Researching Props

Props are one of the smallest yet most important details of any production - they are what makes the environment feel realistic or the things that provide great symbolic or narrative meaning for the audience. Because of this, each of the decisions we make about our key props will effect how the audience percieves our video, given the short ammount of time we have to present our ideas.



Red String



We have decided that we would have some red string in the video that our actress would follow which would slowly lead her to what she thinks is the true beauty. We thought that we should have everything connected by the the red string would be really effective and would help our ideas and locations to link more smoothly. we thought that we could have a shot where it shows all of us in the group even if it's just a snippet of us or just our lips or something, which would work well with our red string idea to show that they are all connected and the beauty is in all of them no matter how different they are, there is beauty in everyone.


Red Heart


We had this idea that the red string would lead to a red heart echoing the Heartwood album and also the 'Heartwood tree' which is where our protagonist would end up in the end. another idea that we had was that the protagonist could be following this red string which leads to the Heartwood tree and she then finds out that the heart is attached to her but she could not see it all this time, linking to the fact she is in fact the true beauty, and she has been searching for the true meaning of beauty and she had found that is is in herself hence the heart.




Photos

We thought that having photos attached to the tree showing what the media thinks is true beauty, so bits from magazines and air-brushed models tied to a brown string because it will look quite natural. This idea was influenced by Taylor Swifts music video 'Mine' where she is in the forest with photos hanging all around her. We thought that we would have a shot of our protagonist ripping the photos off the tree to show that she is angry and doesn't want to believe that this is the true beauty that she is searching for.

Research - Artist Identity

“Forever inspired by the mysteries of the universe, and forever propelled by the laws of Quantum Mechanics, Amanda is on an endless path of creativity so you can always expect to find her up to something new and unusual.”

Amanda Rogers is an American singer/songwriter who writes and records primarily in Vermont, Virginia. Having produced 3 EP's and two full studio albums, Amanda has been recording for a considerable amount of time, yet hasn't enjoyed much wide acclaim. Despite this, those who do know her music find it to be exploratory and poetic, deep it its interpretation of the subject matters she challenges.

Roger's genre is hard to precisely define - you could go as far as saying her music is an interesting mix of pop, folk, blues and country music, with certain songs reflecting more of a certain style. For example, This Beauty, the track we're are using for our music video, is mainly pop with a few acoustic elements thrown in. However, she tends to place a strong emphasis on lyrical meaning and instrumental tones, which often make her songs feel personal and emotionally charged.
Every artist has their own image that is gradually built up over time and marketing and Amanda is no different. Her natural appearance and promotion of things such as animal rights, environmental issues and vegan beliefs all make her appear very naturalistic and stripped back. You could even go as far as saying she evokes a hippy style, with her long hair and flowing outfits.

For her album "Heartwood", from which the song This Beauty originates, she has a fairly distinct style and we looked into this through the promotional photos found on her website at the time of the albums release. All the images feature Amanda in a natural setting, showing her to be at one with nature, blending into her surroundings. In some photos, she almost looks as if she could be part of the the landscape herself. Colouring is an aspect that will play a huge role in our video as it does in nature photography and Amada's appearance in many of these images. There is also a strong sense of connection between artist and audience created through the use of direct eye contact in many photos, something we also need to be aware of. The only time when this does not feature is when the artist is looking at other aspects of the landscape around her, perhaps showing that she finds only nature to be as important as her fans. The whole effect is very personal and unique to each person that sees Amanda - the viewer takes from the image what they want to see or what is more important to them, a strong image that could be used in our video.


 Previous Video Examples

The only music video that Amanda has released is the video for the song The Best Things in Life Aren't Things to a Fugitive and because of this, we've looked at it a great deal whilst trying to develop our own ideas for this beauty. The video shows her picking up debris from the ground and how the time speeds up. She wears a long dress and it is filmed in black and white - these are two aspects that we need to take into account when we are making our music video for her music, our 'Amanda' will need to wear similar long, flowing dresses and will have a focus on colouring. Whether or not this focus will be on lack of colour or abundance of it, we have yet to decide.
Seeing this music video really helped us to get a feel for how we could create a music video. For the majority of the music video, Amanda Rogers is standing in front of a microphone, singing and recording her song, this shows very large part of her representation is in front of a microphone, showing that it is just her performing.

Story Board and Shot List - This Beauty

This Beauty - Lyric Analysis

 



With a song such as This Beauty, the lyrics are crucial to it's meaning and how it should be presented visually. We decided very early on that our understanding of the lyrics would act as our main guide to creating the video and more impostantly to our storyboard. We wanted to have key moments and lyrics pointed out visually in our video, so that the link between music, visuals and the lyrics is strong and quite easy to identify for the audience.

The meaning behind This Beauty is truly a critque of the media and how they define "true beauty", filled with editied images and hiding behind make up. It talks of returning back to natural things and understanding that beauty comes from the person it belongs to, not the outward appearance that everyone else see's. Amanda sings as someone who is regularly crticised for her appearance, something that is especially true for her place in the oublic eye that comes from her profession.

Some of the lines we thought would work well in having a visual guide were those they had strong imagery attatched to the lyrics. "And those greens and those blues / Seem too perfect to be true" is a great example of this. We had the image of a slow panning shot depicting both the green of the treetops against the blue sky for this line, as it represented the idea so well and kept to our theme of nature perfectly whilst also giving the video more richness in colour. Hopefully this will be possible to capture on the day of our shoot.

Another line that we thought would work well was the line "An imperfected me will not be seen". For this, we pictured a static shot that showed our Amanda seamlessly disappearing into her location, either behind the trees or travelling out of shot. We think this could be could at representing the shameful nature of being seen as imperfect and Amanda at first conforming to this. This way, we may also be able to show some character progression throughout the video through other shots.

Analysing the lyrics has provided a good starting point for our ideas and for understanding the deeper message of the song and therefore, its good that we have managed to do this before stoaryboarding. We can now move on to developing some of our ideas.

Location Scouting Part Two

Langley Park
The second of the two main locations we went to visit, Langley Park is only short walk away from our first location, Black Park, making it highly convinent to access. Although it is half the size of the other nature park, this location is steeped in history and filled with a greater variety of forest areas and fields amongst beautifully detailed gardens. A noticable difference we spotted was the variety of trees and layout in this park comaperd to it's neighbour. Whilst most of Black Park was filled with tall pine trees and similar forests, Langley Park contained many of the more traditional areas we imagined in the beginning. For this reason, we believe that using specific areas from both would benfit us the most.
When compared to our lasts projects location of the London Underground, this location should be relatively easy to film in once we've gained the proper permissions, mostly due to the lack of visitors in the area and having time to make our own descisions that will not be dictated by transport and other people.
After sending off our main application to film, we'll need to decide whether these two natural locations will be the only ones used. We had another location in mind for an idea that I, personally have grown rather fond of which would involve a studio or room location. Inspired by an image from Anada's Heartwood era, it would involve newspaper and magazines cover the walls and a shift of colour from those magazines to the main performer in the video. We have yet to decide whether this will be possible to pull off.



We were fortunate enough to stumble upon this beautiful tree which we thought evoked the theme of "Heartwood" perfectly. This will be one of the main locations for our music video.  Heartwood is the centre of the tree which is not living, yet without the support of the heartwood the tree, would cease to exist. As the tree ages the diameter of the heartwood increases. There is a diagram of this on the interior of the album case, explaining that "there is growth in everything, even in death".

 

From a certain angle the interior of the tree resembles the shape of a heart- reflecting the theme of heartwood. We considered having an extra team member taking photos to use as part of our album artwork and magazine advert as the tree will probably be a central location to the music video. As the song is representing the main theme of the album, it would make sense to incorporate the locations and shots used in the video into the advert.



We considered using this structure we found in Langley Park, if it won't be destroyed by our production day. It's style was reminiscent of many of the promotional shots we've seen featuring Amanda Rogers.

 

 

Research - Initial Location Ideas

After researching our chosen songs and listening to them multiple times, we decided to begin brainstorming a few ideas for each. This meant visualisng some basi shot ideas, along with colouring, narrative and of course, locations. As was demonstrated in our AS project, our group cares quite strongly about where our filming is set, believing that wherever we choose will greaty impac the style of the song and how it is viewed by an audience.

Both songs we felt have strong contations towards nature, with themes of new beginnings and natural progressions showing through in the lyrics of each song and also the musicality. This lead us to think of very naturalisitc places to shoot, in high contrast to the busy urban location of last year.
The reason we are thinking about this so soon - without a shot list or even and basic narative or idea - is a matter of practicality. We need to be able to keep to time and money constraits when producing our music video and the with the time frame being very different from what we knew before, we want to be prepared for this. Nearby locations give us the best opportunities for filming at short notice (crucial in the very temperamental weather of the autumn months) and for acessability.

Listed here are a few locations that I myself have been to observe in the context of our music video and a few areas within them that we think could be beneficial to us in the coming months.

• Black Park - Tall trees and dark forests make this very awe inspiring and myseterious, perfect for setting the context of nature within the music video
• Burnham Beeches - Tried and tested, this area will provide us with a picturesque yet natural setting.
• Langley Park - Many old and interesting features and an expansive setting that would give us a lot of perspective.
• Braywick Park - Not as grand as the other ideas, yet it's convinience makes it a good option for quick shots.

Shooting Schedule

After deciding the locations for where our music video was going to be shot, we had to arrange with both Landley Park and Black Park the days that we could film and also (of course) get our filming permit, which thankfully was free. This was particularly crucial for Black Park as there was resticted access to various areas at the time of our shooting, due to the filming of a large scale new film. However, we found out before going that the specific areas we wanted to film in were not greatly effected.

We also had to consider the length of time we could realistically have for filming, which meant we had to research the parks opening and closing times, which were as follows:

Langley Park: 8:15am-4:30pm
Black Park: 8:00am-5:00pm


Shooting Schedule


Location | Day | Date | Time


Langley Park | Sunday | 27th October 2013 | 1:00pm-Closing

Black Park | Monday | 28th October 2013 | 9:30am-3:00pm

Langley Park | Saturday | 2nd November 2013 | 10:am-2:00pm


Despite this detailed schedule and our shot list and preparation, the thrid date was something we hadn't planned for. However, we are certainly that we decided to go back and reshoot, as we now have all the footage we need to complete the video.