Planning Setting and Iconography - Miss Miller

Planning Setting and Iconography

Setting and iconography are important to plan before any production of a music video. It is an important element to plan as it brings a purpose, narrative and professionalism to the music video making it enjoyable and smooth for the target audience to watch. It is also important to plan what setting and iconography we will use in different parts of the video so it will fit in with our narrative and portray a certain message. For example we are planning to use a field which is a wide open space and this will portray our artist as vulnerable as she sings about her feelings. The use of different settings will help us to portray the narrative and how the artist is feeling and the iconography will help to make the artist more relatable to the audience as we will use accessible props which the audience are familiar with.

The first location we have planned to include in our music video is a field. We have chosen this location as we believe the wide open space will ensure that the focus is kept on our artist is the performing elements of the video. We believe that this will also make her look slightly vulnerable which will fit into the indie genre as it is conventional for indie artists to write and sing songs about their feelings and emotions. In this field setting we will also include various shots of our artist and a female love interest as they have flashbacks of good times in their relationship for example camping and making bonfires. We have decided to use the setting of a lake as it connotes a peaceful and happy scenario for the love interests to reminisce on their old memories. This part of the narrative will also be portrayed to the artist much more clearly as the location is very private portraying that the two girls want to have time alone which will tell the audience a lot about their relationship and how the artist wants to express this relationship whilst their is no one around. The setting however does have some limitations as it doesn't allow us to use our camera equipment and tripod in effective ways for example we can't use trees or logs to position our camera to produce high angle or low angle shots to portray a certain image in our video. Another limitation is the weather, this is due to a field being outside with no cover at all. Therefore if it is heavily raining it will be extremely difficult for us to produce clear strong shots for our music video.
There aren't many health and safety risks when filming other than ditches or unstable surfaces which we could trip or fall on. We will overcome this by being extremely careful and watching where we walk when on the field. Another u likely health and safety risk could be wildlife. Whilst filming we may disturb some wildlife as we would be in their habitat. To overcome this issue we will have to be prepared to be fairly quiet and sensible when filming on the field.

The next location we have planned to use in our music video is our school dance studio which is surrounded by mirrored walls. We have planned to use this setting for our chorus scene where we plan to use ballet dancers to represent the two girls who are in a lesbian relationship who are struggling to expose themselves. We have decided to show the audience their relationship through a dance scene that will connotate the difficulties in their relationship. It will show the audience our narrative from a different perspective making it more effective and clearer for the audience to understand the artists emotions. The use of this location does however have some limitations. Due to the studio being in school it will be in use for the dance lessons and dance students who are practising their routines so to overcome this problem we will have to schedule a time when we can film our shots without distrupting any learning or lessons. A health and safety risk of using this location is that the floors can be very slippery as it is used for dancers with suitable dance footwear to ensure they don't slip and injure themselves. To make sure we don't trip or fall we will have to take our shoes off and be extremely careful when walking about and working quickly in order to film our shots in time. The weather will not limit the use of this location as it is inside and under cover.

The third location that we have planned to use in our music video is a house and to be specific a girls bedroom. We have chosen to use this setting as it shows a sense of realism and makes our artist seem more relatable as to hang out with friends in your bedroom is conventional to all young teenage girls everyday life. We have planned to show the two girls hanging out in their bedroom looking through pictures of their relationship to conote good times in their relationship but to also show a messy and unhygienic room when the relationship starts to go downhill and the artist has let it turn messy as she has with her life as the relationship has began to ruin her. The room will make the artist relatable to the audience and this will make it easier for the audience to build a relationship with the artist as they can begin to understand how she may be feeling. There are also limitations to using this setting. One limitation is finding someone with a bedroom that will look and fit into the indie genre to help make our video look more professional and conventional to the genre. It may also be much to ask someone if we could make their bedroom extremely messy to shoot a few shots to include in our music video. Some health and safety risks of using a bedroom could be if we was to step on something sharp or hard whilst barefoot when we throw things about to create a messy and unstable bedroom. We could overcome this issue by being more careful as we search for things to avoid walking on when filming in the bedroom. One advantage of this setting is that the weather is no limitation as it is inside and available to film in despite the weather outside.

The final location we have planned to use in our indie music video is a Camden street in London. We have decided to use this street as it is quite edgy and easily accessible which is conventional to the settings in indie genres as they usually include low budget locations which are easy to access by the public making them more relatable as an artist. In this setting we have planned to show our two girls in a lesbian relationship walking through the Camden market holding hands and portraying the good times of their relationships and also the adventures that they would have together. We have decided showing this action in this location will represent a sense of realism to the audience as this is something they could easily do or may have even done before so therefore could relate to the artist because of this. However there are quite a lot of limitations that come alongside filming in a public place. The first limitation would be that the setting will be extremely busy and may be hard to get the shots that we planned or expected without distrupting the public or being rude when asking if they could move out of our way for a shot. We could overcome this problem by going to film in this location at a time where it is less busy and trying to get our shots in a place where not as many people are conjuring. Another limitation of this could be the fact that public people and people that own the stalls in the market may not be acceptable in appearing in our video so we therefore will have to find people that are happy to appear in our music video and let us film on this particular piece of setting. Finally the weather is a limitation for this location. Due to the Camden market being outside the weather would defiantly make it much harder to film if it was raining or extremely dark outside. To overcome this problem we would have to bring waterproof material to cover our camera equipment if it was to start raining and to also go at a time that will ensure we have enough time to film our shots before it gets to dark and impossible to see through our camera.

Sparklers

The first piece of iconography that we have planned to use is sparklers/fireworks. We have chosen to use this piece of iconography for the two girls to use in the field on a dark night to symbolise the love and light that their relationship creates. However we also have chosen to use the sparkler as it starts off bright and radiant and slowly burns out which will also represent the female relationship between our two characters. We believe that this will portray the hidden message that the relationship between the two is slowly burning out and the audience will be as to recognise this and feel sympathetic towards the artist. This can also help for the audience to relate to the artist as they may have been involved in a relationship that just fizzles out even if you don't want it to. Due to this the audience can then build a relationship with the artist and gain a deeper understanding into the artists personal life and feelings. This is also conventional to the indie genre as the artists usually sing songs about personal matters and want to portray a certain message to their audience about their emotions and how they have had to deal with a certain situation.

Tent

The next piece of iconography that we will use us a tent. The tent will be an ordinary tent which is easily accessible by anyone from the target audience. We will use the tent to show the good times in the female relationship when the couple would escape and go and camp in the middle of a field to escape judgement and enjoy each other's company and relationship. The tent will also portray a love scene which will connotate the love that is produced when the females are alone and are able to express themselves with no judgement. This is conventional to the indie genre as the narratives used are usually portraying real life situations and activities that the target audience could imagine doing themselves and therefore can relate to the artist because of this. This piece of iconography will connotate the simple things in life that allow the two females to have a relationship and be happy. This will make it easy for the audience to build a relationship with the artist as they will recognise that although the artist is famous doing simple things like camping is also fun for artists to. This will make the audience see the artist as an ordinary person further helping them to relate to them.

Piano

The third piece of iconography that we have planned to use is a piano. We have decided to include the instrument of a piano in our music video as it is a personal instrument which the artist can play to portray her feelings and emotions about a certain topic. For example a broken relationship which she needs to express through the use of music. This is conventional to the music genre as it allows the audience to understand how the artist is feeling depending on how she is performing on the piano. However our artist will be singing with passion yet sadness to portray her relationship falling apart. This will help for the audience to feel sympatic towards the artist helping them to relate and build a relationship with her.

Alcohol

Our final piece of iconography will be the use of alcohol. We have decided to include this in our music video to show the rebellious side of teenagers and how this can effect situations. We will use this to show how our artist turns to alcohol after her relationship breaks down and she feels as though she has nowhere else to turn. This is almost portraying a concept to the audience that teenagers have a place to turn other than drugs and alcohol which is a huge problem currently in teenagers. This is conventional as our target audience is mainly teenagers who will understand this concept and be able to relate to being drunk and how this makes you feel. This will then help the audience to recognise how the artist is feeling about her broken relationship and they will feel empathetic towards her as they can relate to this feeling. The alcohol will connotate the fun yet dangerous and rebellious side of teenagers that will help to make the audience more aware of the narrative and mature themes featured in the music video.

This planning has helped me in the preparation of creating my own music video as I can clearly identify the reasons as to why we have included it in a video of the indie genre and also how these have effects on our audience in a positive aspect. I am also aware of the limitations and risks that could happen and what me and my group can do to avoid these at all costs to make our filming process much more smoother.