This is the cover of our Digi-Pack. We don't have a picture of the band, to appear more mysterious, this is very convential for more alternative bands like ours. It's quite simple yet the pill and funky font of "The Spinning Teacups" suggests a pshychadelic side. the pill contains little red hearts unlike your typical pill suggesting this isn't any "ordinary" pill. The name of our band "The Spinning Teacups" was chosen as it conjurs up feelings of sickness and fun, that you might on the spinning teacups at a fair. Everything was chosen portray a specific image for the band as being crazy, psychadelic and funky. It fairly convential for an Indie band album cover, and similar to other album covers for example "The Red Hot Chilli Peppers" Im With You album:
This is the inside digi-pack cover, which is a complete contrast to the cover. We used lots of bright colours and pictures to synbolize having a "reaction" to an illegal drug and relates to our music video. Which explains the pill on the front cover. We used photoshop to compile these pictures together, which is generally used in most albums digi-packs. However our use of such loud bright colours is probably fairly unconvential.
In what ways do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real products?
Our music video had a very strong narrative through out similar to other music videos like Michael Jackson's "Thriller". We decided to use a pre-roll like "Thriller" to introduce our characters and set up the story line. The story is roughly based on "Alice in Wonderland" with elements of other fairytales. A young girl who is lost and stumbles across an old house looking for help, instead she finds the Mad Hatter and many other washed up fiarytale characters who invite her into their crazy make beleive world. The narative was inspired by the Panic at the Disco "I write sins not tradgedies" music video.
Overall our music video is very visually exciting with lots of color and detail in our mise-en-scene, props and costumes, which is quite convential in alot of "Pop" music videos, for example Rihanna's "Who's that chick". The artificial lightening was also carefully chosen to create mysterious and mystical mood/atmosphere. We used a long tracking shot to really capture all the characters and action going on in this scene.
These are Sleeping Beauty' "Sleeping Pills" which is an example of the kind of symbolism we used to portray the fairy-tale characters. Sleeping Beauty is seen as a sleeping pill addict. There is alot of other symbolism which shows a darker side to all the fairytale characters such as the princesses fighting over the crown, showing their jelousy.
Our lead singer/Mad Hatter (played by Jamie) has his own performance scene lipsyncing, with no band visible accompanying him which is quite unconventional. As well as playing the main character in the narrative, though it has been done in many music videos for example Cee Lo Green's "Forget you" and Taylor Swifts "You Belong with Me". We found that playing the Mad Hatter really suited his eccentric, crazy image. We also used loud, crazy makeup to create his look. We replicated the makeup exactly from The Mad Hatter in the "Alice in Wonderland" movie played by Johnny Depp. Many other music videos use heavy makeup to accentuate the characters and their image, for example any of Lady Gaga's videos.
Here shows an exmaple of a "Mid Shot" used to show the Mad Hatters body language, costume and facial expression. We used used many other camera techniques such as Close ups, Wide shots and tracking shots. This variety of camera shots are very common in all music videos. We also edited these shots to match the pace of the song, and insynch with beat. As well as discontinuity and jump cuts to create high energy and a sense of frentic movement. This technique is used in nearly all music videos, and is exclusive to only music videos as it wouldn't make sence in a movie and TV show.
This picture shows the detail we put into our props and mise en scene, all in very courful loud colours. Much like a Lady Gaga video has. We used many close up shots to capture the detail of everything. We really believe its the detail that makes a music video good, and helps to tell the story.
We had a very successful shoot day. We started at 9am with hair and makeup for everyone. I was playing the lead character of "Alice in Wonderland", and Kika did my makeup for me as well as everyone. Jamie's "Mad Hatter" makeup was inspired by Jonny Depp's make up in the recent "Alice in Wonderland" movie. Whilst Courtney and Sarah finished setting up in the studio downstairs. We started shooting the tea party scene with me and Jamie entering. We explored many different camera angles and close ups on all the characters. Rose and Oscar did a good job playing their characters and looked great on camera. We also captured many different angles of the candy on the table. We used different lenses with a higher definition in the close ups to capture the detail. We kept trying to throw balloons into the background in the view of the camera but this turned out to be very difficult as the balloons had a life of their own! We also had only one take to get a shot of me falling into the cake. Thankfully it well! Unfortunately many members of our cast had to leave at certain times, so we were pushed for time! We were unable to do the performance scene as Rose and Oscar had to leave. But we managed to get several takes of Jamie lip syncing to the song. We transformed the set for his performance, placing the candy on big white boxes. We also added a big grandfather clock in the background to add interest. We had a team of people (including Sarah and I) on the sidelines throwing balloons around Jamie to create a cool effect on camera.
We each took turns changing our roles on set, unfortunately I was mainly on camera but tried to get behind the camera whenever I could.
We finally finished shooting in the studio around 2:30. Kika did all our others characters (Cinderella, Belle, Sleeping Beauty and Prince Charming) make up before we left for Courtney's house. We transported all our equipment in the van to her house and then unloaded it. The house, especially the staircase was already decorated to perfection. We decided to use a tracking tripod to get a great overall tracking shot of the hallway entrance and all the action going on. We had Cinderella and Belle fighting over the Princes crown at the foot of the stairs. Snow white on the stairs eating a bowl of apples and Sleeping Beauty passed out on the stairs bottle of pills in hand. Whilst Pinnochio was on the side of staircase tied up struggling. We chose to use a slightly red/pink lighting for a dramatic effect. We shot this tracking several times until perfect. We had to be careful to show telephones or alarms on courtneys wall.
After shooting the staircase we started shooting the scenes upstairs including the hallway scene, bathroom and bedroom scene. The bathroom scene was challenging as i had trouble opening the door! But after many many takes i finally got the hang of it! For the bedroom scene we used low lighting with lots of candles to set a romantic mood and I waved a book up and down creating shadows so it appeared the candles were flickering more. Courtney and Max rummaged under the duvet to create movement and then sat up together in a synchronized fashion. This took many practices!
We finally wrapped up our shoot at around 6pm when we dismantled our equipment and we drove back to Hurtwood. Overall it was a very successful day, although there are still some scenes we need to shoot including the pre-roll.
We were asked to present our set design ideas in the form of drawings to show Dan and to help him understand what exactly we wanted. One of the most important scenes we feel is the Tea Party room so the set design had to be very impressive! We used "Alice in Wonderland" as our inspiration but wanted to add our own twist. We are planning to shoot this scene in the studio so we needed to completely transform the space so its unrecognizable as a studio. Our idea is to use a canopy draped from the ceiling to appear like a tent. As well as using Shrubbery and plants around the table to create a mystical atmosphere! We also need a long table and about 6 chairs for the characters to sit at. We will also of coarse decorate the table with a pretty tea set and to help set the scene! And fairy lights glowing on the shrubbery!
The next room is the bedroom where the little girl walks into Little Red Riding Hood in bed together! We wanted this room to look very chaotic and messy with cloths thrown all over the floor, like bra's and undies! There will be a big king size bed with just a sheet on top which the characters will be underneath. The bed will be situated in the middle of the room. After discussing this with Dan he suggested that we use quite low lighting to create shadows and create a seductive atmosphere! Perhaps with candles too!
Another important scene is the main entrance and staircase which is the first we see when the girl enters the house. We took inspiration from the staircase in the movie "The Haunted House" with Eddie Murphy to create a creepy atmosphere. We wanted to use lots of cobwebs and dust to make it look dirty and unkept. As well is Goblins and candelabras sitting on the top! After talking to Dan he feels that we need to shoot this on location at Courtneys house because it would be very difficult to build a secure staircase in the studio and very expensive!
Another scene is the Bathroom where we see Captain Hook in the bath playing with his rubber ducks! We decided to shoot this in the studio but will need to rent a bath and possibly a sink to recreate an actual bathroom set. We will also need other essential bathroom items like toothpaste and a loofa lying around the make the set look authentic.
