Set Build and Lighting Design

The pop video our group wishes to create consists of four sets. This includes; a teenage girl’s bedroom, interior of a cinema, a bingo hall, and the performance studio space for the band. We decided that we would not have any of the sets on location. This is because we would not have full control of the location. For example, if we had chosen to film the teenage bedroom scene in a teenage bedroom we would have encountered problems. Firstly, we would have limited choice over the bedrooms we could choose. We would have to use a boarding room which is a lot more plain and less ‘girly’ than an average girls room if they were living at home. Also, we would not be able to change the wall paper, carpet, posters, bed spread and furniture to our desires, because we cannot damage a person’s bedroom. In the studio however, we have complete freedom over how the bedroom looks and we feel the overall impact of the scene will be greater and more positive. However, deciding to build each set in the studio does draw up some problems.

Firstly we would have four changeovers during the shoot day. This means that there is very limited time shoot as there will be time taken away from changing the set around. Also another problem we will face is that in the studio near the beginning of the video, a large amount of feathers fly down from the ceiling. This means that we will have to shoot this last and the band has to perform perfectly and not look tired and warn out from the day of filming. Also, this will have to be done in one shot as it would take to much time to sweep the feathers up and bring them back down. Also, when they fall onto the studio floor they may get dirty, which could ruin the overall effect of the features. Another problem we faced was that our initial idea for the studio space was that the background was going to be white. We thought this connoted free spirit and youth than any other colour. However, when the feathers fall, they will not show up. Therefore we had to re-think the colour to black, which we feel does not have the same impact, however we feel the feathers are more important that the colour of the set.

Another problem that occurred was how we would design the different studio set up’s in a way that looks real and not ‘tacky’. Neither of my group had ever been to a bingo hall, so we had to deign it based on pictures on the interest. We do have doubts that the younger generation may not be clear on a bingo hall as we were and therefore the idea may not click straight away. Also, we have to set the studio up to look like a cinema, with only the aid of four cinema seats and a projector. This would be very easy to manage. However, we have close-ups and mid shots of the couple sat on the cinema seat. Therefore, we needed to design the set and place the camera in a way that tricks the audience in believing there are more people in the cinema.

The decision to use multiple OAP men and women in my music video was an incredibly challenging decision to make. Most of the music videos only cast students from Hurtwood for their video. We had to write a formal letter to a local amateur dramatics society. Luckily we had some positive responses and have had the chance to cast five members of the Ewhurst players. Our peers have also helped by asking their grandparents if they would appear in the video.

We then had to design the lighting plan for the set build. This was a rather simple task as we decided we would want natural lighting in the sets to make the bedroom, Bingo Hall and Cinema look real. We followed the simple set up for a studio making sure everything would be lit the same to make it seem professional but also realistic.