Planning The Shoot

Initial Ideas

I decided on using Cowdray Ruins for my location portrait shots of the band. This is because it looks gothic and there is a lot of scenery there that would make an interesting backdrop.

I also looked at the area around the castle, and the plants looked interesting enough to place the band in between. This would challenge the conventions of a generic band shot, but also make the shot seem more interesting.

Persona For VocalistName: Nikki Grimes – Grimes sounds rocky, rebellious, unfinished, unpolished and very British.

Says Things Like:•“I am who I am and no one can change me” – Individualistic, tough, what you see is what you get.•Words like “dude” and “rad” – street slang, airy.•Words like “sweet” – irony, sarcastic, clever.

Appearance For The Vocalist 1st Idea• Blonde, punky hair.• Smokey eyes• Red lips• Nose ring – not as ‘safe’ as ear piercings, shows rebellion.• Petite – stands out from crowd, makes them look “boyish”, if she was taller she would compete with the band, and blend in more.

Fashion For Vocalist1st idea.• Punky

• Leather Jacket• Band/slogan t-shirts/tops• Skinny jeans / leather look leggings• high heels• Leopard print – bringing 80s punk rock back

• Very fashion conscious and in control of her image.

Appearance Of The Band

Fashion:• Skinny jeans, black/dark clothing, shirts or tee’s – so they don’t match the vocalist. • Black/grey colour scheme – so they don’t take too much of the attention away from the vocalist.

Cowdray as a Location.For:

- Pretty & historical building, good for a location shoot.

-Interesting building with good angles within the ruins which would make good pictures.

- We have permission to use the building already.

Against:

-Doesn’t anchor the band to what our target audience for our magazine is.

- Castles are generically gothic and the band we are trying to portray does not fit in to the stereotype of goth.

- Castles are old buildings and usually target older people, where as our magazine is aimed at the younger generation.

Using Cowdray would work as a location if I manipulated the image to look like a fairytale castle.

I got this idea from the Paramore music video ‘Brick By Boring Brick’, a punky band that appeals roughly to our target audience. The video sets up a princess and fairytale story, but in reality her life isn’t really like that. It would work because the article that anchors the image could be based on the lead singer; everybody thinks she is royalty because she is becoming famous; but in reality she is just like everybody else.People refer to Britney Spears as the ‘pop princess’ which establishes her to be known as music royalty. The lead singer from Paramore tends to say in her interviews that she wants to lead a normal life.

Research.

Cowdray as a Location.

The other band members could be in knights hats/ king crowns, with the lead singer wearing a historical princess headdress or tiara. This would then anchor the band to why the location is the castle, and also anchor the image to the article. It would also add humor and a quirky edge.

This would add humor and irony because in reality we know they are not royalty, and in fact they are just normal people but produce music for a living. For example, we know the dog in the picture is just a dog in a costume, just because it is in a costume doesn’t mean that it is royalty. The band don’t want to be known as pop royalty, and if they use an image like this, they would in a way, be making fun of the people who want to be known as music royalty.

Mise-En-Scene For Shoot

After more research, I developed more ideas and decided the princess/royalty idea was more appropriate for our our demographic/psychographic.Therefore the costume will be slightly different to my first ideas.

The lead singer will be in a over-the-top floaty dress, like a Cinderella prom dress.She’d wear dr. marten’s/converse with the dress, as they are stereotypically ‘punk’. This brings out her natural style.