Casting Research

For our music video, we only needed one actress to star. We chose A-Level Media Studies and Drama student Rhiannon Millard as she was comfortable in front of a camera and can bring the emotion needed that needed to be put in to the role. As the song sober is very emotional we needed someone that could express feelings well and could throw themselves into the role.

Costume & Makeup Research

For our music video, we only need two actors, a male and female.

We have decided that for our girl actress, she is going to be wearing different types of clothing in each location; at home and the theatre.

At home, we thought that it would be better if she wore effortless clothing like leggings along with a jumper, just to show that she’s comfortable in her own home. Her makeup would be subtle with her hair tied back, however throughout the music video we were thinking to make her look more and more tired and maybe slightly sickly to show the relationships effect on her. As time goes on, she as a person, is suffering.

It was pointed out to us, to make sure that we have a lot of different outfits. Therefore, we are going to have a variety of clothing in the flashbacks to show that the relationship has been long term and declining over time.

The male will be dressed normally in casual clothing, perhaps in a white t-shirt with black jeans and maybe a silver chain. We are trying to show him as normal and not the conventional alcoholic who always looks dishevelled and unkept. We want to portray him as normal as possible as it adds to the relationships dynamic. For example, looking at them as a couple, people will think they are both happy in this relationship as it doesn’t look like there is a problem, but the audience knows after seeing what happens behind closed doors that this is not the case.

In the theatre, we have decided that she will have a lot more makeup, looking healthy and her best self, to show her post breakup. 

Animatronic Storyboard

I used Adobe Premiere Pro CC to create our animated storyboard. This storyboard will effectively show what we hope our music video will look in terms of narrative, shot types and lengths, and as an overall product.

First Draft

Second Draft

Below is the new animatronic storyboard for our music video. It is very different to the first storyboard as it has a different story line, camera shots and much is different. Originally we did not want to change our idea but we weren't able to find two actors who could commit to filming so we had the change the idea so it could fit one actor.

Storyboard

First Draft

Location Research

Location Research

For our location, we wanted to have at least three different locations to break up the song a bit.

At first, we started to look online at warehouse locations as we wanted to give it a gritty feel when she is lip-syncing. We looked on websites like ‘shoot factory’ and ‘Amazing space’ to find a good location for when she is lip-syncing through the music, but after speaking to many owners, we knew we wouldn’t be able to use them as the cheapest location was £90 for an hour. The locations below are just some of the ones we really wanted to use.

 

Other locations we thought about were Art galleries, South bank skyline, the tube and Rooftop in London to catch the Skyline. 

We are currently in the process of confirming a booking with the Wycombe Swan Theatre to use for when our actress is lip-syncing throughout the video.

The other location we will be using is someone’s house as it will have used for most of the music video. 

Finalised Ideas - Music Video

Our vision for this song is for it to tell a narrative, showcasing a toxic relationship in which the guy is an alcoholic but not in the traditional sense, rather he seems like a normal guy, but he doesn’t love his girl when he’s not intoxicated.

The story is shown through a third person’s perspective but shows the girls struggles and point of view. Throughout the music video, it shows flashbacks of the start of the relationship and it’s the decline to where they just argue all the time. At the end of the song she decides she must do what’s best and she leaves him to focus on herself.

Initial Ideas - Album Digipack

Inspiration

For our ancillary tasks, we decided to look at previous album art and magazine advertisements Selena Gomez has used to better understand her preferred format.

Selena Gomez Album Art

Looking at the photos above, you can tell that she tends to lean towards black and white themes with a pop of colour and she is always featured on the album cover.

Synth-Pop Album Art

We also looked at album digipaks from the synth-pop and electro-pop genre, shown above. These all consist of bright colours and are unique to the album. Each photo shows someone with a serious and still expression. 

Ideas

1. One idea for our Album Digipak was to use a photograph of the actress playing our artist, staring straight into the camera. The whole photo would be in Black and White while the Album Title would be in a bright colour. She would have a serious expression with a crown on her head tilted at an angle to show that she has been ‘revived’ as a Queen, powerful and empress.

2. Another idea we had was to feature a Bright coloured butterfly as the album is called “Revival”. With the title in Bold Black text, as it would stand out against the bright colours of the butterfly. If not, this idea we could digitally create a geometric pattern like The Album Communion by Years & Years.

3. The third idea we had was to have a mid-shot of a red rose in the centre with a few petals falling halfway down in the photo against a jet-black background with a bright white light shone on the red rose. The title would be in white in a unique font.

We then adapted this idea and thought to do the same thing but have the first half of the photo as a dead rose and morph them into one half-dead rose. As the album shows the transition she makes from being dead inside to becoming empowered.

We are currently undecided as to which one we will use, so we have decided to get our focus group to vote on which ones they feel fit the Album title best. For the front and back panels, we would have two close up shots of either the rose or the rose petals on a black background.

Initial Ideas - Music Video

After looking at other music videos from the Synth-pop/Electro-pop genre, I noticed that in nearly everyone strobe lights and smoke were used to create a ‘club’ vibe, after all this is music people tend to dance to. When I noticed this, I really wanted to incorporate these two features into our music video as I thought it would look more professional and would be very effective in creating this same atmosphere. After another listen to our song we decided not to use these two features as our song lyrics are very descriptive and it would not make sense to use strobe lights and smoke tubes.

Pitch