The Vixens UK Myspace

I've started to look around for background for the MySpace and different codes we can use to jazz it up a bit. So far, I haven't found many interesting backgrounds that would really work for a band's MySpace. It would really be best if we could design our own MySpace background completely, but unfortunately none of us are complete computer/design tech genuis' so we are going to have to settle for a bit of a boring background. I am going to wait to run through everything with my group.

New Idea for Album Cover

So we tried our idea of using the locket behind the CD with pictures of us inside but after showing Mrs B. our album cover so far we agreed that it didn't look very good and it looked too plain. So I had the idea to get Holly to do a doodle with our names and little pictures and we scan that and put it behind the album cover. Everyone liked the idea and this is the doodle we ended up with which we are all really happy with.

We coloured in our names on PhotoShop after we scanned it and we think it makes it look bright and quirky and we have followed the colour scheme from the music video and the shoes by using blue, pink, purple and yellow. The cocktail glass also ties in with our album title, 'Glam Punch'.

Flatplan for Album Cover

This is our flatplan for our album cover. On the front we are thinking of having individual pictures of ourselves in columns with the band name and title of the album at the top. On the back cover we are thinking of having a still shot from our music video of the shoes with the track listing between the shoes because this is quite quirky and fun and ties in our hit single with the album. On the inside cover we are thinking of having a picture of the four of us together in the same outfits from the front, and behind the CD we are thinking of having a picture of the locket with pictures of us inside as this also ties in our hit single.

Band Member Name Ideas

Hey Guys, I have made the MySpace page, it has nothing on it at the moment except our name and one picture but the point is we do have one up and running under the URL www.Myspace.com/thevixensUK (/thevixens was already taken but bands have that problem all the time). So I've been thinking about band member names, I think it would be more interesting if we change ours. Here's a list of names that I have brianstormed so far with the help of the interenet giving some weird ones.

• Holly Woods
• Amelia Rose
• Laura (need to think of an interesting last name, sorry no offence!)
• Charlotte (same problem)
• Heidi Woods
• Amelie Rose
• Kali Rose
• Bee
• Leilah
• Gabriella
• Lexie
• Heidi
• Cali
• Romy
• Cleo
• Hattie
• Ava
• Amy/Amie
• Sammi
• Piper
• Haley
• Jayde
• Pippa
• Ria
• Izzie
• Isabel
  

That's what I've got so far, any ideas would be great :)

Plan to Shoot 11/11

We have made a plan to shoot the narrative for our music video tomorrow at Holly's house as we are using her parents bedroom for the mise-en-scene and tomorror is the only time everyone is available due to drama rehearsals and coursework deadlines going on at the moment.

We have booked out all the pag lights, camera, and a tripod. We have booked out all the lights because we will be shooting in the evening and we need to make sure that the lighting isn't too dark compared to our studio footage. In the shoot Laura will be wearing the blue dress we all wore in the studio footage and will have natural make up.

So props we need to bring are:

• Blue dress
• Heels (in case we want to use them)
• Make Up
• Hair Straightners
• Shooting Equipment

Video Shoot

So, tomorrow is our video shoot at Holborn Studios and I think we're all slightly nervous as well as excited. We have planned our shoot as well as we can so far, but because we are pretty sure that our video will mostly come together in the edit we only have a rough shooting schedule/shot list and storyboard.
Our shooting schedule is:
08:00-09:00   Arrive, set up, get ready (hair and make up)
09:00-09:45   Amelia Blue Dress
09:45-10:30   Holly Blue Dress
10:30-11:15   Charlotte Blue Dress
11:15-12:00   Laura Blue Dress
12:00-13:00   Laura Blue Dress with 3 Sins (Charlotte, Amelia, Holly)
13:00-13:30   LUNCH
13:30-14:30   Holly Sin
14:30-15:30   Amelia Sin
15:30-16:30   Charlotte Sin
16:30-17:30   Laura Sin
17:30-18:00   Any extra bits we want to add or anything we haven't done

And the props I need to bring are:

• Song on CD and CD Player
• "Hooker Heels" for Laura
• Blue Dress
• Accessories for Sin
• Some make up
• Lights and Camera

Audition to be Main Girl

In order to decide who is going to be the main girl we thought it would be fair to each 'audition'. For our audition we all lip-synced to the start of the song and recorded it so that it could be shown to an unbiased audience to decided who would do it. This is our auditions.

In the end, after Mrs B. had shown practically everyone she could (thanks for that Miss!) the feedback was that Laura should be the main girl so that is what we have gone with.

Call Sheet

This is the call sheet we made in preparation for our shoot.


Call Sheet

Costume Idea

Now that we have decided to go with the sin idea, we now have to re-think our outfits. I have chosen to be the sin Lust and therefore our first thought was to dress in red to anchor the idea of the sin. However, after discussion we thought it would be a good idea to make my character more of a dominatrix instead of just lust, as the concept to our music video is the corruption of good by the bad personailities and the bad personalities being in charge and dominating the man in the song as well as the innocent girl.

An outfit I would really like to base my own on is the outft that Cheryl Cole wore in her music video for her single 'Fight for this Love'. In the video she wears a red military jacket, a military hat, leather leggings and boot heels. Our idea to change the outfit is wet-look leggings, boot heels, a corset and a black blazer. Although this means that my outfit will be completely black we will try to tie-in the lust aspect with my make up by having bright red lips and red nail varnish. Almost the ambiguity of my outfit will make our video good for repeated viewing as the audience will enjoy trying to work out which sin we each are.

Costume Moodboard

This is a moodboard I made for costume ideas for our music video. As you can see, sequins, bright colours, very high heels, leggings and blazer type jackets is the type of outfits we are going for. This is because we are going for a disco-type look but with attitude to suit our genre.

Make Up Moodboard

This is a moodboard I made for make up ideas for our music video. As you can see the main thing we are aiming for is strong and striking make up such as smokey eyes, bright red lips, glitter and bright eye shadows. We would really like to have striking make up as we plan to shoot our music video in a white studio and therefore our make up and outfits will have to be bold and stand out, giving us personality and brightening up the video.

Seven Deadly Sins

So we decided we are going to draw inspiration for the characters/bad personalities from the Seven Deadly Sins. I looked on the internet and found these definitions of the sins:

• Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.
• Pride is excessive beliefe in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.
• Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
• Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
• Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or .Covetourness.
• Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.
• Wrath is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury.

Because there is only four of us in our group we are only going to be four of the Seven Deadly Sins and we have picked Lust, Envy, Greed and Wrath. We have thought about the styling for these characters but for inspiration I have also looked on the internet as America's Next Top Model did a photoshoot as The Seven Deadly Sins, so I thought the pictures would be good to get ideas from.

Group Meeting

In our group meeting today, we discussed how to plan our music video further. We had previously thought about whether or not we are going to have a single artist or a group but didn't come to a final decision. Therefore I thought it would be a good idea to decide on having one main character in the video who is the artist and the other characters her alter-egos or bad personalities. This also allows us to have some progression in the video, which we wouldn't have had if it was just loads of images of us dressed in different outfits.

I quickly jotted down a very brief and rough outline to the video:

• Begin main character sitting with flowers or some sort of object that associates her with the man she is singing about looking sad
• Her 'bad personalities' come out and she throws away this object
• Performance of the 'bad personalities' shown almost corrupting her in a way (whispering in her ear, kind of seducing her)
• Performing with mannequin of a mans torso, representing the man she is singing about, pushing it around, 'controlling it'
• End on strong shot of main character in her normal outfit that she is wearing at the beginning but has the bold make up she has as her 'bad personality'

This is a very brief outline of the progression of the character. There will also be many other shots involving reference to the lyrics including:

• 'Do I twist, do I fold' - shot of playing cards, possibly with a kiss on the King/Queen of hearts
• 'Why don't you tell me my future' - shot with tarot cards, either looking at the cards or throwing them at the camera
• 'Here come the drums, here come the drums' - us miming drumming, either in the band uniforms or just as our personalities (this shot isn't important anymore but was one of our favourites when we thought of the idea and so can still be put in there just for fun
• 'You're kisses are cold' - a bad personality kissing the main character on the cheek
• 'Sticking pins in a doll' - sticking pins in a voodoo doll, or on the mannequinn so that it is not literally just illustration of the lyrics

Group Meeting and Brainstorm

So we had a group meeting today where we sat down to try to formalise some shot ideas, as we had all these wonderufl idas bouncing around but we need to put things down on paper. Once we had started brainstorming we just couldn't stop and ended up with loads of ideas which would all work.
Our main theme is different looks, using the 7 deadly sins as inspiration.

Here is our first brainstorm:


Our main 'looks' are:
Look 1: 80s, glam rock, sequins, glitter, shoulder pads, platforms.
Look 2: 60s, futuristic, angular body shapes, solid make-up.
Looks 3: American band outfits "here come the drums"
Look 4: Marie Antoinette, inspired by fim, big white hair, mole etc.

We had the idea as well that we could each be a deadly sin in the video.


the ones we came up with were:
Lust: dressed all in black, dominatrix, leather
Greed: Marie Antoinette style, jewels, pearls, strawberries
Envy: Dressed In green, green contacts
Wrath: Dressed all in reds and oranges (firey)
Pride: like a celbrity, flashing paparazzi, big sunglasses etc

Pitch Feedback

We got really positive responses from everyone, and Miss Blackborow said it was "excellent!" which made us happy!

The only things she said were what to do next;

listen to "pump it up" and other songs by Elvis Costello as it has a major influence on our song
make a shot list while looking at the lyrics
look for locations
Not even constructive criticism! One advantage we have is that we could film almost anywhere as the background isn't really important. The focus is on us, our makeup and costumes, and tight framing will make it easier to shoot anywhere.

So at the moment we are in the process of contacting some places which have white backgrounds, and potentially The Phoenix Cinema as one location.

Treatment Presentation

This is the presentation we made as part of our pitch for our treatment. It is mostly visual as so that the audience didn't have to read off the presentation as we spoke to them and also so that they can visually see our idea.

Voodoo Child Presentation

Group Final Idea

Rogue Traders - Voodoo Child

After each pitching a final idea on our blogs we have finally decided on Voodoo Child by Rogue Traders. We picked this idea as it has a strong female lead which we can recreate with our group but mix it up by having all of us in the video.

Our idea is that we go completely concept and performance based and have all of us in the video in lots of different outfits, ranging from disco to glam rock to 60s and we make a montage of each of us in all of the outfits, lip syncing to the song. We also plan to confuse the audience by all wearing the same outfit and then all wearing different outfits as this will make the audience want to keep watching because they won't know who is who. We have decided on this because we are all confident in front of the camera and it reduces complications by not bringing other people into the project to perform for us. Also, we think this would make a really eye catching video as even though we don't have a narrative for the audience to follow, the strong performance and the direct eye contact with the camera will keep the audience involved and add in the voyeuristic element of music videos which proves to be popular and successful.

We also plan to illustrate a few of the lyrics, so far we have thought of these ideas:

• "Here come the drums" - we will be wearing band outfits and playing drums, if possible.
• "Put your cards on the table baby. Do I twist, do I fold?" - either a poker game or tarot card display which would act as a motif to keep the video moving
• "Why don't you tell me my future?" - use of the tarot cards
• "I'm coming undone" - unzipping or untying or something not too sexual, letting her hair down, or unravelling from puppet strings
• "You play me like a puppet" - puppet strings attached to us if possible

Quite a few of these ideas may be very hard to do (the puppet strings mostly) but we will see if we can do them, hopefully we can.

Final Idea

Chase & Status - Heartbeat

This is my final idea for our pitch on wednesday; it is Heartbeat by Chase & Status with vocals by Nneka. I have chosen this song because it has female vocals which means that we could use one of us from the group or ask a friend to play the singer and the lyrics give us the opportunity to make our music video either narrative or context based. We also have to opportunity to bring in intertextuality with references to other music and DJs.

My idea is that the music video is a mix of concept and narrative, with a narrative between a boy and girl/man and woman with images of dark, club scenes and abandoned street scenes as the music connotes quite a dark setting. For the idea of the club we have discussed asking for permission to film in the well known club, Fabric, as one of our group members has previously been given permission.

The dubstep genre of this song does not have many music videos, especially none particularly well known, which means that we can be very imaginative with this song as at the moment there is not well known genre conventions that we would need to follow or break to make the video familiar to the audience.