Mise en-scene planning
- 1. Mise-en-scene Brandon Holder It is vital that we make sure that we establish the different locations, characters, costumes and various props we plan to use in our music video to help us with the development of our idea, our planning stage and to ensure that we create a music video that appeals to our target audience and is to a professional standard
- 2. Location 1. Graveyard(pathway)/park bench Without filming directly inside a cemetery, as we feel that it would be disrespectful, we would like to film the pathway/entrance of a graveyard as to set the scene for our piece. This is because our location has connotations of loss and helplessness which can act as signifiers to an audience in helping them gain a better understanding of a music videos meaning. In addition from this the audience will also hopefully be able to make inferences about our characters and begin to gather an understanding of the characters current emotions and the situation at hand. The location of a park bench is also important because this location is often a place that is thought of a public space where people are social and spend time with friends and family, however we will counter this representation as our character will be alone on the bench, mindful of all the happy families walking past him. Although this location is separate from the graveyard, it helps to build the atmosphere and evoke emotion from the audience about the character and better understand the narrative. Taking advantage of British weathers rain we could use the technique of pathetic fallacy to indicate how a indicate how a character is feeling.
- 3. Location 2. House This location represents the ‘domestic abuse’ segment of our narrative. We have chosen a house as our second location as it has typically has connotations of warmth, safety and happiness however our challenging this with our portrayal of abuse. The house will look welcoming and appear to be safe until the character goes to her room and is shown to actually be alone. This location also represents how in society people do not know what goes on behind closed doors and if someone cannot find anyone to confide in or does not ask for help, their abuse can often continue. Furthermore the setting of a house is also significant because it can appear more relatable to an audience therefore making the issues that the character faces in her home more identifiable or understandable because it is a familiar location. This location is also part of our social commentary on issues that teenagers/young people face that are stereotyped and subsequently ignored/swept under the rug because it is deemed as just being a ‘phase’ that they must overcome on their own. The point about feeling alone is also important as with this location, utilising space will be significant in isolating the character to make them appear vulnerable and having no one else to turn to.
- 4. Location 3. Woods We would like our third location to be filmed in the woods. This is because it can signify how the character’s emotions are no longer being hidden as nature has representations of things in their rawest form. This is important as for this location our character is suffering from depression and does not know how to properly express the emotions that he feels so he is in the woods, sitting in front of a raging camp fire. The woods is an appropriate location for this scene as everything in the woods is still and natural much like our character and that is why while in the woods, this character will appear emotionless. This location also allows us to portray the character as being alone both literally and metaphorically as the woods can be seen as a place that is isolated from society, people and industrialisation.
- 5. Lighting We plan to film during the afternoon when it begins to get dark earlier. This is because the night as connotations of vulnerability and isolation therefore this particular use of lighting will be appropriate for our video. We also want to take advantage of low key lighting to convey our strong themes through what the audience see on the screen rather than through direct explanation. During the editing stages of our production we could also make use of dull filters or lower the saturation of colours in particular shots to better support the narrative and how the audience understand it and make inferences based on colour schemes, contrasting colours and high/low key lighting It is important that we plan and use our lighting correctly because it can set the tone for a lot of elements in a music video such as the emotions the characters are feeling or their mental state and we have chosen this type of particular lighting because our video will be addressing issues that can often be ignored or swept under the rug in mainstream society or passed off as a ‘teenage phase’. Our lighting should also be in sync with our genre as our music videos message is about awareness of underrepresented issues and so our video will contrast the conventional element of the same genre which features bright colours, warm colours and high key lighting.
- 6. Costume Our choice of costume for our music video is extremely important as it will play a huge part in the way that we convey our message to our audience. In addition we want our characters to blend in/fade into the crowd as before we develop our narrative and this is because in the early stages of our video we want our characters to conform to societal stereotypes so that the audience recognise these stereotypes and ignore the possibility of underlying issues in (teenagers/young people) our characters.
- 7. Character: Artist Artist Our artist will be wearing conventional indie style clothing as it best fits our RnB/indie rock genre and the type of music video we are trying to create. In addition this clothing style fits in with our representation of a modest and humble artist who is more concerned about the message and creating music oppose to an artist who only makes music for the sole purpose about the money. Our characters/artist will be wearing casual clothing that does not make them stand out. With this we are making social commentary on the assumptions of teenagers by other social groups.
- 9. Character: 1 Character 1 who has lost a loved one and is now homeless will be wearing casual clothing that will look slightly worn out and will have light shades of dirt on his face. This style will include a grey/black beanie hat, a simple grey top, dark blue jacket, dark blue jeans and Nike trainers. We will be filming each character on their own, each on different days and in different scenes. However character 1 will only have one set outfit for the music video. The use of dark colours will represent the negative emotions and atmosphere of the scene as these types of colours have connotations of pain and loneliness.
- 12. Character: 2 We will be filming each character on their own, each on different days and in different scenes. For character 2 we will have two separate outfits because of our theme of domestic abuse as the audience will see bruises in the very beginning of the scene and then they will see that more bruises have appeared when the character is getting ready the next morning and this highlights the severity of the issues and also helps further develop and support the continuity of the music video. The character will be wearing bright colours as bright colours have connotations of happiness and well being and this contrasts with the situation that the audience will see on screen and this highlights how not all is at it seems with young people in society and that issues can be hidden behind a positive exterior. Character 2’s style of clothing will be fashionable and also quite modern with bright colours included. Her first outfit/style of clothing will include a bright coloured top, denim jean jacket, jeans and black boots. Whereas her second outfit will be casual pyjamas with colourful patterns
- 13. Character: 3 Our third character who is suffering from depression/loneliness will be dressed in smart casual clothing. This style will include a simple shirt, dark jeans and trainers. This character will have a smart casual look because this style could suggest order however the emotions of the character are in a state of disorder and through this use of mise-en-scene we are creating a contrast that highlights the difficulties in identifying mental health issues in young people by the general public and how to hide issues, young people can put up a barrier between themselves and others to hold in their true emotions until they are left with their own thoughts – which is what this character represents. This style of clothing is also supposed to make this character more relatable to our target demographic as this can be seen as what they younger generation are also most likely to wear, which could then in turn make his actions more identifiable to our audience. This could also then build up awareness within our audience about spotting signs that someone may be asking for help with directly asking for it.
- 15. Props Our use of mise-en-scene is significant because we want to show through our different representations that we have considered the conventional props which are used in our chosen genres music videos and specifically selected what elements we wanted to include in our own music video. Props: Alcohol Drugs Photographs Mirrors Stuffed animals Posters