Influences we looked at- Fall Out Boy

Fall Out Boy created this album based on a collection of songs most liked and most bought by their fans. The cover is quite Gothic as it is a dark coloured cover and suggests death by the two skeletons in the center. I thought the way they contrasted the Gothic with the ordinary was good as it felt misleading. The ordinariness of the guitar and shoes and other everyday objects suggested that they belong to the skeletons in the center. There is also a sort of romantic image in this album as the two skeletons in the center are laying together facing each other. This seemed fitting with the idea of our song where the girl doesn't have the man she wants whereas on this cover even in death they are together in an embrace.

Influences we looked at- Elliot Minor

Elliot Minor was introduced to me during the project by my partner as she in a big fan. They have an original style as they combine rock music with classical instruments. They're image reflects them exactly. The cover above suggests the norms of societies as that is how they see that they're expected to dress. The background on both illustrate who they really are and how they create their own worlds through their love for music.

The cover below reminded me more of the Gothic theme we were after. the full moon suggest a supernatural element which crosses over between both the Gothic and Fairy Tale idea. The image of the trees and the never ending path made me feel trapped in the album cover which reminded me of the theme of entrapment in the Gothic genre. Moreover, the organ in the middle suggested to me that someone is meant to be there playing it and as there is no one it looked more mysterious and eerie to me.

Influences we looked at- Avril Lavigne

Avril Lavigne seemed to be most like our artist both in song style and image. The only noticeable make-up on her is around her eyes as she takes on a 'Rock- Chick' image. Our two vocalists take the best of Avril Lavigne and Hayley Williams. Mia took on the more natural Hayley Williams look whereas Mae can be related more to Avril Lavigne as her make up appears more obvious. Both girls reflect who they are through their image and their song style, we tried to capture the same idea from our artists. Also, Avril Lavigne's website (above) was our original inspiration for our website however, we decided to make it more Gothic and decided instead just to use the colour scheme as it matched our image so well. Her latest single (below) was based on the new Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland theme. This brought together the idea of fantasy and Gothic similarly to our theme.

Influences we looked at- Hayley Williams

Hayley Williams is the lead singer of the band Paramore. She became a muse for us as we wanted to achieve the natural look that we liked having researched her. Hayley Williams customizes her look by adjusting her hair colour to look different rather than relying on heavy make up. We decided that the lack of make up illustrates an innocence within her which we would like to reflect in our artist. The picture above makes a clear comparison of the two images we considered. The image is from the video 'Misery Business' which we mentioned earlier. We thought that the clear differences between the two girls shows the two ideas of females. Whereas the one on the right is more stereotypical, we preferred Hayley Williams' less obvious appearance and chose to model around her.

Fantasy Boy and Undependent, Avant-guard, Experimental Lo-fi (Emerald Reels 1999)

'If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible.'

Soren Kierkegaard

According to the aforementioned source, this is when a film is filmed to represent an artistic expression without having planned or scripted or have any structure pre planned. This is often done by a low-budget production. The aim of this was to make good films opposing to Hollywood blockbusters.

The norm for main stream filming is to have a plan for everything and use that plan throughout the filming time. Trial and Error is uncommon as a filming or editing method.

So how does this relate to Fantasy Boy?

When we filmed, we made a rough storyboard of what we would like to produce however, in practice we discovered that sudden inspirations can be better or more appropriate to our music video. We discovered some of our best ideas through trial and error rather than staying with our storyboards.

Also when we were filming in the Skate park, it was impossible to plan how to film, what to film and where to film from. The skaters could do something, anything unexpected and if we had planned how to film we could have missed it. We found that working spontaneously in the skate park allowed us to get a huge variety of shots. It also meant that we weren't restricting ourselves to what we could film.

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

As a huge fan of Tim Burton's work and Alice in Wonderland. I insisted we explored the new film coming out in March 2010. As Tim Burton directs Gothic themed films and Alice in Wonderland is a Fantasy story it felt fitting to look at.

We looked at the innocence of Alice and compared her to our other muses Hayley Williams and Avril Lavigne. We decided that Alice represents the innocent child which is corrupted through experience and curiousness. We considered what a 21st century Alice would look like in comparison to the picture above and then adjusted our ideas to fit our colour scheme which added to our ideas towards their outfits.

When I came across the above image it caught my eye as the colours they had used were mainly bright yet they appeared quite dull. This seemed appropriate as we were using the bright colour pink and mixing it with the dark black. Therefore, when we create our website we plan to adjust the colours to match the feel of them merged together to the backgrounds of these images. Additionally, even though Alice in Wonderland appears to be a safe story, mislead by the images above, there is a deeper level to it that suggested a more corrupt darkness which we want to reflect through our website.

We used the above image to explore Gothic architecture for our website. We liked the stone pillars and the sense of winding around them suggesting a sort of imprisonment. We decided, however to go for the more traditional tower in which we considered having Mae as a damsel in distress but this would have defeated our theme of the 'New Woman'. By having a tower but no one inside it, we could mix conventions with subversions to make an original and creative idea.

We want to illustrate a dark Gothic theme on our website and looked at the 'Jabberwocky' from Alice through the looking glass. Alice shows a dominate yet subverted female role during this chapter/scene as she is the one who must go sleigh the Jabberwocky rather than wait for a male character to be the Saviour. This supports our feminist approach to our task as we want to show our artist as the 'New Woman' who can fend for herself unlike the 'Old Woman' who takes a more passive role.

The style of writing used for the title is similar to the style we want to use for our band name 'Mia-Mae' as it illustrates an uneasy Gothic theme while still drawing in all potential audiences. The heart inside the 'a' of Wonderland reminded me of our music video as it is all about finding love from a fantasy boy the same way Alice tries to find herself in her fantasy world.

Locations

We used a range of locations for our music video. For our narrative we used natural locations such as bedrooms, a skate park and a launderette. The theme of naturalism was decided on to reflect the sincerity of the lyrics, which the artist had written as a response to her own life situation. For the band shots, we used the school studio and customised the background to reflect the song.

Bedroom 1

The first bedroom we used supposed to reflect the bedroom of a teenage girl. We used Daniella's room as her room had the perfect balance that suggested this. The walls were blue and brown with a pink bed. We felt that using too munch pink would be childlike and not suit our situation. The bed here was conveniently placed so we were able to film from different sections of the room without anything getting in our way.

Bedroom 2

The other bedroom we used was purple and blue themed, this was supposed to be a neutral bedroom that could belong to a male. We felt that even though these colours were light, they worked for a male and showed a contrast between the more feminine personalised room and a masculine room. This demonstrates the 'bedroom culture' which girls develop at a young age in comparison to boys. In this room, there was less place to move with the camera which made it harder to vary our types of shot. However, we found that this room was a good location to present the idea of the protagonist not really being in the location but having a more ghost like form.

Skate Park

In our opinion, the 'rock chick' image sometimes is associated with skateboarding. We also felt that by following this, we could get a broad range of shots. We were lucky that it was a quiet day which made is easier for us to film and focus on our actors without getting in the way of other skateboarders. it also gave us an outdoor location rather than constantly indoors. The use of levels in the skate park worked to our advantage as we could stand on different levels to film rather than complicating our actors too much. Also as skateboarder cannot plan what will happen while they are active, we were able to use this opportunity to just film anything that happened without a specific plan. This meant that the camera was constantly on but in different parts or at different heights. Our idea turned out to be effective as it meant the actors were more realistic and felt less pressured, which was ideal for their safety.

Launderette

The launderette belongs to my father and so we had easy access to it, we had been told that many university media students use the launderette as a location. The idea of filming in a laundrette was thought of as different and new. We used it to show more of the relationship between the leading man and woman. As with the skate park, it was a quiet time when we filmed which made it easier to film quickly. We had an issue when filming, the staff had changed the baskets we had in the background when we started to film and so we were delayed from our finish as we had to re film certain shots. The laundrette illustrated the social class and age of our actors. Daniella and I discussed the representation this would give our actors, Daniella insisted that a middle class teenager would assist their parent by taking laundry to be done. I argues that many middle class families would own a washing machine and so I would suggest them to be working class in this situation. After this debate we sat watching the types of people who used the Lauderette and concluded that middle class would be realistic. Having the male lead work there, showed the average middle class teenager who will take any job to gain a bit of money and so we thought his postion there was realistic.

Studio

By using the studio we could use the white walls and black covers and customise it however we wanted to match it with our theme. We liked the Paramore video for 'Misery Buisness' and wanted to use a similar idea to their band shots. We used our chosen colour scheme of pink and black and we wrote 'Fantasy Boy' similar to the way that 'Riot' is written in the Paramore.

Last day of filming 14/11/09

We took the equipment to my father’s laundrette in East London to finish off our filming. We chose this location as we were making our storyline naturalistic as we could. We also decided to try out some new ideas such as have the artist singing at the same time as the narrative. This meant Georgia having to make sure not to move to much or change positions while we filmed her singing and also making sure we hadn’t moved the camera at all while filming this and the narrative. Though this was a challenge we decided it would be a way to leave naturalism in order to mix the artist with the narrative but still have them oblivious to each other.

The location proved to be a good one as it was quiet making it easy for us to film quickly enough. The fact that it was a real laundrette meant that it was completely realistic, and the general stillness of it during the times we filmed made it easier for us to shoot from various angles without interference. We used the washing machines to provide levels for us from which we could film from or film our actors on.

To make it look natural we asked them just to have a conversation while we filmed them. This worked well as it meant that all the responses to each other didn’t look like they were scripted assisting with the naturalistic theme of our music video.

Second day of filming 13/11/09

We started the day by filming bedroom shots of our artist singing while sitting on the bed. This started our idea of disrupting the naturalism of our music video by making her appear as a ghostly figure unnoticed by other characters. This suggests that the audience are watching through her point of view. We placed the camera in three different positions around the bed to experiment with angles. We tried one close looking at her from the left, one more distant from the right and experimented with zooming in and out on her and her guitar from these positions. We also had a camera filming high angle shots which reflected her powerlessness throughout the songs as she doesn’t take any actions.

We also tried filming our actress (Mellissa Levitt) getting out of bed in the morning and getting ready. This was just experimental and didn’t work as well as I had hoped as the waking up shots didn’t appear realistic to me.

Next we filmed our other actor (Laurent) reading her e-mail on his computer. We thought it would be a problem filming a computer screen and that it wouldn’t come out clear however luckily it came out fine. In this scene of our music video the ghostly artist returns and is sitting on the bed behind him.

We ended the day in a skate park filming the boys in the band skating while the girls watched. We found that the best shots we got while shooting here were the ones which weren’t planned as things seemed to happen that we hadn’t expected such as random tricks they were showing us on their skateboard. We tried filming them from the same level as the skateboards as they were moving. Even though it was difficult to keep up with them at times. I felt that these shots literally threw the audience into the narrative.

First day of filming

Today, we went into school in order to film the band shots, computer shot and school shots with our actors and band. Unfortunately an actor fell through so we had to remove the school shots and postpone them to another day. Luckily this left us more time to concentrate on the band shots and make sure we had enough footage to fit in the band in many interesting ways.

We imitated the image from the Paramore video and decorated a black area, we created ourselves, with the word fantasy boy. This gave the rock-pop image we wanted and made their performance space more creative.

We also recorded a shot on the computer by using a program which records all movement which occurs on screen. This is to show an e-mail being sent. This took a few attempts to get perfect as it was a new program to us. When we had finished, the result was amazing. It was believable as an e-mail and we confirmed that we would be able to edit it later on.

Risk Assessment

We had to identify possible risks so that we were able to avoid them and protect ourselves and the equipment.

CD cover practice

We have to create a CD cover for our band and so we had a look at the graphics techniques which were available to us in order to create it. We were given the actual image of the Snow Patrol album Eyes Open and several similar images.

We used coral-paint in order to attempt to recreate the CD cover and also to experiment with different effects.

With the use of this we intended to design the album cover for Mia-Mae.

Production Schedule

We made a plan of where we'd be filming, who with and just in case, we listed as many contact numbers as we could. This helped us plan our timing better and also meant that with contacting each other we were able to avoid as many obstacles as possible.

Who are Mia-Mae's audience and Why?

From the responses in our focus groups and also by researching which age groups might be most likely to listen to our artists. We concluded that the audience group we were going to be aimed at were pre-teens and teenaged girls who could identify with the songs.

We asked 50 boys and girls between the ages of 10 and 22 whether they would buy the song if it was on sale in a shop.

The responses were:

This gave us more ideas as to our image and style and how to approach the music video. We thought that the narrative should be one that the audience could relate too and the image must do the same. We saw that we our audience were young girls we looked at ways in which we could relate our music video to our audience.

We felt that many music videos give the wrong impression of what girls should aspire to be and so we decided a more realistic approach would be beneficial to our audience. Therefore, we made our artists look as much like the audience group as we could to make them more identifiable with the young girls.

Some of the responses from the people we asked was that they felt that at some point they could relate to the lyrics and so they liked the choice of song we were using. Proving we achieved our aim and made ourselves identify with them.

The Lyrics- Fantasy Boy

Below are the lyrics to the song chosen by our audience. These lyrics will help us in deciding ideas such as themes, colours, genres and other ideas for our music video, digipack and website.

Fantasy Boy:

It will never be

That you can ever have me

Just that I can't have you

Suddenly, you make me really happy

Even when I'm not around you

I don't wanna think about this

I feel I'm not allowed to like you

Even though I wish we could kiss

That wish ain't ever gonna come true

It won't come true.

Ooooo-Oh

You're just some kind of fantasy boy

You're gonna make my heart destroy

You're everything that I can't have

And I don't wanna make you mad at me.

There's this thing,

I have for you

You're just something that I can't set free.

When I'm alone,

I wish you were beside me

With your arms around me

Suddenly this makes me so unhappy

I need your company

I don't wanna think about this

I feel I'm not allowed to like you

Even though I wish we could kiss

That wish ain't ever gonna come true

It won't come true.

Ooooo-Oh

You're just some kind of fantasy boy

You're gonna make my heart destroy

You're everything that I can't have

And I don't wanna make you mad at me.

There's this thing, I have for you

You're just something that I can't set free.

I will e-mail you

Over the internet

With complete, honesty

And the good thing is that

You will never know it was me

Because I did it anonymously.

Anonymously

Because you're just some kind of fantasy boy

You're gonna make my heart destroy

You're everything that I can't have

And I don't wanna make you mad at me.

There's this thing, I have for you

You're just something that I can't set free.

London Film Festival 2009

On the 21st of October, we visited the BFI London Film Festival. We saw a Turkish film called 'Men on the Bridge' by Asli Ozge. We thought that the way that the characters used a computer is order to form new relationships illustrated an accurate idea of how dependent society today is on technology.

Likewise a short animation at the festival called 'Speechless' by Daniel Greaves implied a similar suggestion about modern society. In this animation it exaggerated how people have become so dependent on mobile phones and the internet that they have lost the ability to speak. We thought that though an exaggeration, it gave the correct idea of what society is like and we decided to use this. The relationship in our narrative will also display communication through technology.

Cinderella Story

A cinderella Story...

As our song is called 'Fantasy Boy' We explored fairy tales. A Cinderella Story is a modernised version of the old Classic fairy tale. This helped us as a base for our narrative as our protagonist is also searching for her Prince Charming. This version of the story allowed us to see both sides of the story. Firstly the 'Happy- ever-after' ending and also the reality, which we decided to illustrate in our music instead of it following the classic line '...and they all lived happily ever after'. Similarly by watching the side which demonstrates reality, we were able to remove the clichéd elements of a fairytale and replace them with less conventional aspects which still keeping to the theme of fantasies.

Paramore: Misery Business

As our genre is Pop Rock, we viewed two different artists to find any conventions which fit our music video genre. Paramore, is more of a rock band. We were inspired by the background of the band shots as it read 'Riot' which is relevant to the atmosphere of the song. We decided that our song fitted the same idea however it was necessary to tone it down as our song didn't have the same power as the one below.

We also looked at the use of both narrative and band shots in this video. The balance seemed to work well and there was a distinction between the lead singer and the main character in the narrative which we thought was similar to how we pictured our music video.

We took the lead singer's image and decided that she defeated all the conventions of female stereotypes whereas the lead in the narrative was more conventional was here made up face, revealing dress and attitude. We liked the idea of the two sides of female portrayal.

Focus Group

Focus Group:

We wanted to find out directly from our audiences what they think of our band. We filmed them in focus groups in order to retrieve our results. We asked then questions such as words to describe three different songs: Fantasy Boy, My Heart's in a Whirl and Unloved, these responses as well as asking directly which song audiences liked best helped us to pick the song 'Fantasy Boy'

I found this an original and helpful method as people are less likely to take such a thing less seriously when they are being directly asked than they would if it was on paper. Equally I saw it a an example of 'We media' as my partner and I were allowing our audiences to tell us what they wanted rather than just assuming ourselves what would be most popular.

Lip syncing...

Lip Syncing Video:

Last summer, my partner and I worked together on another task. This was an opportunity to grasp lip syncing and introduce us to the music videos unit. As it was shortly after the tragic death of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, we decided to combine this task with a tribute to him.

Lip Syncing was proven to be an enjoyable challenge as timings had to be very specific for both the actresses in the video and also in order to match the music's timing. This also gave us a creative opportunity as we were introduced to the effects which are on offer to us. We had a lot more freedom within this to play with shots than with our thrillers as it wasn't serious and so there were many more appropriate shots which enabled us to illustrate the fun we had while making this and at the same time releasing the atmosphere onto our audience.

Storyboard cont.

Pre-Production Storyboard

Before we began anything, we sat down and planned our initial ideas on a story board. We decided that although this is a good idea, when we come to film, we are likely to deviate quite a bit. There are possibilities that our storyboard won't work realistically and so we'll have to adjust it.

(Click image to enlarge)

The blogging begins...

After taking focus groups and questioning them as to what they thought of the song samples we played them from our group, Mia-Mae, and which they would like to see as a music video, we created a short film to present our results in a more creative way.

The words provided by our focus groups alongside the lyrics allowed us to become inspired as to what should appear in our music video.

The group Mia-Mae is a family group consisting of two vocalists, one of which also plays guitar.