Location Decisions

When trying to decide on a location to film our narrative we decided to film in a separate location for the live performance and the narrative performance. This is because it conformed to previous music videos we have analysed. We also decided that to get the best opinion of which location would be best, we would take the props we were going to use in final recording and the artist would dress up in the costume we had planned for the real filming. This is because it would allow us to visualise more effectively what each location would look like in the frame and footage. 

For the live performance we decided to try and find somewhere outside to film. This is because, when I researched codes and conventions of locations for female indie artists, many were outside in natural areas. However, we wanted to challenge this and try and find a more industrial area to create a more ‘edgy’ and ‘grunge’ tone to the live performance. 

Originally we had the idea of filming outside with candles to incorporate the idea from Lorde’s live performance video of ‘Sober’. However, because of the time of year, we realised that the weather wouldn’t be suitable. We also don’t have a camera of high enough quality to create a focus on the artist and a shallow focus on the candles. This therefore, would have washed out the artist. This is why we came up with the industrial idea as it allowed us to still create an edgy aspect to the live performance but it was something that was practically with the equipment we had. 

Therefore, when we were trying to find a location, we found two places that conformed to our vision; a roof top in a town centre, and a car park loading bay. Both of these location featured a lot of brick reds and metallic surfaces all of which created mysterious and dark tones. 

The location we decided to use was the roof top as it had a natural open sky in the background and a skyline. We also thought that if we filmed at sunset we would have a nice orangey/red sky in the background that could connote the passion and love within our narrative performance. 

For the narrative performance, we decided not to plan any specific locations for the red thread theory. Instead we would improvise in the locations on the day to make it seem more natural with the characters we used as they had no acting experience. The library scene we knew we would film in our local library and the rest of the narrative would be filmed in our groups houses which were available on the day. This meant we could organise the props within the house according to how we wanted.