Star Image

As we changed our idea from having a band to have a solo singer we began to research solo singers to see how we wanted to portray our performer. We looked into people such as Olly Murs, Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, John Newman. We liked the idea of a mix between the fun and energetic Olly Murs and the smiley, sweet Ed Sheeran therefore we created our character to fit their best qualities, he's funny, energetic but also kind and smiley. Our performer is a young, good looking singer who appeals to young/teenage girls and who is a synthetic artist. He plays pop music and dresses in casual yet stylish clothes.

Idea change

After realising how many music videos were so similar to our idea we decided to slightly change the idea from a dopey superhero, to represent the child in every adult and the day in the life of one of those extremely childish adults. The music video follows our superhero around for the day, making children smile and enjoying his own childish nature. We feel this type of narrative fits well with the song as the song is an upbeat, vibrant and fun song, while at the same time the lyrics apply to our main character quite well for example 'I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed', referring to the dim-wittedness of our playful character. Also we decided to use one singer instead of a full band as we realised that most of the bands we were trying to represent were bands that just used multiple singers, we didn't like the idea of having a band, and selling multiple people so we decided to stick with selling one singer. 

Location: Studio

For the performance parts of the music video we wanted to convey our artist in a light-hearted way. We want the audience to have a good first impression of Connor James so therefore we stripped back the set and left it with just a black curtain and our artist. This idea came from researching other artists like Ed Sheeran who, in his music videos, portrays an organic image, he is a well loved performer who is obviously passionate about his music, we wanted the same ideas to be portrayed while watching Connor James. Connor is a synthetic artist, we want his personality to shine through in the music video so the audience can connect with him as a person as well as respect him as a performer. 

Filming Day 2

On our second day of shooting we focused on the close-up shots of our main actor singing in the performance element of our music video. We only filmed close-ups on this occasion in order to be able to flesh out our video and ensure we had the widest variety of different angles to make the best music video possible.

Close-up shooting is a convention of the genre we are producing. It also has parallels with the synthetic nature of our boy band. In a lot of music videos by real bands in the genre there are many examples of close-ups notably One Direction, SmashMouth and Union J. The close-ups are used to show off the good looks of the artists/bands i.e. their star image.  The  artists often look directly into the camera to connect to the audience.This engages the audience to see the expressions on the face of the musicians as they are performing. Synthetic bands are normally sold on looks and merchandise and release songs based on current trends in the music industry. A convention in synthetic artists videos are  close-ups on faces and image. This contrasts to more organic bands such as Alt-J and Mumford and sons whose music videos include close-ups of instruments and other musical devices as they are being sold on the 'realness' of their music.


A great point of primarily filming our lead separately to the rest of the band was we were able to make  our actor feel at ease in front of the camera and break him in easily as this was his first time filming.

An element we struggled with while filming was the lighting of the room. We had to constantly make sure we adjusted the white balance every time we changed the lights. Secondly the changing lights caused the camera to become unfocused on a number of occasions. We only realised this in playback during the day so we realised we had to re-filmcertain shots. Luckily we noticed while we were still in the studio otherwise we would have to book the recording equipment out for another day which may jeopardise our filming schedule.

Filming day 1

From producing our filming time schedule sheet, we began to film our music video on Saturday the 29th of November. We had decided that it would be best to focus on just the narrative element of the music video on this day in order so that we could focus on each element separately to ensure we produced the best possible shots. The other reason for doing this was to make sure that our actors and helpers were not wasting their kindly donated time by standing around aimlessly, and becoming de-motivated.

On the first day (Saturday 29th) we focused heavily on the narrative element ‘ a day in the life of an average superhero. In this section it is pure acting and no singing of miming. We had checked the weather prior to filming and were happy to see good weather all day in London, specifically the South Bank area. We met at my house at 10am as I live the closest to a train station that has direct routes into London. Before we left we all checked the shooting schedule one last time to ensure we all knew where we needed to be at what times. As part of our video features the tube, our protagonist had to get into costume and be in character for the whole journey.  

We started filming in Bakers Street station before moving on towards Waterloo station. From here we went straight to the London eye and the surrounding Jubilee gardens where we filmed a variety of shots whilst intermingling with the general public. From here we began our walk down the south bank climaxing at the millennium bridge. All the way down we were filming our character and how he interacted with the people around him. We filmed in some very cool locations such as the skate park and outside the BFI.

 

In order to get enough footage, we filmed Harry (our male lead),throughout the whole day, from many different angles: straight on (mid, close ups and extreme close up), from above and below, over the shoulder etc). By doing this it gave us a wide range of footage to play around with and use when we came to edit our project. As well as giving us a variety of creative shots to consider, it also meant that if any shots were not suitable (out of time lip syncing, objects in shots, marks on the camera lens) we had enough footage of each shot so we could ensure that at least one of the shots was usable when editing.

 

We shared duties throughout the day and tried to rotate and be fair when allocating. The main jobs we divided out where of course filming, along with lighting, lighting aids (reflectors, filters) and 'water control', which meant keeping equipment dry, as well as the actor and lens of the camera so that the footage was not ruined with unwanted rain marks on the lens.

On the day we decided to shoot at Waterloo bridge instead of the Millenium bridge due to time constraints and the crew feeling tired from a long day of walking around London. Using a wide angle lens on our GoPro we were able to capture the full bridge to the same standard if not better than we would at Millenium bridge. This enabled to achieve a higher clarity of shot and a wider vista of London.

Furthermore, we had to use a lot of  close-ups especially while tracking our hero as he navigated the streets of London. We had to do this because if we were stationary and far away from the action, the crowd tended to swallow him up and he disappeared from many of the shots. The close-ups allowed us to be up close and personal with the character . This element of the narrative has parallels with the genre we are trying to recreate. In the pop-punk/pop-rock genre the narrative is often about telling a story and bonding with characters, I believe through using  our camera shots  it has allowed us to portray this to an industry standard level.