Planning #6

Today we began to plan out the content in our animatic storyboarded sequence. We wanted to make sure we had a reliable succession of notes on hand, before creating the artwork. Meaning we would have a clear written structure to refer to before attempting to create the visual elements. We began by discussing  possibilities for our opening sequence (introduction shoot) set in the modern day; timing the pre-lyrical instrumental piece at the beginning of 'If Ya Wanna', we found that we had 19 seconds to play with & decided that in this short gap of time a compressed montage of snap shots / small snippets of film would create a better overall view for the audience of our protagonist & the artist's (lead male in the video) relationship.

  

We felt that gathering a large array of mini-shoots for this particular scene would give us a much greater chance in the editing sweet to advance these pieces into a brief yet romantic opening story - introducing our meta-narrative (love trumps it all).  We new that if we started the piece on an extremely sour note, we would break our audience connection straight away, as they would feel no empathy towards our lead singer & his partner (lead girl) and as such the passion and emotion forged into their relationship would be entirely missed and under appreciated - both emotionally and visually. Beginning with a simplistic hint at their history would help us to create a much more rounded video and also juxtapose effectively to the heightened style & fast pace  of action in the rest of the visuals. 

Additionally, though our lead singer takes A-level drama & music (something which will benefit us greatly in relation to their over-all performance and believability) we knew that any stilted romance acting may create a sense of lacked authenticity and take away from the enjoyment of the rest of the video. We felt that choosing Rhianna  (who knew the lead male well) as our lead female protagonist would help to 'break the ice' and allow the two leads to work comfortably & convincingly together - as they already have a long standing friendship. 

 We went on to list the serious of shot lengths, angles etc & discuss props / locations designed for each specific shot. We then worked through the rest of the decades -  finalising the locations & casting for each & deciding on which shots to include in bullet form (to then later bring to life on our storyboard). 

 

Finally we finalised email agreements with possible venues & rang up 'Frank B's Diner' in Kingston to speak to their manager about hiring out the restaurant for filming. We managed to secure Tuesday the 27th of November to use the diner privately after hours to create our 1950's/1960's scene. We knew it was extremely vital to secure this placement as the location is perfectly authentic and decorated timelessly. We were extremely relieved with this placement as we felt that this spaces would aid the overall professional finish of our video, and help it too not look like a very sub-standard, amateur creation.