Choosing our actor

After considering many male students at our school to play the role of Luna’s boyfriend in the music video, through a lot of feedback we realised that none of these people would be suitable to the role. Also, as no suitable actors applied on our ad on casting call pro, we therefore scouted an actor from casting call who we thought would be capable of playing the role. We believed this actor to hold suitable experience and be mature enough to successfully act the part of the boyfriend. As the students at our school were too young to play the role of a boyfriend going off and living a crazy lifestyle, leaving his girlfriend behind, we believed that an older male would be more suitable. Therefore, we chose our actor, Alexander, an image and bio shown below.

Filming Plan

We made this shooting plan consisting of the camera and lighting positions in the studio to make it easier to set up when we started to film. We realised that this organisation of lighting and camera equipment worked well in our shots. However, we did alter some of the lighting equipment when we filmed the close up shots of Luna’s mouth when she sings. We placed the lights much closer to her face and directly pointing towards her lips to illuminate them and make them the focus of the shots. We found this filming session extremely valuable and a worthwhile experience to help develop our lighting skills.

We also found this youtube video very helpful and inspirational when it came to setting up and planning the position of our lighting equipment.

Actors and Actresses

Actors and Actresses from Max Pope

Calendar – Time Management

Calendar of Events helping to remember who and what dates we are filming on.

Risk Assessment

We have completed a risk assessment in order to maximise our filming and editing time and to also make sure we are fully prepared when we come to film our music video. Therefore we have listed the main risks that may happen and also what they will cause if they do happen and also how we will prevent these risks from taking place. By thinking about how we will prevent each of these risks from happening we have become more prepared and organised for when we come to film.

We believe the highest risk and most likely to occur would be the camera equipment running out or breaking, therefore this is one of our main priorities to make sure we are fully prepared.

Timeline

We have made a timeline of the different stages we need to complete from present (completed animatic) to the eventual shooting of our music video, shown below.

We have made this timeline in order for us to be more organised and focused on the tasks that need to be completed before we are able to successfully film our music video. The next stages we need to complete consist of:
– Trial shots in all locations
– Lighting trials
– Finalised shooting schedule

To further help and consolidate our organisation, we have made a plan on aspects of our planning and research stages of our coursework that we all need to complete individually and as a group.

Organisation for Filming

View this document on Scribd

We have made a Scribd document to make our filming schedule more organised and focused, so we can film as much as possible and efficiently when we come to film our first session on Thursday 13th November.

For this shooting session our actress playing Luna in our music video, we will only need to concentrate and focus on her make up and hair as the studio aspect of our music video will mainly consist of headshots. However, as we may find that a longer shot of Luna will work better, we will make sure that we specifically pick and choose an appropriate costume for our actor.

Trial Shots

This is a few trial shots that we have prepared ready for our shots. They are the shots of the poker section of our video that will need to be seen to portray the males poorhabits. The shots have come out well but when we shoot the shots we want to use, we will need to use better lighting as the lights that were used were only the house lights that are usually on. We will choose to use varied lighting and also the use of a softbox to help enhance out footage.

Props

The props that will be used within our music video will be varying from a camera to a roulette table. This will build the effect uupp that the boyfriend is playing card games and betting money.

Roulette Table – We are going to use a square shaped roulette table that opens up into a rectangle. The roulette wheel will be in thew centre of the table and the bets will be on either side of the wheel. We will be including alot of close up shots on the roulette table either on the wheel spinning, the ball spinning round or even the number that the bets may be placed on.

Poker chips – Poker chips will also be used during our music video which will allow the audience to realise the gambling situation the boyfriend is portraying. For example, the use of the chips will connect the amount the male has with the facial expression of Luna on the opposite side of the screen. This will also be through close ups as we will see the chips being moved across the table onto either the number they believe it’ll land on or a colour.

Car – The car may not play a main role within the music video but the little time it may be involved it’ll portray a huge emotional background between both Luna and the male figure. The car will speed away allowing the tyres to spin quickly making the audience feel that the male is running from Luna as he has or is going to do something she would not approve. there will be various shots for the car as there will be a close up on the wheels and then a mid shot to have the car speed past to show the speed he has driven away from. Also, a long shot will be through the camera still from the behind of the car watching it drive away. Due to the set being within the dark all that will be seen is the red lights from the back of the car.

Drinks – Another major prop that wont be seen often will be the drink bottles that are based within the polariod pictures and a short part of the narrative. This will show to the audience the amount the boy liked to drink and the party person he portrays.

Polaroid Pictures – The polaroid pictures are going to be a huge part of the video as they will show the development between the couple and the slow deteriation of the relationship. Without these shots I believe that the music video wouldnt be the same in any way as they just wouldnt connect to the video as much.

Casting Call

The above image is a screen shot of a job post we posted on the website Casting Call Pro. We posted this in the hope to find an actress and actor to play Luna and her boyfriend in our music video. We were originally going to have Max and Britney to be in the music video, however, after receiving some constructive criticism we decided against the idea. This is due to the fact that Dan would be left to shoot and frame the shots on his own, therefore if we have people from outside of our coursework group to be in the music video we will all be able to take part in the production process and thus will lead to a more successful music video.

We have described the character of Luna to be between the ages of 18-22 and we would like the actress to be confident and able to lip-syn well, as this is a major element of our music video. Luna’s boyfriend is described also to be between the ages of 18-22, so we could construct a realistic relationship between the two characters. We have also described him to be a ‘bad boy’ – this is due to the storyline of the plot as he lives a crazy and wild lifestyle.