Casting and Concept

From early on we had planned to use as few people as possible for reasons of practicality. Apart from three scenes, only members of our own group are used. We had copies of eachother's timetables to plan around are availability, which was much easier within the group than it would be outside as we shared lesson time and free periods in which we could shoot in the studio.


Roza (Lead role)

As mentioned in the 'Artist' post, Yssy from our group is an aspiring actor who performs well in front of camera, and therefore was the best option for the lead role. The sound of the vocals on the track is feasible with her image, and a believable lipsynch performance of the song is vitally important in realistically creating a music video that looks as professional as possible. 

Boyfriend
Harry, also from our group, was decided as the (ex) boyfriend for the video, to feature in our narrative shots. This was because he is quite confident in nature, fitting the personality idea for his character. He proved a good combination with Yssy during screen testing (see below) and seemed to have more natural chemistry on camera, making the narrative look more believable. Having all group members for most of the important roles is also better from a practical and organisational perspective. 

We tested who would work best with Yssy for the boyfriend role by filming the two spontaneously interacting. Ama, another student at the school in our year, was in contention with Harry for this.



Arguments showed good potential, plus our cast got on well.


The 'Good Times' showed some chemistry that came across effectively on camera.


Despite Ama being an able actor, the relationship seemed less natural.

The 'sweet' shots looked good, but not to the extent that it would be much greater value to look outside our group for casting, which is more practically difficult, when Harry seemed to work great with Yssy. 

Concept

Seeing as one of my stronger attributes is creativity, I felt I could be of better use on the ideas side rather than acting a lot. By contributing more on ideas and directing I could put these into practice. However I also put myself forward for some of the shots I thought up, like the shots of my back where I felt I could best benefit the group by acting in the way I imagined it, as I thought directing from the outside could be more difficult on some shots to convey what I had in mind. My enthusiasm for the more abstract and creative side of media were the main reasons for being more heavily involved in this. I also took on the drumming performance shots out of being musical.

Despite being experienced in acting, Josh somewhat stepped back from acting to hone and make best use of his directing ability. Since he understands acting and performance well, he used this to coach and instruct Yssy and Harry (and me a little) to get the acting looking best on screen. He acts in the silhouette shot with Yssy as it required some choreography that he understood well. His height also helped to create the imposing effect intended for the silhouette.  

We enlisted in former student Tasha's help, knowing of her dancing and performance abilities from her assisting our class on the 1975 remake shoot and also from her being lead role in the previous yeargroup's Jessie J remake. She features in the dancing concept shots.

We chose Olivia, another former student, to perform in our fire poi concept shots as she was keen to have a role in the video. She helped with the 1975 remake also, for makeup, and when coming into school to give tutorials on makeup for the music video groups to use on their shoots, she put forward the idea of fire poi, which she knew how to do. This tied in well with our use of elements as symbolism.