NARRATIVE AND PROCESS

After analysing the lyrics I decided to create a narrative that focused on a relationship that has ended because the bad memories were eclipsing the good ones. Because my main aim was to make it aesthetically pleasing it was very important to think about the mise-en-scene, the lighting, the makeup, the clothes but above all it was key to chose a very photogenic main character.

I decided to film my best friend as the main character of this music videos because she is the most amazing and beautiful person I know. After analysing different options I decided that the easiest thing to do was to make the video about a lesbian relationship therefore I was cutting out the possibility of having problems with other people's schedules.  

I decided that I wanted to divide the setting into two different places, one in the outside (countryside) and one inside a bathroom (more specifically inside a bath). I will now analyse this two mise-en-scenes. 

INSIDE:

The bath scenes were used in the chorus as it symbolised the emotional baggage that she carried with her and how she felt caged. The fact that she is inside a bath naked symbolises the sensual relationship that she had with her lover. The way her skin is predominantly important in all of the shots expresses how exposed she feels to the world now that she is alone.

The scenes in the bath are in the "present" and therefore the change in lighting. I had to lit up over 60 small candles and 4 big candles in order to reach the perfect tone in light. It had t be warm but not too bright. I had to wait until it was dark outside to avoid any light coming from he outside. I also set up a big studio light that had a warm bulb and directed the light towards the ceiling, because I didn't want it to look artificial.

Moreover, I had taken the idea of the bath from Riahnna's music videos "Stay" and "ANTI diaRy: Room 5". I really liked how her dark hair contrasted with the white water and so I decided to use this in my production. I used 3 litres of milk mixed with water in order to reach the perfect white. The contrast in colour between Eden's tattoos and her dark hair against the white water symbolised the bad and the good memories being juxtaposed with the colours.

The filming was very hard as she had to trust me 100% because she was naked. I tried to make it as comfortable as posible by explaining exactly what I was going to film and how the camera was going to move in order for her not to feel awkward. At some stages she had a strapless bra on because I needed her arms moving around but I still had to film most of her body.

The make-up was very important as I wanted to create a "glossy" effect both on the lips and on the eye-lips. We used lip balm on both in order to reach this effect. It was perfect as the light reflected on them give it a shiny look. This made her look much more vulnerable and small, symbolising how she is feeling.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3Xt_GW1Iw

OUTSIDE:

In order to create a clear division in the timeline I decided to set everything that wasn't part of the chorus either in the countryside or at an abandoned house. I wanted her to be the main centre of attention (mostly focusing on her face) in order to show her emotions (pop genre music video convention).

There were some shots that had to be filmed very early in the morning and other in the mid afternoon. This meant that I had to film two separate days. The first morning I woke up at 7:30 am on a Saturday in order to have the sun at its highest peak at 12:00pm. Nearly everything that had to be filmed with that lighting was set inside the abandoned house so I did that first. The next day we woke up later and spent more time debating on the make up and organising where I wanted to film first as there were a lot of places in the countryside that I wanted to film in.

The most important thing while shooting this scenes was the lighting and the camera. Depending on the type of shot that had to be filmed either my Canon EOS 4000D or my iPhone 8 which films in 4K 60FPS. It was very interesting to learn how the lease from each device captured light in a different way. The camera was better at capturing the rays of the sun in different colours. The iPhone was better at capturing small details and therefore that's why I filmed every close-up and medium shot with it. Thanks to the tripod it was easier to film steady shots with the camera.

On the whole it was very important to make a good storyboard in order to know exactly what and how to film the things when I reached the place.