First day shooting - powder paint fight

We had to shoot this powder paint fight scene in one night as we only had enough money for a certain amount of powder paint also because the actors would get so messy doing it that we couldn't afford to do it in two nights. We wrote out lists of what everyone needed to bring with them. This made sure we didn't forget anything. We also set out a timetable of when everyone got there and when we would start shooting the video. We told everyone to get there at 6pm so that we could brief everyone and so that we could set up the camera etc. At 7pm we started to shoot as this was when it was dark enough to start. We set the camera to shoot 50fps rather than 25fps so that when we slow it down in editing it will be smoother and less jolty. We only had one chance to get the clean shot as they would get paint all over them after it so we had to practise this without the paint first. We then got lots of different shots of the paint fight that we could edit together. We shot lots of different shots right up until we had absolutely no powder paint left so that we didn't waste anything. we also did shots of the people just standing in the paint so it wasn't just constant paint being chucked around.

Overall the shooting went really well and it looked exactly how we wanted it to turn out which we were all worried about. The paint showed up really well and the lighting was really good too. I also think that the costumes for the actors fitted in well and made it look that bit better. If we were to do it again I think we would have got more powder paint and got lots more shots just to make sure and be certain that we had enough shots. However, even if we don't have enough we can always reuse shots but i think we almost defiantly do have enough. The only real problem we had was that our 3rd couple said they couldn't do it last minute. We managed to get a 3rd girl but we couldn't find another guy to do it. We ended up having 3 girls and 2 guys which in the end didn't look that bad at all and it wasn't a disaster.

Here are a few stills from the day of shooting...

 

Shotlist for our music video

Our shotlist for our music video to John Newman's 'Love Me Again'...

Storyboard for our music video

 Our storyboard for our music video to John Newman's 'Love Me Again'...

Lighting and colour research - powder paint fight

Lighting - This was a very big aspect of our video and we spent quite a lot of time discussing the different lighting we could use and how we would get it to our location. We decided from the start we would shoot this scene in a dark room or outside at night so we needed some good lighting that would make you know that it was dark but there was a light shining on the actors. We are using a spotlight which you can attach to the camera which is bright enough so you can see the people but not so bright that it makes it look like day time. We were originally going to have two spotlights looking into the camera from behind the two lines of girls and boys so that it was just the silhouettes that showed up. However we did not have 2 big spotlights like that plus the lights could have shone into the camera lens making the filming very hard. This is why we chose to stick with just one spotlight on the whole scene.

Colour- The colour of the spotlight is just a bright white to make it as simple as possible and also so that the powder paint colours stand out and show their true colours when they are thrown about. We chose to do it in the dark with a spotlight so that the colours would be recognisable as well.

Actors research - powder paint fight

In our music video we have 3 couples who are in the paint fight. We wanted to make the video realistic and so we set out to find 3 actual couples in real life so that they were comfortable acting with each other. It also meant it was easier to find people to do it. We had to choose reliable people who would defiantly do it and we also got some backups just in case they couldn't do it last minute. We wanted young looking couples but not too young that the relationships didn't look serious. This makes the music video more grown up and not as cheesy as it would be if we had 12 year olds doing it. Our actors range from ages 16-19.

Hair and make up research - powder paint fight

The men's hair will all be normal however the women's hair is going to be in a 50's style. This is to show a correspondence to John Newman's style. We decided we wanted the women's hair down so that it really emphasises the movement of them throwing the paint because the hair will move a lot when they move forward to throw the paint. We looked at some photos of what we want their hair to look like and we all decided on this sort of style as it is simple and not too complex. It will not take away from the video too much. For the make up we decided just normal make up with red lipstick so that it gives that 50's look again.

Costume research - powder paint fight

We decided that the men in the paint fight should be wearing smart/casual clothes so we have got them to wear a white shirt with black jeans or trousers with black shoes. This would make it contrast with the paint that goes all over them. For the girls wee decided that we wanted the paint to stand out on their clothes so we chose white skater dresses with black high heels. This is also a smart/casual outfit so it looks like they are going out partying for the night. We got our outfit inspiration and the powder paint fight inspiration from the photographer Tyler Sheilds with his series of photos called 'Chromatic'.

Props research - powder paint fight

The only props we need for the powder paint fight is the powder paint. We had to think about the quantity of this as we need quite a lot to go round 6 actors and for them to be chucking it around for a long time. We also had to be careful about how much we spent as we didn't have a huge budget. We thought about the different colours we needed too and we ended up with pink, blue, green, orange, yellow and red. These are all bright colours and will look good all together being thrown in the air. We ended up buying 2.5kg of each colour which should be enough for all of the actors to throw.

Location research - powder paint fight

For the powder paint fight, we wanted to find somewhere that was just a standard wall with a concrete floor. This would make our audience concentrate more on whats going on as it is minimalistic but also it will go with the feel of the scene. We went for a drive around town and looked around some places that we could do some filming. We eventually found underneath the maidenhead bridge where there are arches which are perfect for what we wanted to do. The space under the arches are big enough to fit the actors and we can get a spot light to light up the location as we are doing it at night in the dark.

Our ideas

We thought long and hard about what we wanted to do for our music video and at first we came up with the vague idea of filming our summers and parties that were going to and the music video would just be a montage of all of these different scenes. However, we decided that we thought that would be too cheesy and too easy to do. In the end we decided on having a narrative that a couple are arguing. We thought we would have 2 seperate scenes; one with a couple arguing and fighting in a house and the other scene would be 3 couples having a powder paint fight.

John Newman 'Love Me Again' - Lyric analysis

John Newman - Representation, appearance and style explored further

Colour - He makes his album cover and single covers have a retro tint to them, just like the one in the picture to the left, and so he doesn't use bright colours he just uses blacks, creams, dull reds etc.

Fashion - In his music videos he wears quite plain clothes and the actors in the videos wear old fashioned floral dresses or straight loose fitted trousers (as shown in 'Love Me Again'). Also, the actors and actresses hair and his hair  have a 60's look to them.

Audience research

John Newmans actual audience are people aged 5-50 but the intended audience is probably teenagers from ages 10-20. This makes our intended audience the same as this however, because our music video isn't going to be old fashioned like John Newmans is, our actual audience will be almost the same as our intended audience. This is because we are thinking of doing an upbeat and fun music video with lots of bright colours.

Island Records - Research

Island Records is the label that signed John Newman when he was 20 years old. The record label was founded by Chris Blackwell and Graeme Goodall in Jamaica in 1959 and it was based in the UK and is now owned by Universal Music Group. The company is set up in many different countries such as America, UK and Australia. They are a huge record label who have also signed artists such as:

- Jessie J
- Dizzee Rascal
- Rizzle Kicks
- Disclosure
- Bombay Bicycle Club
- Drake
- Avicii
- Ben Howard
- Dappy
- Mumford And Sons
- Nicki Minaj
- The Wanted
This is such a massive range of different artist who are all extremely well known across the globe. This makes the record label have a huge reputation and shows that they are incredibly good at what they do.

John Newman - Career and early life

John Newman grew up in Settle in the Yorkshire Dales. At the age of 14 he started to play guitar and write his very own songs. Soon after he then learnt how to record his own songs and produce them himself, he even did his own house tracks and also did a bit of DJing. At the age of 20, John Newman moved to London and started his own band doing live gigs at lots of different venues. He then got signed to Island Records and released 'Cheating' as a download song.

In May 2012 he featured in Rudimental's single 'Feel The Love' and the single topped the UK charts. He then featured again in one of Rudimental's singles called 'Not Giving In' in November 2012. In June 2013 John Newman released his very own single 'Love Me Again', which is the song we are doing our music video too, which was a number 1 hit. He then released his next single 'Cheating' in October 2013 from his debut studio album 'Tribute' which he will release in mid October. From 2012 - 2013 he has become a world wide pop star who everyone knows about.

John Newman - Representation, appearance and style

As a production group we discussed John Newman's style and representation. He is quite a new artist in the singing industry and so only has one album out. This meant that we could only base his style on his one album and his appearance in this album. We think that he has a 50's look about him with his Elvis Presley quiff. Also, music videos for 'Love Me Again' and 'Cheating', have quite an old fashioned, traditional look to them.

Song choice

For our music video we decided that we wanted to get John Newman's permission to use his song 'Love Me Again'. I emailed his management to ask for the permission and they replied saying that this was fine.