Detailed planning

Location

The main location of the music video is a family household, of which we chose because we wanted to demonstrate a family of which is broken, so it made sense to use a house as the main location. A household is also something that the audience can relate to in the music video as many viewers will live in family households. Due to the theme being a subject that not all can relate to, having it take place in somewhere that the audience can understand will hopefully allow them to gain an understanding of the overall themes by realising that these issues take place in familiar settings. We also have a scene that shows the mother at an office, which we chose due to it being seen as a ‘generic’ place of work that much of the audience can relate too. We wanted to demonstrate stress from the mother as she is working to help support the problematic family, and showing a place of work that is often described as stressful and lifeless will help us easily covey this message

Characters Our music video has a total of three characters, of which are all designed to work around our central themes of abuse and fear. Our main character is a young teenage girl, of which we see living her life as she struggles with the abuse. We chose to have a young female protagonist is because our research showed us that the main audience of indie music are teenagers and young adults, so this will allow our viewers to connect with the main character and understand the daily struggle. Our next character is the abusive father, being the parent who will deliver the abuse. We have designed this character to meet general ideas of a father stereotype, being someone who is at middle age. We chose to design the character using various stereotypes as the audience can easily pick up on stereotypes and understand that they are the father and create links to real life. Finally, our last character is the mother. As a group, we decided to mould the mother character into someone who is busy keeping the family together. She will be shown as stressed in trying to keep the family alive using the location mostly. Much like the Father, the mother will be based on stereotypical view of a middle age mother so the audience can relate to the character

Costume

We have chosen a variety of costumes for the characters that will help represent the characters as we wish. For the teen girl, we have dressed her in a white top and will use bright clothes in general. Bright colours such as white help demonstrate youth and innocence, of which will help strengthen the theme of abuse by creating a contrast. We also feel if we dress the teenager in clothes that are considered fashionable, this will allow the young audience to make greater connections. Next, the father character will be wearing much darker clothes to show a more evil mind set. Having much darker clothes on will also make the audience less likely to trust him as a character. Finally, the mother character shall be wearing more bleak colours to demonstrate her dull and stressful life to allow the audience to understand that she is under a great deal of pressure and cannot pursue her life goals

Props

The music video will contain a few props to help build a more realistic world as well as providing a greater input to the theme. To begin with, the girl will have a teddy bear that she will carry around with her. The teddy will represent her still childish and innocent mind set as teddy bears have links to this, but throughout the piece she will drop the bear, demonstrating her loosing her youthful mind due to the constant abuse. Our next prop will be a mug that says ‘Worlds best dad’ on it. As the girl is scared by the father, she drops the mug, of which will show the audience the failing relation between the father and the daughter and how the idea of him being ‘Worlds best dad’ no longer exists

Lighting

We will utilise the ability to alter light to help convey messages and conventions to the audience. One way this shall be done is by using bright lights when the girl is being abused in a scene, such as the bathroom and kitchen scene. This will be done to demonstrate that she is an innocent young girl. This will create a contrast as the actions taking place in the shot will be horrible and disturbing. We will also most likely add darker lighting to shots where the father is partly visible, for example when the girl walks past the living room and when his hand is on the door to rely the fact that the father is unloving and cruel as darkness links to these connotations