Era costumes

When deciding on costumes, we chose to divide it into two categories:

- Era clothing

- Band clothing

ERA CLOTHING:

50s costumes:

The lead boy's costume was decided to be inspired by Grease, one of our chosen inter-textual reference points, with the Greaser image having been so popular among males in the 50s.

Danny Zuko, our main influence for the lead boy

In order to re-create this costume, we saw that we needed:

- Black skinny jeans

- Smart(ish) black shoes

- A tight, plain white, T-shirt

- A greaser-style leather jacket

We found Juliette's costume harder to create, as there was deliberation between making her one of the 'Pink Ladies' from Grease, further referencing the film, or the 'pin-up' style (both demonstrated below). Eventually, we decided that the 'Pin-up' style would be better to go for, otherwise we risked representing the 50s through 1 musical reference, and that would not have been the only recognisable style of the time, despite being obvious.

Pin-up styling similar to what we wanted, but rather than black and white, we wanted more colour to be used

Pink Ladies from the musical 'Grease' : Costumes easy to source as they are available from most costume shops

70s Era clothing:

For the 70s era, our inspiration for the male costume was the film 'Velvet Goldmine', made in 1998 but set in the early 70s. We also wanted the character to look slightly androgynous, as was a theme during the 70s.

Velvet Goldmine (1998)

Jacob in the costume inspired by Velvet Goldmine

To achieve this look, we needed:

- Boot-cut trousers

- A 'too-small' T-shirt

For the female costume, we decided that in order to represent more than one aspect of the era (as we had been in danger of doing with 50s), we needed to address the 'hippie' style of the 70s era, with the floral/geometric patterned dresses in particular. 

70s 'hippie' style costumes that inspired us

Juliette's costume:

The lead girl's costume - conventional to the era and representing the hippie style through it's pattern and cut.

80s era clothing:

For Juliette's character, we wanted to secure a reference to 'The Breakfast Club', so decided upon a costume similar to Allison Reynolds, a character from the film. It is an obvious reference to most audiences, and therefore would help us to connote the era more easily, alongside the school setting (use of a gym bench).

The Allison before her style change is the one we wished to reference (the top two rows)

Clothing needed to achieve this styling:
- Oversized shirt
- Oversized jumper
- Long skirt
- Converse shoes

Juliette's costume:

Jacob's costume was inspired by Rick Astley, a figure that people would recognise because of the trend of 'rick-rolling'. The video was made in 1987, and therefore is a reference to the late 80s that people would understand. The costume that we recreated is a denim shirt, tucked into his jeans seen below). This was decided both due to the need for clear inter-textual referencing and also ease of sourcing.

Jacob in the 80s costume, dancing in a similar style to Rick Astley.

90s Clothing:

Juliette's 90s costume is inspired by Rachel from Friends(right), one of our key references for the 90s era, and also from Clueless(left).

We chose the dungaree style as it was common in media texts in the 90s, and is also easily identifiable from the other eras.

(left) Juliette in her 90s costume

For Jacob's outfit, we were influenced by TV characters such as Joey from Friends, Cory from Boy Meets World, and Joey from Full House. 

Joey (Friends)

Joey (Full House)

Cory (Boy Meets World)

Because of these influences, we decided that Jacob's would consist of a loose white T-shirt, baggy jeans and a checked-shirt.

Jacob in the 90s scenes

Modern costume: 

For the modern costumes, Juliette wears a grey top, with a black, white and red patterned skirt. This provides a contrast to the more vibrant colours of the other eras, and is also something that would be commonly worn at present day. 

Jacob's costume was simply a beige long-sleeve shirt and black trousers, as it is quite a simple costume and doesn't clash with the background. also maintaining the contrast to the other eras by being less vibrant and looking typically modern.

Jacob and Juliette, dressed for the Modern scenes

Casting

We decided that we were going to try and source our actors from within the group as much as possible, but as five actors were needed, and there are only 4 people in our group, we had to choose an external actor as well. For this, we chose Jacob, as he is one of the most reliable people we know, and has performed in several productions, so has acting experience. In order to decide who we were going to cast as the lead, we chose to create audition videos for both myself and Jacob, seen below.

BRANDON'S:

JACOB'S:

We decided that Jacob was the best choice for the lead singer, as his performance was stronger, and he looked more conventional to the indie-pop genre. It also meant that I would be able to be behind the camera more, and therefore more useful with regards to directing.

The rest of the cast:

Drummer - Brandon

As a group, we decided that I would be the drummer as I am confident in front of the camera, and also because out of myself, Chrystal and Audrey, I felt the most comfortable playing the drums.











Guitarist - Audrey

We decided that Audrey would be the guitarist because she is also confident in front of the camera, and has had experience performing as the guitarist in the Girls remake video earlier in the year, so would be able to give a convincing performance. Having her in the band also helped to make our band mixed-gendered, which is what we decided we'd have in the creation of our band.

Bassist - Chrystal

Chrystal was chosen as the bassist because, as with Audrey, she is confident in front of the camera, and having a female bassist helped to ensure that we had an equal number of females and males in the band.










Lead Girl - Juliette

Juliette was chosen to be the lead girl within the narrative as she knew the song well, so her lipsync would be convincing, and also because she is confident in front of the camera. She was also the one who would be most comfortable interacting and dancing in front of the camera with Jacob, while her technical proficiency could be utilised during band shots.

Band Costumes

For our band, we were inspired by the style of indie-pop bands, especially San Cisco. In order to help us to decide on what costumes we were going to used, we all posted suggestions into our facebook group, also compiling images to reference for costumes on our Pinterest page.

Our Pinterest page for band costume reference

I suggested the shirts seen in the image below, as they all fitted the typical image of male indie band members, with the button-up shirt.

Audrey and Chrystal also suggested the button-up shirt and skinny jeans look, however we decided that that would make the entire band look too similar rather than a group of individual personalities, so Juliette suggested some of her items of clothing.

A collection of Juliette's clothing

The clothing Juliette suggested was more hipster/vintage, so suited the indie-pop genre, i.e. the red silk shirt.

We originally decided that the lead boy should wear his band costume in the modern era, but we decided to change this when we changed the idea so that the band and era settings did not mix. 

FINAL COSTUME DECISIONS:

Chrystal:
Chrystal's outfit helps her to stand out, with the bright red contrasting with the black of her hair, trousers and boots. This makes her seem quite powerful, and gives female audience members an aspirational/relatable, powerful, female figure.

-Black Skinny Jeans

- Red silk shirt

- Black heel boots

Audrey:
Audrey's style is more feminine than Chrystal's, with the use of pink and also a skirt rather than trousers. This gives another female styling that the female members of the audience can relate to, allowing us to effectively target the female segment of our audience more effectively.

-Black Skirt (provides variety from the rest of the band wearing black skinny jeans)
-Pink Shirt
- Dark shoes

Jacob:

We decided that this should be the same as in the modern era, in order to ensure that it clearly shown that he was the same character as the band member. However, this has been changed (see era costumes post for modern costume), as we decided that they should be two separate characters rather than the same.

- Purple Jumper

- Denim Shirt
- Black Skinny Jeans

- Black Shoes

Brandon:
This outfit is typically 'hipster', so helps to give the band an indie look of being styled, but still having an element of individuality.

-Black Skinny Jeans

-White T-shirt

-Green checked-shirt

- Black boots

Animatic

Once finishing our storyboard, we then went on to make our animatic.

The above is our animatic after having received feedback. Originally, there was less band performance throughout the video, so the structure needed re-working.

We decided that the overall concept of our video was the idea of love throughout the ages, hence why we used eras ranging from the 50s to Modern day. For each era, we filmed the choreography for each scene, making it easier for ourselves in future when we have to look back at what has been done, and teach the lead singer what to do.

Video timeline:

0:00 to 0:18 - band performance, introducing the band and their image

0:18 to 0:37 - 50s era, where the first couple is meeting, with the male trying to woo the female.

0:37 to 0:44 - 70s era, second couple dancing together in a disco setting

0:44 to 1:00 - band performance again (after feedback from Mrs Blackborow, we realised that we should do band performance at every chorus, so that there would be a more equal balance between narrative and performance, as well as helping to establish their image)

1:00 to 1:18 - 80s era, the 3rd couple, with the man dancing to get the woman's attention, then taking her book and getting her to dance with him

1:18 to 1:25 - 90s era, woman wooing man, coffee shop setting, sits next to him, stops him drinking so she can kiss him

1:25 to 1:44 - Band performance

1:44 to 2:00 - First dance sequence, all but modern era mix together during this sequence, cutting between each era, but not chronologically, while they all do the same dance. Portrays the concept that love is constant throughout time.

(Above: The choreography for our first dance sequence, which we spent our production meetings trying to choreograph properly, attempting to include iconic moves from each era. We decided that during this dance, the band would be in the back corner, as is seen in The 1975's 'Girls' Video)

The 1975 'Girls' car scene, with band in the background

2:00 to 2:15 - Band performance

2:15 to 2:33 - Modern era, both are on their phones, and the woman bumps into him. They notice each other, throw away their phones, and begin the second dance sequence

2:33 to 2:56 - Second dance sequence, once again cutting between the eras with the same choreography to connote the concept of love being eternally constant.



2:56 to 2:58 - Quickly cut individual band instrumental shots, using the music to build up to a climactic ending

2:58 to 3:00 - Couple walking away from the camera holding hands, cutting through the eras again.

Storyboard

Having completed our lyric breakdown, and subsequently working out a clear structure for our music video, we decided to create a storyboard of key shots for our music video. In order to help us visually clarify the structure, we separated eras and band shots by colour (orange was band, pink was 50s, etc.) Dividing shots like this helped us to see which shots we needed to do for each era, which we knew would help when having to put together our shoot schedules during production.

Our shots divided into eras

We then sorted these into chronological order, allowing us to get an idea of how our music video would be seen by the audience.

Storyboard in chronological order. Colour coding was useful, alowing use to see how much of  the video was composed of each era.

Storyboarding was definitely a vital part of ensuring the entire group understood the ideas for shots, as it allowed us all to visually see what one person would have had to explain, so improved the group's working dynamic.

Production Meeting: Lyric Breakdown

In one of their lessons, Juliette and Chrystal both went through the song with the lyric sheet, and inserted time codes for each line. They also began working through the song, breaking it into sections, and allocating eras for each section, as well as beginning research into possible intertextual references that we could include in each era setting, i.e. Breakfast Club for the 80s, and Saturday Night Fever for the 70s. This was taken further during our production meeting, where we agreed on final structure for the song.

Breaking down the lyrics was useful because it allowed us to develop a more in-depth storyboard, allowing us to pick up key details of when actions would occur, i.e. the dance sequences. I also found it easier to visualise our sequence when we had the lyrics broken down into segments, improving the group dynamic and the storyboarding process.

Production meeting: Publicity Shots

For our publicity shots, we brainstormed ideas and decided that going for a more playful look would suit our band better due to their indie-pop genre, and also appeal to our target audience more. This also fits well with the fun and playful image we're constructing for the band through the music video and album art, so works to synergistically to create a brand image for them.



A few of the ideas that we liked quite a lot were the ones where the lead singer is wrapped in the microphone lead by the band, the band give each other piggy backs, the one with the lead singer in front as the rest of the band mess around behind him, and the 'selfie-stick'-type shot of the band. The evolution of man shot also seemed quite quirky and fun, as well as quite interesting, so we decided that would be considered as well.

A few of the different bands we drew upon for inspiration included:

- McFly

- 5 Seconds Of Summer

- Little Dragon

- Daughter

- Everything Everything

- Walk the Moon