Research into Main Character

In our music video there will be 1 main character and 3 to 4 other characters who will appear at some point in the film. We have discussed in detail the clothing and appearance we would like our characters to portray in each scene, as the story line conveys the turmoil of a teenage girl she will look evidently 'worse' in each scene leading up to her overdose.

Here is a mind map showing the appearance we would want each character to have in each scene:

In the original music video written and produced by Pink, Max Martin and Shellback contains a main character around the same age as our chosen main character, Alice Hall. The girl tells the story of depression, self harm, isolation and ultimately recovery, played by Tina Majorino. Our music video will highlight the struggles of being a teenage girl, focussing primarily on depression and being isolated from friends and family. 

We felt that by using this song by Pink, we would be able to successfully compare our video to the original, although by changing the storyline and characters we would make our own version conveying these emotions in a different way. As Pink and her team had more experience in video making and technology they were able to create a time ellipsis of a woman's life, however, we will not be able to do this considering our limitations and time scale. And so, our video will contain one main character, Alice, following her through a journey of depression starting at school and ending on the floor of her bedroom unconscious surrounded by alcohol bottles and pills.

Tina Majorino has dark hair, pale skin and fits the stereo-type of an 'emo' quite well considering her clothing and attitude in the video. 

                                                      

This image presents Tina in the original video, she has dark eye make up and a sad expression. We have planned to give Alice this type of style, and asked her to portray a character similar to this, as we would like to highlight depression and hurt in our own video.

                                              

Our chosen main character, Alice, was a fellow media student and understands the importance of our coursework video. This conveys that we can trust her to maintain a steady character and be reliable enough to come to filming sessions. We chose Alice as our main character because we thought that she would fit the character well and portray the part well. 

Alice looks nothing like Pink's chosen character, however, I see this as a positive as it allows us to create our own story without having every aspect of our video the same as the original. At first we were rather sceptical of having a blonde main character as we though someone with darker hair would look more emotional and combined with darker clothes would present a more troubled person, however, being blonde, Alice fits our character really well. 

This is a photograph we took of Alice during our first set of filming. My group are content with our choice of main character and ensure that Alice will help us to produce a good music video.

Clothing:

We first started to plain our characters at the start of our course and had plenty of ideas to do with clothing, make-up and hair. We decided to make a 'Popplet' page in order to maintain all of our ideas in our work. We have used 'Popplet' to mind map our ideas to do with clothing and the items we would need in order to make our video consistent.

These print screens present the work we have done on Popplet, to do with where we would get the clothes from, why we want them and how it would change our video. This is the main mind map to convey our ideas with clothing.

We were also able to upload images on to Popplet in order to convey each of our ideas to the mind map and what we imagine the character should be wearing. This was very useful as it helped us to realise and agree on the style of which we should dress Alice. We have agreed that Alice should be wearing a black skirt, black blazer, tights, back shoes and a white school shirt. We decided that this was plain enough to not be complicated, but smart enough to look as if Alice was in sixth form. During filming the lane scene we asked Alice to take her blazer off in anger whilst walking down the lane. We decided this would be useful as the viewer would watch Alice angrily remove her blazer and throw it behind her, by doing this she is conveying her emotion to the audience.

Further to this, we also made comments on the images in the mind maps to tell each other whether we could contribute to bringing in clothing or props to help with the filming. This dressing gown will be used by Ashleigh, Alice's Mum, whilst we are filming one of the ending scenes. She will be lounging on a sofa or something like that as Alice walks through the door to see her. We have styled Ashleigh to look quite rough and uncaring, as this would add to the emotion of Alice's character of having arguments with friends, teachers and a non-supporting mother role.

 Before filming we informed Alice of the clothes that we would like her to wear certain clothes and in my opinion the clothes were perfectly suited to our ideas. This picture was taken during our first filming as Alice was angrily walking down the lane after she had walked out of school. We have filmed this scene twice now and the shots are getting better as we are getting used to using the camera and we are pleased with how Alice is portraying our main character.

We decided to roll up Alice's sleeves on her plain white school shirt as it conveys her 'bad' attitude towards school, and is not as business like as most sixth form clothes that students are expected to wear. Her bag is also quite small and more of a handbag than a school bag, this also portrays her attitude as she is not interested in school and is holding no folders or books. It is also clear here that Alice is wearing some jewellery such as rings, earrings and a bracellet. Her style is quite 'indie' and not academic.

This mid close up of Alice presents her school shirt and blazer, this shot is taken from when Alice is looking down at her phone as she has received an abusive text message. Her appearance is quite anti-school as she has quite heavy make-up on her eyes, jewellery and an unbuttoned collar. We are planning on putting Alice in these clothes throughout the whole video as she will be easily recognised by the viewer, however as the video continues Alice's clothing will get scruffier and she will remove her blazer presenting her deteriorating emotional character.

Make-Up:

                                                      

"After researching many of Pink's music videos, we noticed that her make up is usually quite minimalistic yet very dark. We have decided to give Alice dark eye shadow and mascara to portray her emotional mood. As the music video continues we will smudge parts of the make up to highlight the fact that Alice has been crying and is in emotional turmoil with her friends and family. Here are some examples of dark make up which we have researched and are planning to compare Alice to."

We have planned to give Alice dark eye make up to compare her to Pink's videos. It would also incorporate the idea of her depression and anger with the dark colours.

Avril Lavigne is an artist with blonde hair, a bit brighter than Alice's, however she mainly wears dark eye make up and so we can use her as a image to style Alice against. Her style is a typical 'moody teenager' and she portrays this is the majority of her songs and music videos.

 

So far, we have filmed and planned her appearance around this research resulting in her make up being dark like this image below. We are content with Alice's make up and will convey her deterioration throughout the music video by making her make-up more smudged and messy to show her emotions.