson, so we all know what clothes to look out for.

We all like the idea of having glamorous clothes like fur coats on the rail in her make-up room, and we all want her to wear a 60s twiggy style dress for one of the shoots.

Mina and Sarah put forward Emma having smokey eye make-up as it relates to sexiness which will help her be more attractive to the boys so fits perfectly with the idea of the video.

Layla and I finalised our set design and the costumes are coming along well we just need to find the exact clothes we can use, so we are all feeling very positive about our video as all the work we are putting in is going in the right direction.

casting extras

In our free lesson Mina and I went through student photos to see which boys we would like to be extras on set during our video. We want them all to be boys so that Emma is surrounded by them and can be getting attention from them all over the set, and it emphasises her as the only beautiful woman. They will be moving sets around and being involved in the photographing while being teased by her.

Here are photos of the boys we think have the look and have emailed:

We chose Maxim as our first boy because we think he has a very obvious good looking boy style to him, brown hair tanned and not small. We think he is the kind of boy that girls would want to get their attention, but he also has a slight younger look to him meaning that he would be easily fooled by a beautiful boy teasing him. Maxim has also had previous acting experience so hopefully he will be able to show the other boys how to behave as he knows how this type of situation works.

Names of the boys:

Archie Clarke
Hendrik Speelmans
Jack Flammiger
Oliver Scott
Theodore Bhat
Toby Baring
Will Van Der Woude
Greg Fellows
Gil Hogarth

this is the email Mina and I sent the boys:

Props

While me and Layla were working on the storyboard Mina came up with a first draft of our props list, this is very important as we have a set designer coming to see us next idea so we need to know what we want and how it should look so we can explain it to him well so he can see our idea too.

We need to have more of a think of what props Emma will need to play with to keep the video interesting,

Props:

Vinyl

Table of sweets and cupcakes

Camera

Photography lights

Light reflectors

Dressing table and mirror

Lights

Full make-up kit

Fur coats / feather boas etc

Clothes rack full of clothes

Glamorous jewellery

Dressing screen

Small round tables

Flowers

Normal café props

Wine glasses

Alcohol bottles

As we continue to develop our idea we have thought more about the sets and are thinking the first one will be very girly with lots of balloons hung around for Emma to dance around and fairy lights which relates to girliness. We are still discussing the second shoot as we have worries now weather the burlesque idea will fit, we want to have the whole shoot as a 60s theme so I think the burlesque might be scrapped and have her in 60s clothes with some props instead.

Hopefully we will be able to gather some props by ourselves for example my Dad is a keen photographer so I have most of the stuff we will need to make it look like a photo shoot, we also think we may have someone who will be able to lend us some clothes and the make-up kit.

Here are some images of the type of props we want:

 

To help complete the mise on scene of the café/bar we thought it would be great if we could get red stools that are commonly found at bars and link witrh the 60s theme, we want to get as many props like this that will make it clear to the audience what the set is suppose to be.

Another idea that Sarah and I came up with was to have fake flowers in the café and maybe her dressing room, these will fit with the girly theme and Emma can use them. We thought she could steal them and try smelling them but then throw them away once she realises that they are fake.