The filming process

During the last week of October, me and my group members  took to the streets of Camden Town to begin filming for our performance based shots in Camden Town. We started by the lock as this is busiest at midday, and thought that the actual Camden Lock could represent our main video girl moving onto better things. We mainly focused on the surroundings of Camden and the people and its inhabitants as our audience will be familiar with the location, and we wanted aspects of the video to look like Amy Winehouse's video - Tears Dry On Their Own.

During filming, we split the role of the director and took it in turns to film the main actress as we wanted to capture a variety of shots in different styles. The part i played was filming the actress when we were on the train towards Camden, in which i was able to get some interesting close up and mid shots of the actress miming along to the song. I wanted the actress to engage with the role properly and to reflect the mixture of feelings that were meant to be shown. I was able to capture some good footage in which the actress is sitting on the train, looking lonely and depressed. The lighting in the background was perfect as it was filmed in the early afternoon, and wasn't too over powering and looked natural and soft, so you could still see the actress' face and capture her emotion. Thinking logically, i filmed in one of the emptiest carriages so that there would be no disruption from the public thinking they would be filmed, or someone accidentally being in the video so that when it came to editing it wouldn't be as challenging or ruin any of the lovely shots captured.

There are also going to be cuts to the narrative aspect of the video, which will show the couple fighting and the wife leaving with the child and then cuts of visual metaphors such as the smashing glass and the baby items. We were thinking of filming this in one of our dining rooms to make it more realistic, whilst having cuts to the husband cheating in a bar to create a better impact.

This was just the beginning of  our filming though as we still had to film the scenes of the husband cheating, aswell as capturing the fight scenes and filming the visual metaphors, as

the video will use three concepts of music videos, visual metaphors, performance and narrative.

Camden Lock

Originally, we asked our friend to be the main actress in this video as she's been in music videos on television before therefore would find it easy to relate to the role without holding herself back.Unfortunately hours before we were due to film, she cancelled on us due to her going on an unexpected holiday which was quite demotivating. Luckily, another friend of ours stepped in to say she was available to film that day.

The next main actress in the video is a good friend of mine - Zainab Ruby Jaye.

We thought it would be appropriate to use her for our music video as she does drama a-level so can engage within the role properly and can adapt herself to fit with what we needed her to do.

Our actress had low self esteem when doing filming in busy public places such as on the train, and near Camden lock, compared with if we had the original actress we were meant to use as she has previous experience of working within the music video industry would have helped. We also had to teach her the lyrics of the song briefly enough for her to be able to lip sync along whilst on the train to Camden as we didn't have time to give her enough notice for her to thoroughly learn the song.

Filming Schedule

The plan of action is to meet at 12 outside QEGS and then head down to various locations
to begin filming the opening scene for the video.

Wednesday 2nd November - Film all the performance based shots of me in various locations - bedroom, garden, park, bathroom etc.

Friday 4th November - Film all the narrative based shots of Larry and Lisa in a breaking relationship in Highlands Park and in the car.

Thursday 10th November - Film me singing through the whole song in nearby location

 - Have Larry and Lisa arguing again throughout the background of me singing.

Monday 14th November - Film me seperately in the mirror scene to complete footage gaps.

Unforunately, the dates highlighted in red we were not able to film 

Monday 21st November
Wednesday 23rd November

Thankfully this ran smoothly and we were able to film !



Risk Assessment of planning & production phase

Risk Assessment	Safety Procedure
Driving Vehicle	Ensured that our actors wore seatbelts
Filming Over Bridge	Protective case for filming equipment
Filming In Park	Protective clothing for all people on set and for filming equipment
Filming By Roads	Wearing protective footwear, extra precautions

Location, Location, Location & Iconography.

 

 

Slug & Lettuce - Muswell Hill was our initial location to film our first scene for our music video, but because we didn't have a license to film, they wouldn't give us legal permission. We were planning to use one of the booths in the bar on a weekend to film the husband cheating with his mistress, as the atmosphere is frequently quite lively and bubbly, so would have fitted the description of what we were looking for. The lighting in the bar also would have fitted in with our filming perfectly and complimented the whole idea of the husband's infidelity being kept a secret from his partner as we didn't want to show the mistress's face, so could have incorporated the lighting to hide this. 

 

Visual Metaphor's - 

We decided to include shots of smashing glass and mirrors to represent the cracking and fragility of the relationship. During the planning process, whilst watching other music videos which had relationships and cheating included in it, i noticed that in many of the arguments one of the partners would break something which i thought had a really harsh impact overall and helped me to empathize with what the actor/actress was feeling. It represents the person's emotions spiraling out of control which i thought would be a good idea to include within our music video.

 

I also watched many videos which had close-ups of butterflies in them, which we wanted to include in our music video as they represented the freedom of the actor/actress. We thought that this would be a good idea to match our song as the lyrics in our song talked about leaving and moving onto better things.
We thought of including the close up shot of a Butterfly to represent the fragility of the relationship, but realised it would be too difficult to catch a close-up like this to include in the video.

In another scene, there are going to be suggestions of a baby boy to match the lyrics 'me and my boy we're leaving'. But to make it more realistic, instead of having an actual baby in the video, we're just going to insinuate that there is a baby by including baby toys, clothes etc.

Stereotype Representation in Music Videos.

A stereotype is something that society associates with a group, or perceives through an image they have.

It's often a generalization used to describe a group of people. Most times they are negatively driven, but may also have positive connotations.

In the video 'If I Were A Boy', Beyonce contradicts stereotypes by reversing the role of the dominating character in the video, as it's usually the male figure who takes on the 'macho' role.
She plays the role of a police woman, who tends to neglect her partner on a regular basis, whilst her partner plays the more feminine role of the stay-at-home wife.

Quest to find unsigned artists

Our original idea was to work with the band '' as a friend of mine worked with them, so i contacted them over facebook and they agreed to let us use their music. I later found out that none of their music had been recorded as they perform all of their songs live, which was a major setback as our music video is going to be narrative, therefore needs to be recorded beforehand as not to complicate things, so that we have enough time to concentrate on the actual music video efficiently. 

We then contacted a singer which we found online named 'Emerald Jones' who had a range of cover songs, as well as songs which she had written and recorded herself. We had heard about her online through friends who were dedicated to her music page. After listening to a few of these, we were certain that we wanted to use her song 'Leaving' to film our music video as we liked her sound and thought we had some interesting ideas to brainstorm to see what we could come up with.

What genres of music would you be most excited to work with?

What genres of music would you be most excited to work with? 

I am looking forward to working within the RnB genre as this is the type of music that i mainly listen to and watch music videos, so i feel that i would be able to visualize scenes and shots for my music video properly, instead of working with a genre that I'm not familiar with which i wouldn't engage with efficiently enough to produce a good piece of work.

Along the way of looking for unsigned RnB artists, I came across 'Emerald Jones' on Facebook, who really reminded me of the singer 'Toni Braxton'. I listened to some of her own written work which had a soothing, strong feel to her voice, which was incorporated into her music. I really like her sound so have decided to choose one of the songs which she wrote called 'Leaving'.

The concept of the video 'Unbreak My Heart' matches some of the lyrics of the song i have chosen to use from Emerald's play list, so some of the ideas in this video can be incorporated into my own music video when beginning to film.

Toni Braxton - Unbreak My Heart

Inspirational Music Videos.

What music video(s) are most memorable for you or are you inspired by?

Destiny’s child – Emotion

This video is different to normal videos that are usually aired as it’s split into dual narratives so tells 3 different stories at the same time, which presents 3 different women who come across as emotional, yet strong females. but then joins together at the end to complete the ending to the video. I like this idea for the making of music video, as it’s a unique way of telling the story.

Lil Wayne – How to Love

 This video was memorable for me as the lyrics of the song have a close match to what is being shown in the video. It goes through the story like a normal music video but towards the end has a break which is a short movie clip, rewinds to show what her life could have been like and then goes back to the normal conventions of a music video. I liked this idea as it was an unusual concept for a music video.

Kate Nash – Foundations

 This video is one of my favorites as the story has been told from her point of view, which really helps the audience to engage with what's happening. Animations have also been used throughout this video adding light-hearted elements which help to distract the audience from the reality of the lyrics she's singing which when listened to properly, are quite depressing.