September 2016 ~ Laura Walker A2 Media Studies

Thursday, 29 September 2016

Character list and profiles

The Wolf

Full Name:
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Ethnicity: UNKNOWN

Appearance

Eye colour: Brown
Hair colour: Dark Brown
Height/build: Tall
Clothing/Style: Scuffy/smart

Role

Character Function: The protagonist, provides the video with a meaningful and effective narrative

Character Objectives: He will encounter different obstacles on his journey following the girl- through symbolism of the red roses

Characters Personality: Curious, emotional, fiery,

Red

Full Name: Red
Gender: Female
Age: UNKNOWN
Ethnicity: White British

Appearance

Eye colour: Blue
Hair colour: Dark Brown
Height/build: Medium tall
Clothing/Style: Red cape, pure white dress

Role

Character Function: Symbolism for love or the chase

Character Objectives: She is the 'character' who leads the wolf in some respect, she is the antagonist, both dark and light and a key role in the narrative.

Characters Personality: Mysterious, passionate, shy, alluring

Styling Choices

Wolf

Make-up decisions- (Need to hire a make-up artist)

http://www.norfolkbeautytraining.co.uk/

Companies:

Carli La Motte- Tel 07796962821 / 07703006592

Louise Young- http://www.louiseyoung.co.uk/gallery/

City College- make up artists

Costume

A suit VS jeans and a shirt

Red

Make-up decisions- (Will do ourselves)

Dark eye make up
Red lips
Pale skin
Blue eyes/brown eyes?

Costume

Red cape (all the audience will see in terms of costume maybe a white dress underneath??)

Costume World:

Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Velvet-Hooded-Vampire-Halloween-Outfit/dp/B014RCGBDQ/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1475486687&sr=8-10&keywords=red+cloak

1) What is your initial idea?

We are interested in creating a contemporary, stylized video in the style of panic at the discos music videos, we want to make the video effective by using short, fast paced shots, in time with the music in order to create suspense and excitement.

We would like to use amplication style narrative and use both the band playing the song as well as the actor and the storyline. These sections will be broken up each time the chorus plays and when the beat drops.

We like the idea of having a teenager who's emotions are portrayed through the characteristics of a wolf, maybe incorporating some kind of romance aspect. We would then like to include different obstacles that the 'wolf' essentially has to pass through. Water being one, as well as leaves and a bonfire..

How the idea has evolved over the course of the past few weeks-

We would like to start off the music video with a classic eye opening shot. This will be of the main character before his face morphs into that of a wolf (Through the use of theatre make up artists). This will then fade into a shot of a band and we hope to find a large white space where we can film them playing the music. The main singer/character will then walk forward and leaves will start to fall, we will edit the background so that it gradually fades from the clean studio to a dark, open forest. The leaves will continue to fall however instead of standing up, the camera will be looking down on the 'wolf' and as it tilts up the leaves fall off of him. We are then planning on doing a zoom close up shot into his eye and either editing or creating a kind of red glow which will represent a rose. Camera will then zoom out again and he will walk forwards (Camera will follow). Hands will come out of nowhere and start grabbing him, pulling him away and stopping him from following. The lights will then flicker to represent time change and he will fall/jump to the ground. He will crawl along the ground (Panic! Style) and jump up as lights flicker again. This will then follow the re-introduction of the band who will appear on the beat. He will then sing with the band for a few seconds and the lights will flicker again- wolf will re-appear. (Flickery faded distorted image) Huge flash of light (like lightening) and we create an illusion that he is falling. ( we have a sequence of dream like shots where he is imagining things almost like hallucination). And a rose falls into his hand as this illusion takes place. "Falls" into a dark room (drama studio or a studio) and a projector flickers on displaying footage of the band playing the song (he is stood where he would be performing). Starts walking towards the camera and he looks up to see roses falling. When he looks down the roses have fallen into water and the setting has changed. He falls into the water and we shoot him from below looking at his face. He is miming under the water and reintroduction of the hands pushing him under the water, creating a drowning effect. Character over emphasises in his facial expressions and movements that he cant escape. Sudden flash and cut to a shot of damp feet walking in the wood, camera pans up and the band are in the forest and he is singing, only this time he is soggy and the make up is coming off of his face. The camera will then flash back to him standing alone in the studio, it will zoom out over the chairs so that we can see Red sitting in the centre of the seats. We are then presented with a close up shot of her lips, her cape and she lifts her cape up over her head to reveal her eyes. (Link back to the beginning)

2) How did you come to this idea?

We were listening to the song and although it can be seen as quite literalist, using a wolf to act in the song 'dancing with a wolf', I feel like it links well and will work well in the context of the song. I was also hugely inspired by the music videos by 'Panic! At the disco" and other contemporary videos mixing both mime with narrative.

3) What part of the idea are you particularly keen on?

I like the idea of the emotions being portrayed and the physical obstacles he has to pass through symbolising obstacles in life. I also like the creativeness of the idea and am excited to experiment and play around with editing as well as make up and camera angles.

Casting Video

Existing Narrative

1) What is narrative?

Narrative is the media term for story telling

2) How does narrative work in relation to music videos?

Andrew Godwin stated that there are 3 ways in which the music video can link back to the song itself:

Illustration- A literal meaning to the songs' lyrics in a visual form (acting out what is happening in the song etc.)

Amplification- Designed to be creative and artistic, seeks to create a form of story or artistic statement, informed by the lyrics or meaning of the song. They therefore have elements of performance and illustration in them.

Disjuncture- Ignores the content and genre of the song, creating a whole new set of meaning. They are often abstract and arty, involving live performance.

3) What are the conventions of narratives in each of the following genres:

Comedy-

Horror-

Drama-

Romance -

Comedy-

Narrative is crucial when making a comedy because it keeps the audience entertained and engaged in the film. If a comedy had a terrible narrative, the humour just wouldn't be effective. The narrative within a comedy must fit into three main sections;

Slapsticks- These are comedy films which include physical comedy such as pratfalls, tripping and falling. This is all done in a cartoonish style of violence, harmless and slightly goofy.

Dark humour- It is humour that is light hearted and makes light and casual work of a subject matter usually considered taboo or inappropriate.

Wit/Wordplay- A form of intelligent humour, including things that are clever and considered funny. A wit is a person skilled at making intelligent remarks quickly. In film, narrative determines when the wit comes in.

Horror-

The typical narrative of a horror film includes:

The narrative must provide a template or formula in film production.

The narrative must be clear to the audience to allow them to recognise the structure and genre of the film as a way of developing an understanding of why events happen and their order.

Action-

The typical narrative of an action film includes:

One long quest or mission that takes up the majority of the film itself

A succession of different chase scenes that allow for the story to flow. It is these gripping chase scenes that keeps us hooked and causes us to be 'on the edge of our seats' due to tension.

A finale that solves these problem(s)and a hero at the end.

Drama-

The typical narrative of a drama includes:

Intense social interaction with other characters

Plot twist that is not expected - can lead us down a different viewpoint or outcome that we did not expect.

Must move the audience emotionally

Should exhibit real life situations with realistic characters

Romance-

The typical narrative of a Romance film includes:

"Boy meets girl" scenario- typical guideline to satisfy audiences expectations.

Everyday events

Characters go separate ways perhaps because of an argument but can then re-unite.

Typically aimed at the female audience

4) How does the Narrative theory of...

Propp-

Todorov-

Barthes-

Levi-Strauss-

fit into a music video?

Narrative Theories -Vladimir Propp:

Vladimir Propp developed a character theoryfor studying media texts and productions, which indicates that there were 7 broad character types in the 100 tales he analysed, which could be applied to other media:

Tzvetan Todorov:

Todorov in 1969 produced a theory which he believed to be able to be applied to any film. He believed that all films followed the same narrative pattern. They all went through stages called the equilibrium, disequilibrium, acknowledgement, solving and again equilibrium.

Claude Levi-Strauss-

Claude Levi-Strauss introduced the notion of binary oppositions as a useful way to consider the production of meaning within narratives. He argued that all construction of meaning was dependent, to some degree, on these oppositions. Examples of binary oppositions found in some moving image narratives might be:

The villain (struggles against the hero)

The donor (prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object)

The (magical) helper (helps the hero in the quest)

The princess (person the hero marries, often sought for during the narrative)

The false hero (perceived as good character in beginning but emerges as evil)

The dispatcher (character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off)

The hero [AKA victim/seeker/paladin/winner, reacts to the donor, weds the princess

A one minute section of a music video

I write sins not tragedies: Panic! At the disco

Stop at -1 min

Characters: The huge cast is incredibly effective in this video as it allows the music videos narrative to expand and become more interesting to the viewer.

Locations: There are also several settings, all juxtaposing with shape and colour, the range of setting also adds to the narrative

Narrative/montage: A mixture of different filming and composition techniques interest the viewer and draw them in to the storyline- it is also much more impressive and engaging

Live performance with lip syncing: There is also live performance in the video which professionalises the piece- the lip syncing is effective in this particular video as it allows us to emerse ourselves and get to know the character

Video Diary #1 20/09/16

Decisions and Song Choice

1) What coursework brief are you going to complete?

- Music Video

2) Why?

- It allows you to be more adventurous in your ideas and filming and allows you to produce more effective outcomes as a result

- The preliminary task went really well and we had a few song choices prior to picking which we were excited about

3) Who are you working with and why?

I am working with Zoe Desgland and Natalie Paul, I have never worked with them before however from working with them outside of media and on other projects I feel like we can all contribute something different which will make the final product brilliant. I also think that three is a good number as we wont have too much to do on our own and it is not too many people for the ideas and filming to become confused.

Song choice:

Dancing with a wolf- All time low

Song duration: 4 mins

1) Although the song choice may seem like one of the most important elements in the music video, it is not actually too significant unless you are working tightly to the narrative. It was important that we chose an upbeat song, expressing emotion and feeling as we knew along the lines what we wanted to do. It actually became more important as our ideas got bigger as we are actually going to be following the 'wolf'' storyline theme.

2) The genre of music would be best described as '10s alternative or pop/pop-rock, lively, upbeat and emotional > important as will be reflected in the expressions of the characters

3) What genre of filmmaking do you think will fit with this genre of music?

I think that

4) What songs ideas did we have? Why?

Before deciding on 'Dancing with a wolf', we looked at a number of different songs and artists, including Bastille, Panic at the Disco, Sigma and Clean Bandit. These genre of songs fitted with the kind of effects we wanted to create and the effects we wanted to produce.

Lyrics

Who's gonna listen when you run out of lies?
Who's gonna hear you, when your words seem worthless?
Who's gonna save you when you're out of time?
And who's gonna want you, when you're on your knees, begging:

"Oh, please take me at my word, I'm desperate
I swear, I never meant to hurt no one, no
Oh, please stay for what it's worth, I'm desperate"
You're on your own

So don't you call my name
I will take you down
Should've known that you've been dancing with a wolf
So don't you call my name
I will take you down
I'm not your friend, you burned a bridge
I chew you up and spit you out
Oh woah oh woah oh
There's no love for a liar, no love for a liar
Oh woah oh woah oh
There's no love for a liar, no love
So don't you call my name
(Call my name)

No one to listen when you're running your mouth
No one to hear you when your words seem worthless
No one to save you when you're coming down
No one to want you, when you're on your knees, begging:

"Oh, please take me at my word, I'm desperate
I swear, I never meant to hurt no one, no
Oh, please stay for what it's worth, I'm desperate"
You're on your own

So don't you call my name
I will take you down
Should've known that you've been dancing with a wolf
So don't you call my name
I will take you down
I'm not your friend, you burned a bridge
I chew you up and spit you out
Oh woah oh woah oh
There's no love for a liar, no love for a liar
Oh woah oh woah oh
There's no love for a liar, no love
So don't you call my name

Fool me once, it's shame on you
Fool me twice, and let the wolves come crashing through
Fool me once, it's shame on you
Fool me twice, and let the wolves come

So don't you call my name
I will take you down
Should've known that you've been dancing with a wolf

Don't you call my name
I will take you down
Should've known that you've been dancing with a wolf
So don't you call my name
I will take you down
I'm not your friend, you burned a bridge
I chew you up and spit you out
Oh woah oh woah oh
There's no love for a liar, no love for a liar
Oh woah oh woah oh
There's no love for a liar, no love
So don't you call my name
(Call my name, call my name)

General questions for all 3 roles:

1) Have you got any acting experience?

2) Why do you think you'd suit the role?

3) Are you able to portray emotion well? Examples??

4) Are you comfortable acting in front of a camera?

5) Are you able to take constructive criticism and re-take scenes multiple times if we need you to? ( Are you patient and willing?)

6) Would you be willing to give up your time to act in our music video?

Main character:

7) Can you move well? How confident are you at dancing?

8) re you able to take constructive criticism and re-take scenes multiple times if we aren't happy?

9) Would you be willing to give up your time to act in our music video?

Red:

7) Are you happy with close up shots being taken of your face?

The band:

7) Would you be willing to learn this song in order to be part of our video?

8) Are you happy to play your instruments in outdoor areas?

Casting ideas

Who we will need to find a role for:

Band members (4-5 people including lead singer):

Perfect mistakes
Black Shuck
Coasting
The Meeks

Main character i.e.. wolf (lead singer):

Red:

Extras (for hand movements):

Means of casting-

Casting websites:

http://www.sandrareynolds.co.uk/models/aaly-ros

Aaly Rose

Yasmin Ryan

Adan O'Callaghan

Daniel Woolnough

Own contacts:

Through school:
Friends:

Charlie Frazer
Harry Buxton
Tom Coath
Sam Hayes
Alex Rennie
Nick McGee
John McIlroy

Meghan Kelly
Megan Taylor
Zoë Desgland
Jenna Elsby
Beth Oram
Maria Page

Drama students:

Tom Coath
Charlie Frazer

Meghan Kelly

Other companies/organisations:
UEA actors/actresses
University of the performing arts Norwich