Filming Locations

For our filming locations we have chosen to film the main band performance shots in Romina's dad's restaurant, as it has a stage, microphone and stand, and we believe this would be a perfect setting for our band. We also had an idea of covering the floor with multi-coloured balloons, as we believe this will transform the restaurant and contribute to the fun, upbeat and girly feeling of the song.

As Alessia is walking down the street, she shockingly sees her boyfriend in a café holding hands and gazing lovingly into the eyes of another girl. For this scene we decided to use the café 'Starbucks' in Barnet, High Street, as we can simply situate the camera outside the window looking in, acting as a subjective shot for Alessia. However it is very important that before we do so, we ask for permission from the owners, which Romina and I plan to do.

Finally we decided to use the park as a memory of the girl and her boyfriend's past destination for happiness and love. This is also the place where the girl runs to after she witnesses her boyfriend cheating on her, in order to pop a balloon he gave to her which says A+A (Alessia and Alan) in a heart. Our idea was that in the past, the couple tied this to a tree to represent their love, however the fact that Alessia is popping this balloon represents her moving on.

Our Cast!

Romina and I have carefully thought out who would be best for our cast in terms of reliability and dedication, and as a conclusion, these are the people we have chosen!




For the lead role of the artist we have chosen Alessia Marquez. She is reliable and we have given her the material she needs to perform the song the way we want! Originally we were going to chose Kiana Lanjani as our lead, however unfortunately she is able to, but we're lucky to have a back up. This also served as a benefit to us as Alessia has great dancing skills.



Our narrative consists of the artist (Alessia) unexpectedly finding her boyfriend cheating on her with another girl. We have picked Iman Sheikh to play the part of the girl who is secretly with Alessia's boyfriend. For the boyfriend we have chosen Alan Goodman to play this role, and we've also trusted him to play the role of the DJ player as well. We're confident in who we've chosen as we believe our cast is very willing to help and reliable!

Star Image

In order to give our artist a certain image, Romina and I have created a collage on Polyvore. We decided the best direction to go in for our artist would gear towards girly, pastel colours because in our focus group feedback our class informed us that the original singer had a child-like, girly vibe to her voice, therefore we really wanted to follow this.

Focus Group Feedback

For the past two lessons as a class we have been taking the time to listen to each others song choices for their music videos, and provided our own feedback in order to give them some ideas whether they choose to use them or not. I found this to be incredibly important as Romina and I had a few ideas, however this gave us even more clarity and understanding of what we wanted to include.

The main focus for listening to these tracks was to think about the genre, narrative, performance and iconography. The overall consensus was that the genre was Pop (girly pop), Electro Pop and because of this, it's target audience would mainly be teenage girls. Due to the singers' cute and high-pitched voice, we came to the decision that young teenage girls would gravitate to this kind of sound. Performance-wise, we decided that since this is a band, that video should be live performance based, with the camera circling around them. Since the song sounds mainly upbeat, we thought it would be a good idea to have shot of dancers, as well as beauty shots in order to appeal to the teenage-girl demographic.

Overall, Romina and I mainly agree that due to the way the song sounds as well as the lead singer's voice, the image and sound would need to attract young teenage girls, therefore lots of bright, colourful and flamboyant colours would be great for our video. I definitely will take on the input of people's views, in particularly the idea that the band will be performing with a camera circling them, as well as the stars image (quirky, sweet and cute).

Lyric Mood Board

Mood boards are important because they create a visual for the director to follow for their video. It allows the director to dissect every line and add meaning to it, therefore helping them understand the basis for the video as a whole. I have created a lyric mood board to create a certain image that Romina and I will follow!

Auteur Theory

Francois Trauffaut

Auteur theory has influenced film criticism since 1954, when it was advocated by film directior and critic Francois Truffaut. The auteur theory is the theory that a director's film reflects the director's personal creative vision. In media, we have analyzed the signature styles of music video director's, Chris Cunningham and Hype Williams.


Other examples of the Auteur theory can be applied to film director, Alfred Hitchcock. The characteristics and recurring patterns of his films are:

• The femme fetale platinum blonde.
• The presence of a domineering mother in her child's life (this is seen in the film Psycho)
• An innocent man accused 
• Restricting the action to a single setting to increase tension
• Characters who switch sides or cannot be trusted
• Tension building through suspense to the point where the audience enjoys seeing the character in a life-threatening situation (eg; Vertigo)
• Mistaken identity

Alfred Hithcock

How can the Auteur Theory be applied to music videos?

Music video directors tend to have recurring themes in their products which creates a brand and a trademark.  Some auteur's have a signature style which they like to incorporate into their videos. There are plenty of things to look our for when searching for a directors style:

• Camera Angles/Shots
• Colours
• Mood/Atmosphere given off
• Genre of the songs the directors often gear towards to
• Mise-en-scene
• Editing

In class we have been looking at the signature styles of Chris Cunningham and Hype Williams. Both video directors show us the importance of signature style, and how it makes the audience recognise  who directed the video. I have chosen to analyse the signature style of Hype Williams, because I think that his video style slightly corresponds with the style I want my own video to emulate.

HYPE WILLIAMS 

Hype Williams is an American music video and film director born in Queens, New York. His body of work has many recurring themes that act as a trademark for his videos:

COLOUR: In his videos, Williams makes it clear that colour is a vital element in his videos. For example; Beyonce - Check On It

In this video, the recurring colour throughout is pink (light pinks and deeper pinks). All of her costume changes follow the colour scheme, which not only gives the video as a whole a feminine feel, but shows us that this is a creation of Hype Williams, as he has talked about his love for vibrant colours in his videos.

BORDERS: As we can see in these screen shots, a border in the form of a pink silk material is used. Borders are also a theme we see in Williams' videos.

Will Smith - Getting Jiggy With It

In these screenshots we can see that there are numerous contrasting colours which can be intriguing to the eye. It makes the video much more interesting, fun and enjoyable. Costumes are also very flamboyant which corresponds with the upbeat and vibrant atmosphere the song provides.

CAMERA TECHNIQUE: A camera method Williams often uses in his videos consist of the using a 'fisheye lens'. This is used to make everything appear larger and more 'in your face' in contrast to what it would look like without any camera technique. He does this plenty of times in the 'Getting Jiggy With It' video, mostly focusing on women's bums as they move their hips towards the camera, thus in order to make them appear larger (an example of Voyeurism)

Getting permission to use Material - Further

Last week, both Romina and I emailed the management of singer's 'Yuna' and 'Charli XCX', in order to get permission to use their songs as an accompaniment for our pop video. However we have had trouble receiving replies from both of them, therefore we emailed another artist's management, 'CHVRCHES', and asked for permission to use their song 'Gun'.  Fortunately, we received a reply straight away and were given the opportunity to use the song for our pop video! Here's a screen
shot of the email we sent and received: