Cast and Location

Character:

My music video is based around 3 main characters (a daughter, her dad, and his mum) however, it shows different stages of the three character's lives and therefore, I have had to use a range of cast members for my music video.

For my mum I am using Ellie Bunce, she is a high grade, a level, drama student with much experience in acting. She is also an a level media student, this will be helpful when filming as she will understand the pressure of creating your own production and therefore cooperate well.

For the young son I will be using a doll, I decided this would be the best option as it may be hard to keep retaking shots with a very young baby without upsetting him.

The young toddler will be played by Daniel Hutson, a 3 year old, who like Ellie has blonde hair and blue eyes, therefore making the relationship aesthetically believable. I will also be using Daniel for the older school child, I will make him look older by changing his costume and shooting in such a way that you can't see his feature in detail.

I haven't yet decided who I will use for the adult boy, I will most likely chose once I've started the rough edit so it's clear what sort of character I am looking for.

The young daughter (child of the grown up son) will also be played by Daniel Hutson however his costume and once again the filming, will allude that he is a girl.

Location:

I will be using my own bedroom as the setting for the small baby's bedroom as it is white and therefore will have very pure connotations

Daniel's bedroom will be used for the shot of the toddler as it already has the right aesthetics for a child of his age

Woodstock CofE primary school will be used for the school shots

A local park, church will be used for the other shots

Seeking Permission From The Record Company

I sent a letter to Polydor Record Label to seek permission to use Ellie Goulding's 'How Long Will I Love You'. Below is a copy of the letter I sent.

After sending this letter on the date stated in the above screen shot I have no recieved a reply and so I am using the track anyway. 

Preperation For Filming

Before filming I broke down what I wanted to catch on camera to make sure I got all shots that I wanted and ensure I was organised during the shooting to ensure it went smoothly. Below are copies of my 'Scene Breakdown' and my 'Shot List'.

Poll Results

I have created a poll to see what genre of music video people think my song will fit best. Below are the results:

From the results I can see that a Storyline genre is clearly the most popular genre to use (70%). The 2nd most popular was Dance at 35% and 3rd Performance at 29%.

I asked a class of media studies students aged 16-18 to vote on my poll. This groups fits inside my target audience for the song. My audiences were informed about a previous post I had posted that they could use to help them chose there answer. The post outlined what each music video genre was. (http://bethanyhutsona2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/music-video-genres.html)

• I think conceptual scored the least amount of votes dues to it's quirky nature. I think a song with a slightly unclear message and more of a feel-good song. This type of video would be unconventional with less of a message. 
• The second choice (special effects) is likely to be to have a low score for similar reasons as conceptual. Special effects videos are often quite abstract and don't follow a particular path. This type of video wouldn't have fit well with a mainstream song.
• An animation video also scored low however, I believe that this type of video could have fitted well with the song. A story could have been told through the animation however, it may have given it a slightly less serious feel to the song, something I don't think would have worked with the approach I wanted.
• A performance video would have worked however, for my a-level project lip syncing and finding the appropriate cast that would have fitted that place of the artist may have been hard. Also, finding sufficient shots for the video would have had obstacles. Therefore, whilst this would have worked for the song as a whole, for my a-levels it may have lowered the standard of my video.
• The second highest score was for a dance video. I believe that this should have scored slightly higher as many successful dance videos are up-beat with a fast tempo to create a feel-good factor and I believe this song is perhaps a bit too slow. However, with the right effort, a slower dance could have been made successful.
• Storyline, the genre of music video that I chose to use for my project, scored the best. I think this genre fits most suitably because the lyrics allow for many different interpretations of the song and therefore by creating a storyline music video you can easily show your interpretation.

Storboard

After organising and expanding my ideas I started to create my storyboard. I used post-it notes so that I could re-arrange my shots if i decided a different order would be more effective whilst drawing. Below is a basic idea of my shots and the order, i may add in some shots to make scenes more effective or to lengthen the video but below are the foundations of my music video:

Music Video Idea

When listening to 'How Long Will I Love You' I started to think for some ideas for my music video. I had the idea that I would show the journey of a single mum bringing up her first baby on her own. I thought about showing the significant stages in life (walking, talking, school, graduation, marriage etc.) at the end I was going to show the death of the mum and the child's heart ache. The song lyrics would reflect the video: 'how long will I love you/as long as the stars are above you', showing that the son would always need his mum.

When talking to Mr Buckmaster he told me to revaluate doing it in a linear fashion and so I changed a few of my initials ideas but I have kept with the basic idea of showing the relationship between a single mum and her son and their dependency on each other.

 

·      I will start my video with the death of the mum, and then tell the story of how it gets to that shot through the music video. I had the idea of have a shot of the mum's eyes closed and then a perspective shot of the baby opening his eyes to see his mother standing above him.

·      I am then going to have shots mirroring each other. The video will show the journey of the boy growing up and the journey of the mum getting ill and dying. It will show the mum helping the boy learn things and grow up and then the boy helping his mum when she is ill; i.e. the mum feeding the boy and then the boy helping his mum eat. This will reflect that they both need each other as much as the other

·       At the end I wanted to show the boy revisiting a significant place for him as and his mum, which will be seen earlier on in the video, and have a shot of him there looking sad and then his own daughter and family running towards him, signifying that the story has already started over again.

Below is an example of a shot I am thinking of using: