Mise en Scene

Now that we have an idea that is possible to make we started coming up with the ‘mise en scene’ for our video. For the costumes of drug users we are going to have very dark dull clothing to show that they don’t really care what their wearing because they have their ‘drugs’. And for the main character we are going to put her in bright colours to contrast with the other characters. As far as make-up goes we are going to make sure the teenagers on drugs have a very pale complexion and dark eyes , this shows the bad effects drugs have on you compared to the bright healthy face of the main character (Lucy).
The set and location of our video is going to change extremes from a bright classroom that shows learning and healthy students to the streets where everything is dim and gloomy.
The props we need to make this a successful video are the chairs and tables for the classroom along with a board showing the presentation and then cigarettes and some sort of powder for example flour, salt or sugar to act as a cocaine substance.

Because we want to film towards the evening for the best effect we will need some sort of lighting, for this we are going to use car lights and torches to shine towards the drug victims. This leads on the main sort of colour theme we want in the video which is general gloom and doom throughout accept for the main character who is going to stand out as a very bright and bubbly person. We want to make the street seem very grotty and a place where no one wants to be, that they want to try and leave, this will connote the lyrics “How can we start to tackle the problem”.

I found some images that inspired us with our ideas which i have posted below. They show the kind of outcome we hope for with our final piece.

Making Adjustments..

After we decided the main idea for our video we discussed how we would make it work using the people we had available and the location needed for the video, it became clear that our idea was not going to be easy to make considering we needed a party venue and many actors willing to participate. Therefore we came up with a new concept of shooting it on a street keeping the main character in it walking along past all these teenage drug users. We also decided to still keep the original opening idea of the classroom talk with students about drugs.

Initial ideas

Now that we had our artist and song ready we started thinking about ideas for the video, the first thing that came to mind was to set it in a teenage enviroment where 16-20 year olds are likely to do drugs such as parties or college/universities.
One of our favourite ideas was to start out with a presentation in a school from a girl around the age of 19 about drugs then she shows the class a video, this video is of a party where all around are teenagers on drugs, doing drugs and taking part in inappropriate things, video would be in the point of view of the presenter who is also one of the girls in the video on drugs, so its like there was two sides to her.
This idea was inspired by another of Lilly Allens videos "22" where she is also two different people, in two very different states of mind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWjNFC-FinU

SONG LYRICS

These are the lyrics for "Everyones at it".

I don't know much,But I know this for certain,
That is the sun,Poking its head round the curtain.
Now please can we leave,I'd like to go to bed now.
It's not just the sun,That is hurting my head now.

I'm not trying to say,That I'm smelling of roses,
But when will we tire,Of putting shit up our noses.
I don't like staying up,Staying up past the sunlight.
It's meant to be fun,And this just doesn't feel right.

Why can't we all,All just be honest,
Admit to ourselves,That everyone's on it.
From grown politicians,To young adolescents,
Prescribing themselves,Anti-depressants.
How can we start to tackle the problem,
If you don't put your hands up,And admit that you're on them.

The kids are in danger,They're all getting habits,
Because from what I can see,Everyone's at it.
Everyone's at it.Everyone's at it.Everyone's at it.

I get involved,But I'm not advocating.
Got an opinion,Yeah, you're well up for slating.
So you've got a prescription,And that makes it legal.
I find the excuses,Overwhelmingly feeble.
You go to the doctor,You need pills to sleep in.
Well if you can convince him,Then I guess that's not cheating.
So your daughter's depressed,We'll get her straight on the prozac.
But little do you know,She already takes crack.

Why can't we all,All just be honest,
Admit to ourselves,That everyone's on it.
From grown politicians,To young adolescents,
Prescribing themselves,Anti-depressants.

How can we start to tackle the problem,
If you don't put your hands up,And admit that you're on them.
The kids are in danger,They're all getting habits,
Because from what I can see,
veryone's at it.Everyone's at it.Everyone's at it.
Everyone's at it.
Why can't we all,All just be honest,
Admit to ourselves,That everyone's on it.
From grown politicians,To young adolescents,
Prescribing themselves,Anti-depressants.

How can we start to tackle the problem,
If you don't put your hands up,
And admit that you're on them.
The kids are in danger,They're all getting habits,
Because from what I can see,Everyone's at it.
Everyone's at it.Everyone's at it.Everyone's at it.

As you can see i have highlighted the words in the lyric that are giving us our ideas, throughout the song drugs are the main topic which is how we came up with our idea. The idea of "tackling the problem" is why we have included the intro to the video about the presentation to a class of students.
the meaning behind the video to this song is showed by how we exclude the main character as much as possible using colour and staging. The main idea is to show how she is different from them all and that she isn't following the crowd and getting into drugs.

Introduction.. Choosing our song

This is the blog for my A2 Media coursework where i am going to blog every step of what i do for making a music video.
The first thing we were asked to do was pick a song that we would make the video for, in a group of four people, Kelsey, Lucy, Jade and I we thought about the different genres of music that we would want to focus on and came up with indie music or various popular chart artists, after much deliberation we picked Lilly Allen as we can relate to her music which tend to have a meaning, we picked a song from her album called "Everyones at it" because there is a strong theme that
would make it easier to make a music video for.