Music Video; First Draft

Music Video; Shooting Schedules

Music Video; Costumes

Below are some ideas of what our characters will wear in the video, they aren't necessarily the same but it gives an idea.

As the band we're using has quite an indie, city style, we decided to follow it, keeping with the genre of the music and any expectations people would have. With our target audience also being listeners of indie/alternative music, they will be able to relate with these styles, if followed, although this is quite stereotypical. It also reflects the style of artists like Jack Penate and Hockey.

Our main male character will be dressed in quite casual clothes for the classroom scene, a checked shirt - which the audience can relate to as it is still a contemporary and popular style-, jeans and plimsolls. The shirt could also mimick school uniform, as they are in an exam setting.




Our female character will have a similar, indie style, wearing a dress and cardigan and some pumps. This creates a casual look, as would be worn to college/sixth form. It has less of a 'uniform' feel. This would also appeal to the audience, as it is a current fashion item, making the characters more relatable to the audience. Artists like Those Dancing Days and Pixie Lott like also use these styles as they are current and contemporary.

Our teacher character we want to resemble the new 'geek is chic' kind of trend. With big glasses coming back into fashion alongside blazers and shirts, we can recreate an old geeky teacher character but keep him with current fashion trends. Ironic.

Music Video; Storyboards

(These are the first two storyboards, the final two will be posted up shortly, as I seem to have misplaced them in my computer files!)

Music Video; Locations, Characters, Props

Initially we were planning to only use one location in our music video, which would be the classroom. However, this could become extremely tedious and repetitive so we've decided to use a gig venue, for performance shots of a band playing, a crowd mingling and maybe even dancing. And we can also take the narrative outside the classroom, taking the main boy and girl to the gig venue therefore interweaving our performance and narrative footage. We want to use an old classroom to create a sense of nostaglia and to play with idea of old styles returning to the 21st century, like with fashion and culture. Indie styles today often replicate those of the 80's and 90's with a modern twist. Music videos by bands like Golden Silvers and Taylor Swift also use this idea. We are also following the 'exam' focus of the lyrics. We also found performance footage makes a good video, and helps promote the band well which is why we want to use a gig venue. It also fits in the narrative of the guy and girl dating, as many couples or potential partners go and dates to gigs or concerts today.

Our locations include:

• an old style classroom. It has been very difficult to find a classroom exactly like this one, because so many of them have been refurbished and modernised nowadays. We've found a classroom within CNS, Room 21, which isn't as modern as most of the other ones. It has single desks which can replicate the exam desks, however doesn't have a blackboard but we will either use the whiteboard or cover it up, and bring in a blackboard on an easel. Filming at school will be much easier and more accessible, and also much easier to organise.

These are pictures of Room 21 at CNS, the oldest looking, accessible classroom we could find, with posters covering the walls, bookshelves and the lack of an interactive whiteboard.

• and a gig venue, either: The Marquee/The Birdcage or Norwich Arts Centre. Gig venues can be really difficult to film in, because of the lack of decent lighting for filming and also getting permission. This is why we're not using main ones like The Waterfront or LCR. We decided a low key pub venue or somewhere like the arts centre would be much better, as they tend to use less effects and just have better lighting within the venue. It would also be easier to film the narrative without huge crowds getting in the way which is why we're attending an low key, local gig.
  

Our gig venue soon changed to us getting footage at our church, as we managed to use footage which mostly made it look like a lively gig/concert, rather than a church service, however the perfomance doesn't quite fit in with the genre as well as we'd hoped.

Characters:

- Main guy.
- Main girl
- Teacher
- Rest of Class in exam, 7/8 students
- Band, 3 members?

Casting on seperate post.

Props:
- Blackboard
- Chalk
- Paper and pens
- Instruments: electric guitar, drum kit, bass guitar, microphone and stand, speaker/amp.

The instruments are needed to film close ups of at the start, as if the band are preparing for the gig, getting ready to start - like drum sticks being picked up, leads being plugged in. We can access all of these instruments in a rehearsal room, and film it seperately to the perfomance footage. A similar idea is used at the start of the video, 4ever - The Veronicas as we discovered afterwards! It gives a look in at the instruments involved which in turn, introduces the genre of the song.

The blackboard, chalk, paper and pens are all to add to the old classroom style. Paper and pens on the desks will help make the 'exam' or lesson seem more realistic. We can have writing on them too. The blackboard and chalk, we want to use to write some of the lyrics on using stopmotion animation, or perhaps showing some of the teachers thoughts, using effects like in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8blXgmUXvI - Chalkboard Animation.

Music Video; Annotated Lyrics

Music Video; Shooting Maps

Rehearsal Room:

Classroom:

Gig Venue:

Music Video; Casting

ORIGINAL:
Our characters for the music video go as follows:

Guy- Jesse
Girl - Harri
Girl's friend - Matt
Teacher -
7 Students - Rebekah Watts, Matt Northwood, Guy Walker, Catherine Riley, Justin Pryce, Louise Stagg, Freya Lincoln.
Band (only used for close up of instrument shots) - Matt, Mark, Sam.

We have decided on these characters because they are friends and are all reliable.
We still need to upload pictures, but our main characters are chosen to fit in with the indie/edgy scene as this is their style.

CHANGES:
Our cast for the music video completely changed due to unreliability in our chosen actors, they instead went as:

Guy - Josh Waterman
We chose Josh as our lead male role as he is reliable and was free to film when we needed to, he fits the role well as he has quite an average, indie style, wearing cardigans and jeans, although we would have liked to use someone a little edgier, like the style of the Blighters. It was also a good idea to use Josh as the male role as him and Yasmine are dating so there is perhaps some chemistry between them which the camera could pick up on, it is more natural between them.

Girl - Yasmine Galt
Yasmine was chosen as our second female role as she has quite a similar style to Josh, simple and individual. She is also good at acting and very reliable too!





Other girl - Gillian Mee
Gillian has a slightly different look to Josh and Yas and was chosen as our second female as she was very responsive and fitted the role well, she has a good style and can pull off the 'hot girl' character that Josh's character also dates.





Teacher - Mr Bloomfield.

Classroom students: Justin Pryce, Ben Pant, Theo Elliot, Emma Wilson, Sally Bailey, Sarah Pooley. We used different people from our sixth form who were available to film, to make it look as natural as possible. They didn't need to have many acting skills, simply acting like they were in an exam!

Music Video; Lyrics

Blighters – The Exam

Hello
Sit down
In your seat
Don’t look; don’t speak; don’t cheat
Who’s that sitting down,
Sitting next to me
I want her
And she can say
Examine -oooh-


Examine me
I’ll examine you
I like you too
Don’t look; don’t talk; don’t cheat on me

It’s what I do


Little dress, little desk, I’m impressed
So cool, so calm, so not stressed
I wish I was your pen
You can chew me again and again

Examine –oooh-

Examine me
I’ll examine you
I like you too
Don’t look; don’t talk; don’t cheat on me
Don’t look; don’t talk; don’t cheat on me

Your time is up
Your time is up
(Your time is up, your time is up)
Your time is up
Your time is up
(Your time is up, your time is up)

Don’t go
This is just the beginning

Examine me
I’ll examine you
I like you too
Don’t look; don’t talk; don’t cheat on me
Don’t look; don’t talk; don’t cheat on me


It’s what I do

Don’t look; don’t talk; don’t cheat on me (x4)

It’s not what we do

Sitting at your little desk
Sitting at your little desk
Sitting at your little desk
Sitting at your little desk

Examine.

Music Video; Ideas

Our initial idea involves flicking between performance scenes and a narrative, and perhaps interlinking the two at some point.

• The performance footage would be shot in vivid colour, to tie in with the 80's indie-pop genre of the music. This would contrast with some of the narrative, shot in sepia or black and white, in an old style classroom.


• The narrative would bascially be following the lyrics, a guy trying to get a girl's attention. However towards the end there would be some kind of twist, to do with the girl cheating on him, but in an unpredictable way so it's not too cliché.


• The performance side would include shots of the crowd, at a gig and close up's of instruments being played. We thought of starting the song with close ups of speakers/amps being plugged in, guitars being plugged in, drum sticks being picked up etc, and on the last beat of the song, a shot of a lead being pulled out, before fading to black.


• We also decided to have the titles and some lyrics, on a blackboard, in the classroom. Perhaps appearing using stop motion, or using a teacher character to write them on the blackboard.


• To link the performance and narrative, we thought of showing the guy and girl attending the gig where the band are playing, so that we can use other locations outside the classroom.

Music Video; Our Song

The song we've chosen is The Exam by a local band called Blighters.
The song can be found here: www.myspace.com/blighters

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