The Opening Script

This will act as the main guidline for our video's opening scene. The reason we want some acting with vocals is that many videos within modern day rock begin with a short dramatic interlude that gives it a more cinematic feel.

(0:00 - 0:38) Boy and girl are silent and there is an obvious anger between them as they stand near the front door.

Girl: So your just gonna leave is that it!

Boy: Im finished! dont you get that, finished with you!

Boy begins to put on jacket

Girl: Oh I get every day mate! you never even started!

Boy: You never gave me the chance!

Girl: Oh... thats just great, is that what this is about?

Boy: Dont get me started

Girl: Oh okay fine just go then... just how dare you ever think of me as some easy target

Boy: Well you made it easy for hundreds of guys before

Girl slaps him. The man slams past her and grabs some alcohol in anger before storming out of the house. Meanwhile the girl is screaming.

Girl: Get out! how dare you after what youve done! how dare you! how dare you!

Boy leaves as girl breaks down and cries.

Casting The Female Lead

To cast the role of the lead female in our 'Music Video Production' we took the initiative and began asking some of our friends if they would be interested. We wanted someone who would match our male lead (John) so that the girlfriend/boyfriend look would be matched. However asking people was not enough and there were not many oppertunities to do so through our daily routine. This is why an advertisement for the role was posted via the social networking site 'Facebook' due to the fact more people at a variety of times would respond and see what was required. The wall-post was written as followed...

"Hello all female friends, we need one of you lucky people to star in our music video for our A2 Media work.... if your interested in being the one who slaps a man, takes drugs and then kills herself then boy are you in for a treat because coincidently thats what were looking for you to do! inbox me your interests and we'll see who matches the part and matches the guy who will play your boyfriend... thankyou (and sorry for the worlds corniest message) :)"

The user friendly approach with the humour i.e. within the parenthesis, was to give that more authentic twenty first century feel where it feels personal. The smiley face was also done so and gives it a more innocent feel. This message recieved great attention from a variety of my friends and sparked interest towards the role that, narrowed down the most dedicated, three people were battling for.

Over much thought and discussion we finally narrowed it down to someone who was devoted, enthusiastic, optimistic and had some experience in acting. The script was generally laid out for them but no real written-work was done. With the lead roles set and finalised filming could commence which is our plan for the forthcoming week at the maximum.

Costumes

As a performer (Joe) I decided that wearing 'rock wear' would have been obvious, to the audience it would have been cliche. I thought it would have been more appropriate to try and match the street theme of our film, the fact that John is going around town drinking on the streets. But also decided to wear a skull guitar strap to match each theme we approached. Rock and Street. Skulls are heavily linked to certain apsects of rock, such as metal, with artists like Metallica featuring them frequently. This is why we settled on using it for this specific video in contrast to the hoodie. The hoodie was made to appear black and white, not only to match the rest of the video, but also to make it more 'Rock & Roll'.

These garments will make the costume in which the protaganist (John) will be wearing during his acting role in the narrative part of the music video. These clothes were chosen because it fits with the stylish attributes he is trying to put across as he made the decision of going out on the town so this is usually the dress sense/code. Furthermore he is a young man so these clothes perfectly with his age. It was to show sense of being in the norm in contrast to the lead singer and guitarist and is juxtaposed by that. This running theme of one person dresses normally and another a bit over-the-top is found in many rock videos from artists like Nirvana and Green Day. It gives us a different feel to certain modern day rock bands as this was mainly done back in the 80's to 90's, the introduction of artists like Nirvana and David Bowie.




We used a combination of a scarf, hat and shirt for the guitarist and lead singer to connote the style of the singer and guitarist to be irregular. The simplistic colors of black and white are to show how ordinary I really was doing the role and the fact there is not situation in which you would wear a scarf and a vest at the same time is to express some sense of being unusual such as most rock-stars do, like The Rolling Stones. It's in sync with the rock genre and the hat was a play on the guitarist Slash from the band Guns'N'Roses and was highly inspired by his fashion sense. This link was to make the video stand out more then other videos and prove to the audiance who view it that we are a serious rock band as we want to be compared to the likes of rock mega stars such as Guns'N'Roses or David Bowie.

Locations

Manchester Town -

We have decided that we will use urban locations, as a large proportion of the story is based within clubs, bars and pubs. Because of this we will go into Manchester with a few bars and clubs in mind and see their availability and how realistic it will look e.g. Does John look like he attend a club like this? Is his dress code appropriate? Consequently we decided to settle on Piccadilly Gardens as we were unable to access any sort of pub as we are underage.

We will also be using a house for the 'argument' scene. We haven't fully decided whose house to use but we are considering each one of our houses, the house will have to appear like students live in there so maybe we'll choose a house that is closest to a student area in Manchester. If we couldn't have found this kind of house, we thought we would just stick with the house we decide is most fitting. The house that follows, however, is the house eventually settled one.

Streets shots and alley shots will be used frequently within our production. Our protagonist (John) will be walking down the streets and alley ways, portraying that he is drinking spirits. The fact that he is drinking in the streets shows the serious effects the break up has on our characters. These alley ways had to look both urban yet a nice environment to film in as we didn't want to give off a completely dull impression so early on into our video. We, therefore, settled on an alley that looks like the one in the following picture.

Opening Scene Story Board

The very first shot within our music video (for the narrative section) will be of the man putting on his coat during an dispute. It will be tame in how we shoot it so will consist of medium shots and will last for a few seconds.













The next will be of the female in anger which will be portrayed using close ups and extreme close ups. The emotions expressed by her paralinguistcal features will be focused on heavily to try and pick out the most vital, yet common, aspects of someone who has been hurt emotionally.











There will be a few over the shoulder shots as well as close ups and medium shots during the moments the male lead accuses the female lead of cheating. It will be made even more powerful with the subtle use of high/low angle shots to show dominance in the scene.












The slap will be filmed using shaky cam and possibly with a P.O.V shot. This is to put you in the places of both characters, the shaky cam being the females rage and the P.O.V shot being from the males perspective. A two shot and medium shot may also be used.













This will then be followed by the male lead walking away in anger with alcohol in his hands. Only a medium shot/close ups will be used for the simplicity to relfex how simple the idea was for him to just walk out on her and leave her to be.
















The final shot will be of the female lead in tears (or in total fury) and she will be captivated by emotions that express her sorrow to the watching audiance so that they can relate to or sympathise with.

Brief Overall Story Board

The opening scene consists of the couple breaking up and we will attempt to convey the emotion behind it through a variety of close-ups and extreme close-ups. It will last around 37 seconds in total and will be the foundation to our music video and all that is to follow.











This will either be followed by or green screened with a performance piece where we will act out and lip-sync the song which is one of the conventions of a rock video. This will consist of some medium shots, close ups and long shots.


















There will then be a few shots of the protagnosists (female and male) showing their first steps into their fatal actions. The man will be drinking heavily and the girl overdosing knowingly. This will be done with close ups, medium shots and extreme close-ups.
















This will then be followed by a further performance, more focused upon the guitars used (bass/electric) to give it the more authentic rock look.

















Then will follow some medium, establishing, close-ups, extreme close-ups and a few panning with high angle/low angle shots. The sheer variety of shots is to captivate the viewer during the climax to the narrative of the video and convey the emotions of the song and story in an approximated 31 second slot.














The final moments of the video will consist of medium shots/close-ups to fully engadge the viewer into whats happening in the video. There will be a split screen to make it seem as if the girl and boy are holding hands at death.

John's Last Week Analysis

Last week we started doing our filming for our overall production . We started off in the music room in college filming the performance part of our video in which will be used in certain parts of our narrative music video, it started off with close ups of Joe's hand playing the Bass Guitar this was the only proper piece of film we was satisfied with because we opted to do filming of a drumming piece but we all needed more practice to get the tempo right. Also we was having trouble syncing the music with playing of the instruments as the instruments were too loud in comparison to the song so we couldn't hear it properly.