Music video pre-production

 1) Music video treatment

You may already have a finished music video treatment from your summer project and/or preliminary exercise - definitely use or develop that if it works with your project. 

However, you may need to update your treatment or even change it completely now you have finished your preliminary exercise. The original example from the summer for music video treatments can be found here.

Scene 1-Warm tones introduction, no music yet

slowly zoom into narrative, phone vibrating and receiving text.

Scene 2- 

switches to day music starts and shoe Collab seen here where multiple shots and close ups of the brand on screen. Outside walking around alone. Appeal of distancing yourself from reality.

Scene 3-cooler tones

a lot of switching back to past memories and then a switch to the performance aspect of me lip-syncing from different angles.

Scene 4-going back to cooler tones

Siting behind the bathroom door while there is a light on me. Camera is positioned to zoom into me. I'm lip-syncing the lyrics now.

Scene 5-

if only you knew what goes on in my mind stop motion or montage on a poetic note in different locations. main area. shot of me playing electric guitar of main chorus.

Scene 6-cool

Lower angle of actor playing games where lights are shining on face from screen. lollypop as prop in mouth. Shoes placed beside whilst glancing at them and close up on them just sitting there.

Scene 7- 

sinking down behind closed bedroom door still in imagination. Camera slowly panning back and spinning round to give disorientated feel.

Scene 8-

 More cool tones switched to imagination. Inform of Tv another Tiktok trend  with background flashing colours (purple). Song freezes before chorus and another Tiktok trend of heart shape lettering across screen. Spamming photos of friends. Transition ends with photobooth video of me grabbing off wall and putting in box.

Scene 9-

music muffled at end of verse (headphones on) camera propped behind objects as actor reaches to grab something. camera in trolley so low angle as being pushed. angle of tiptoeing to reach object above close up on shoes again. Looks down at shoes and smiles.

Scene 10-

slow motion shots from different settings. ends with final shot of walking past guitar and shoes, sighs and walks back grabbing shoes.

2) Mise-en-scene planning

Plan everything that will appear in front of the camera in your music video - and this is vital when it comes to music video and music genre. 

Remember CLAMPS: Costume, Lighting, Actors (cast, placement, movement, expression), Make-up, Props, Setting.

Costume
What will your artist wear? What other costumes will be required? What is the costume supposed to communicate to the audience? How does this link to genre or constructing representations?

-sticking with baggy clothes this time a bit brighter

-introduce more feminine outfits

Lighting
How will you light the different scenes in your music video? Day or night? Interior or exterior? If outside, can you use streetlights, shadows, reflected sunlight or other creative techniques to achieve the lighting style you want? If inside, experiment with creative lighting techniques using windows, blinds, artificial lights, phone flashes, ring lights and more. You may also want to use our professional lighting set-up with a white or greenscreen background depending on how you plan to conduct the interviews - speak to Mr Ray if you want to arrange this for an after-school filming session.

-using fairy lights

-computer screen

-phone flashlight

-natural light

-supermarket bright light

Actors/performers
The first thing you need to plan is your cast - who will be in your production? The key casting is obviously your artist but you may have other characters too. Try and cast people who are reasonably similar to the character or performer they are playing (both in age and personality). Next, plan their placement and movement in key scenes - how will the audience get to know them? How do you plan to position the audience to connect with your artist?

-me as the main artist

-may introduce friends

-audience will get to know them through connections with main artist

-maybe converse with the artist and appear in scenes together

Make-up
Plan any make-up you require - this can be very important for music video.

-introduce bright 80s make-up when lip-syncing

-bold enough to be seen on camera and blends with lighting

Props
What props will you require? Remember, you can't use anything that might resemble a weapon in a public or school location (this is VERY important). Well-planned props can help to communicate genre and narrative quickly - vital in a music video where you can't use dialogue.

-electric guitar for performance aespect

-phone

-90s clock?

-cart

Setting
This should already be largely planned using your music video treatment. However, now is the time to specify exact locations. For external locations, try and take pictures of settings or use Google Maps and Google Earth. Spending quality time planning your locations can make a huge difference to the professionalism of your production. AQA also seem to prefer external rather than school-based locations - particularly for a brief like this.

-supermarket

-bedroom

-outside

3) Shot list

The final aspect of your pre-production planning is to write a comprehensive shot list for every single possible shot you plan to film for your music video. For three minutes of music video, that is going to be a LOT of shots - quite possibly more than 200.

(will film more and a variation these are the main ones)

Bedroom

-close up on ringing phone

-medium of face reading the text

-side medium of face

-high angle

-front medium shot 

-over the shoulder on phone

-close up of shoes swinging

-portrait medium of hanging off bed

-establishing of through the door

Outside

 -establishing of background

-medium

-high of shadow

-pan to sky

-zoom out/ zoom in

-close up on shoes

-medium on outfit

-low angle of pole

-wide on setting and artist in the middle

Supermarket

-medium shot behind items

-low angle pushing trolley

-establishing shot of me rolling cart away

-close up of shoes walking by

-medium of reaching to top shelve

-extreme close up of tiptoeing

-over the shoulder of phone buzzing

-medium side view as text appears

4) Shooting schedule

Over the half term around 29/10 in the afternoon.