Creative Arts Evening - Viral Video

On creative arts evening we plan to get footage of a range of people of all ages to perform a small section of our simple choreography. We will then use this in our viral video persuading people to send us their version of the dance to get the opportunity to win to be in the next pussycat dolls video.

MJ - MKTP Twitter

Recently we launched a new twitter account for our production group MKTP Productions. We follow all the Pussycat Dolls on twitter, as well as a few fan accounts. 

Casting: The younger PCD

Here are the girls we have cast to play the younger versions of the PCD in our video. We cast them through an audition process and they all seemed very eager and excited to be in the video. We thought this was very important as we want our cast to put full effort into acting and performance to make our video as effective as possible. 

Nisha 

Niamh

Izzy

Izzy

becky

TD - Goals Allowed

Yeovil Town may not be making a big impact in the Championship but they are joining forces with a record label to launch their own girl band in a bid to climb the pop charts and attract a new generation of supporters to the club.

They are bottom of English football's second tier but will be the first football club to have a girl group and the plan is for the band – to be based on the Pussycat Dolls – to perform at home matches for the rest of the 2013-14 season.

Auditions for females aged 18 and over will be held at Huish Park on 4 December and the successful girls, a lead singer and a group of south-west-based dancers, will work with the Famous Company to record a single that will be released on iTunes. The record will raise money for Prostate Cancer UK – the Football League's official charity.

Costumes for Narrative Section - Older PCDs

For the narrative section the older PCD will be wearing smart dresses and heels corresponding with their colour which they wear when they are younger. Here are pictures of each and who will be wearing them.

Jess - Purple

Millie - White

Poppy (me) - Pink

Abi - Blue

Tilly - Black/Red

MJ - Planning Update 1

On Wednesday 13th November we had a meeting with half of the cast of our music video. At lunchtime, we met with Becky Izzy A, Niamh,  Nisha, Izzy W, who are playing the parts of The Pussycat Dolls as young girls. During this meeting we talked about the production schedule, and we sorted out exactly what days and times the girls could film, and also sorted out what costumes and colours each girl will wear.
Jess Mitchell + Izzy W - PURPLE
Abi Birch + Becky - BLUE
Tilly Dennis + Niamh - RED
Millie James + Nisha - WHITE
Poppy Padgett + Izzy A - PINK

We came to the decision that we will hopefully be filming all the scenes with the younger girls on Friday 22nd at 3 - 5:30pm. We planned to film mainly at the charity shop, but also some shots in the streets of Ilkley. We made a list for each girl (what we need them to bring as their costume) and we made sure that each girl had a whole outfit that is suitable for their character. 

MJ - Idea Update 2

Our music video follows the Pussycat Dolls looking into their past, remembering how they wanted to be famous. There will also be some performance footage included throughout the video, with dancing & lip-syncing. There will be shots of the band as younger girls in various locations such as bedrooms, clothes shops/music shops, a bathroom, in a park & walking around town. We will also have shots of the band as they are now, in some of the same locations. We also see them getting out of a limo/black car onto a red carpet, and then looking back at their old rooms. The performance footage will be choreographed by Poppy, & the dance scenes will be filmed in an urban setting, with large spotlights behind the dancers, as this is commonly seen in Pussycat Dolls music videos.

Our music video summed up in one sentence - (Craig Mcneil said at the ASFF that usually a sign of a good music video is when it can be summed up in one sentence.)

"a girl-band reminisce about their lives and revisit their past, before they were famous"

ASFF: Aesthetica Short Film Festival

On the 8th of November we went to York to go ASFF. The official website describes ASFF as 'a celebration of independent film from across the world, and an outlet for championing and supporting short filmmaking'.

Beggars logo

Our primary reason for going to the festival was to listen to Craig McNeil talk about music videos and his work at the Beggars group. The beggars group is an independent British record company that owns or distributes several other labels, including 4AD, Rough Trade Records, Matador Records, and XL Recordings. The companies’ roots stem from the Beggars Banquet record shops, which first opened in 1973 with a shop in Earls Court,London. 




Craig McNeil talked about a variety of things related to music videos, all of which were very helpful, especially considering our music videos that are we are currently making. He talked about the history of promotional videos (music videos) and how artist used MTV and other channels to promote themselves instead of the typical 'top of the pops' method. He also spoke about what makes a good and bad music video. From this I took how important it is to be simple and original, and if it takes more than a sentence to describe your video idea it is probably too complicated. 

He spoke about influential videos such as Thriller and how a good music video can change an artists career. He continued to talk about the development of the music video and talked a lot about the how much YouTube has helped and what a great media platform it is. As we will be using YouTube as a method of feedback and promotion for our video this was good to hear. From YouTube things like lyric videos have been developed which also help to promote the artist. This is something we could consider doing as part of the promotional side of our video as well as the dance video we are thinking about. 

At the ASFF there are venues across the city showing screenings and talks. We went to the venue at White Stuff which was screening music videos. From watching these it also gave us ideas to help our music video. One of the most influential videos was ... In this video they used lighting at the beginning to the beat of the music to help reveal the character. This looked really effective and is something we can definitely consider as an opening for our video. Another element we noticed from watching the music videos is that point of view shots worked quite effectively. This could also be easily connected to our video as we can show the older and younger PCD point of view.






Information taken from:
ASFF website
Beggars group wiki

Younger Transformation

For our music video we hope to cast younger girls to play the younger version of the PCD. However, another option we are considering is making the older cast look younger. By doing this it increases verisimilitude as they will actually look like their younger selves and be more recognisable and make the narrative more clear.

pigtails and braces

To do this we would make the cast wear minimal or no make up and style their hair in an immature way such as plaits or pigtails. They will be wearing younger clothing also that is suited to the time era that they would have been younger in, e.g, 90s or early 2000s.

minimal make up

We could also buy clip in braces and make the younger ones wear glasses and other things that signify a teenage audience. This also helps connect to the tween audience as they may might be dealing with these kind of things yet it shows them that in time they will eventually grow up to be glamorous like the older PCD.





Amazon link to fake braces
Another link

Make-Up

For the older set of PCD in the video we want them to have dramatic eye make up. This is seen throughout girl group examples such as The Saturdays, Little Mix and The Pussycat Dolls.

The Saturdays

This is done not only in music videos but whenever the groups are in public or advertised. This is shown in the picture to the left of Mollie from the Saturdays on a magazine cover.

Make-up is done like this to make the girls look more glamorous so they appeal to men (male gaze theory) and also so younger girls aspire to be like that as they look fashionable. These are both audiences we want to target and by doing our casts make up similar we aim to do this.

PCD

Little Mix 

The make up looks tend to be very unnatural and smoky looking. In our music video this will work especially well as it will create more of a contrast between the older PCD and the younger more innocent version of themselves when they will wear little to no make up.

practice example

At first we questioned how easy it would be to do this dramatic make up and make it look professional and effective. However, after doing research online we found that there are YouTube channels dedicated to tutorials of celebrity inspired looks and how to look like these glamorous people. These are easy step by step tutorials and after following these we discovered it is quite easy to achieve these looks.

Here is a practice example I did of the dramatic make up on a volunteer friend. It wasn't time consuming and I already had the make up and equipment needed meaning that the make up won't effect or increase our budget for the music video.

practice

practice

Locations

Earlier in the week, the group got together to find possible locations that we think would work effectively in the video. All the footage is from locations in the local area, however we do plan to also get some footage from slightly further away. The locations shown are a train station, urban street, car park, park and charity shop. The footage is shaky, but this is just a quick video made to give an idea of the kind of things we are looking for.

Set Up Ideas

We brainstormed a list of set-ups and ideas. We came up with more than we plan to use and we will film a lot of them and see which work most effectively.

1. Bedroom
2. Bathroom
3. Garden
4. Park
5. Street
6. Car park 
7. Shops (Charity Shop)
8. Milkshake bar
9. Hairdressers
10. Dance Studio 
11. Performance
12. Red Carpet 
13. Limo
14. Concert
15. Stage
16. Classroom
17. Recording studio
18. Club
19. Hotel
20. Festival
21. Train Station
22. Bus Station