The document provides details on the mise en scène elements for a music video including costume, props, lighting, location/set design, and acting. Costumes will have a vintage folk rock style to relate to the genre and lyrics. Props like instruments are important to show the friendship of the band. Lighting will use high key and low key styles to portray the character's emotions. The location of Bawsey Pits is chosen for its natural scenery. The protagonist's bedroom set aims to make him seem relatable. Acting must be committed to convince the audience of the video's reality.

1. The Mise en scène elements of
our music video.
By Karl Gillings

2. COSTUME
The costumes that we have planned for our cast, are highly in trend with the stereotypes of our songs
genre. We have decided to go with this as it has previously worked in appealing to our target audience
and suits the themes of folk rock and our song. For example, Mumford and Sons
are a highly successful folk rock band. Their style and fashion has affected our
decision making and given us inspiration, The vintage look relates to the morals
and aged soul that it seen and heard through out their songs.
In relation to our song we feel that its style is suited to clothes like boots, rough jeans and articles with a
heavy material look. This is because of the song lyrics. “ Shaking limbs tend to end up bent and broken”
and “Higher branches, Harder fall”. The harshness and strength of the lyrics can be mirrored by the
costume the textures and colours, relating to the semantic field of the lyrics, showing meaning and
intent to the audience while communicating the meaning of the song.
I also think that the costume can add a lot of detail to the protagonist of our music video. The costume
shows that he is practical but also trying to fit in with his friends on a material level, communicating to
the audience that he puts effort into his appearance. For his friends this works effectively as well. By
giving them a noticeably consistent look it shows the closeness of their friendship as they have an
impact of each other’s lifestyle choice. This appeals to the audience as their costumes will be on trend
but also adds intensity and meaning to the costumes and in some ways a solace atmosphere as their
closeness makes it seem impossible for the protagonist in the story arc of our music video.
The colour schemes of the costumes will hopefully be very close to natural tones. I think that by using
natural, earthy colours it shows the close link to nature that the song has. This shows the audience the
reality of the song as well and will be important for communicating a professional look to the audience
as they need to see intent in our video, to believe the fiction of our idea. The natural look is also aimed
at the older, more mature members of out audience as they are more likely to pay attention to those
details.

3. PROPS
Props are going to be an important part of our music video. They will be seen throughout and also used
during the final sequence of our video. The meaning of the props in our video shows the audience the
common link between the friend group. They can all play instruments or sing and is what they all enjoy
doing together. The instruments represent how the friends met and communicate to the message that
without music they wouldn’t know each other. The amount of emphasis we put on the instruments is
determined by this. In our interpretation of the song the instruments and the fact that they play music
together represents the raw form of their friendship, so I believe that their needs to be a lot, as it
demonstrates to the audience the unity that the friends have and how strong their friendship is. To do
this a good range of camera angles, with a larger use of close ups will assert the audience of their close
connection and mirror that of their friendship.
The props will also entertain the audience. The performance of the actors needs to show the passion
they have for their friends, creating a happy atmosphere that the audience will enjoy, the friend group
playing together will also have the same effect. The performances of the cast along with their
performances with the instruments need to emphasise this and make a clear message for the audience
to understand. We as a production team to ensure that the actors are comfortable with the instruments
and capable of playing/singing in time with the music to form the reality that they are a band or a group
of friends playing music depending in the interpretation of the audience. The style that they play them in
will effect this as we need to see passion as the music represents their friendship and the audience need
to understand that.
Other than instruments we also have 2 other main props in the music video, as well as those used to give
the impression of a “teenager’s” bedroom, during the prologue of our video. These are an envelope and
a mobile phone. They represent the dilemma that the protagonist is facing and show his though process.
The mobile phone as well as the set design show the age of the character so the audience can assume
that the envelope contains an acceptance letter from a university or other form of higher education. To
show the importance of them to the audience we will close-up camera angles. They detail to the
audience the priorities of the character and add suspense to the video.

4. LIGHTING
The larger majority of our music video will have natural lighting because we are
using an outside location called Bawsey Pits. It is a spacious, rather isolated, park
near where we live, so the lighting depends completely on the weather we have on
the day. In an ideal world, I think that our music video will be best produced on a
sunny day, mainly because it will give us more control over the effect that lighting
has. For our video I think a mix between high key and low key is best.
High key lighting can be used to portray how the protagonist feels happy towards the
end of the video because the clear light will reflect the unity of the friend group and
show clarity in the characters mood. The prologue and ending of the video will also
use bright high key lighting showing the intensity of the situation and make the
feelings and thoughts of the character appear open to the audience as he has all of
their focus. This gives the audience an opportunity to connect the character and
sympathise with his situation thus gaining a deeper audience engagement.
I think low key lighting will also be a great device in the beginning and more intense
moments of our music video as it would reflect the dark nature of the thoughts and
feelings that the protagonist is experiencing. This can be interpreted by the audience
and communicate to them the mentality of the character. Low key lighting will also
create a mysterious atmosphere in the video which reflects the main character’s
uncertainty of how his friends feel about him.
The low key lighting will also work greatly with the song as its harsh honest, lyrics
will be portrayed by the dark tones of this style of lighting. I think this will really
emphasise the meaning of the song and highlight our interpretation to the audience
making our idea a lot easier to understand, not that its complex.

5. LOCATION AND SET DESIGN
The location for our music video is Bawsey Pits. It has Birch
covered hills and a Scandinavian style lake which will work well
with our song title as it has a very strong link to nature being called
“Trees”. The park is very isolated, quiet and meets a the criteria that
we set when looking for an appropriate place to film. The Main thing that we were looking for in a location
was trees and forestry. We wanted a “Gothic” looking environment to support the dark imagery of the lyrics
but we also wanted trees because it links with the title of the song. The nature of the landscape will also add
to the video. The natural environment will appeal to the audience as it links with trends of folk rock music
videos but it also show the audience the honest meaning of the song and our music video.
For the prologue and the ending we will be in a specifically designed set , the protagonist’s bedroom. This will
require us to use our set designing skills. From this set, I want the audience to get the impression that the
protagonist is the average teenager, to make him seem like a highly relatable character. This will work best
with the younger part of our target market, the 16-19 age range to be specific, but I imagine that all viewers
will understand what its like to be a teenager.
To create a teenage bedroom, which shouldn’t be to difficult, I think we exploit the stereotypes and
generalisations made about them. For example, A messy room will give an instant idea to the audience, along
with accessories such as: posters (film and music or maybe even art), clothes(probably on the floor),
memorabilia/collectables, electronics ( T.V.’s, games consoles, chargers etc, mirror etc). This will communicate
to the audience the main idea that his room isn’t his main priority and metaphorically show the complexity of
himself and his mind. This will also appeal to our younger target audience as they may find the situation
relatable as they may be facing something that relates and correlates to that of the character but this also
doesn’t exclude older members of the audience from relating to it as they may fall on past experiences.

6. ACTING AND BODY GESTURES
The acting and body gestures will be very essential to convincing the audience of the reality
in our music video. The performances of the cast aren’t overly essential to the success of the
project/music video, as show in the mark scheme, but personally I won’t the video to have
brilliant performances as it will boost the quality of the video. For example, if one or more of
the actors is not committed to the project and that can be seen in their performance then
the audience will be effected, most likely not believing the validity of the character and not
investing into the story. This will have a massive effect on the production and will reduce the
quality of the video. To overcome this, I think it is a good idea to have a constructive
discussion with all of the actors, together and individually to make sure that they
understand their characters. The discussion together will also be very productive as it will
allow them to bond before, rather than being thrown into the situation with brand new
people, which may again result in a fragile performance that doesn’t show the reality we
want to create in the video. Another way of ensuring that the performances are good would
be involving the actors in the project as much as possible. By doing this we will be giving
them an understanding of the character, which with time they can begin to develop
themselves if they have inspiration to do so, and that will create the commitment that we
want from the actors.
Another large part in our music video is the lip-syncing and instrument playing ending. This
part of the video will require them to have the ability to play instruments in time with the
music and lip sync as well. If they are out of time then the video will not come across as
professional and may even distract the audience from focusing on the performance and
meaning of the friends playing the song together. To ensure that the actors are capable of
performing then it may be worth doing a screen test. This will highlight areas where the
actors are not as good and will give us opportunity to work on it, making them capable by
the time we film the music video.

7. HAIR AND MAKE-UP
As a group we have had a many discussions about the effect of hair and make up in our
music video. The main being about the effect that hair will have as make up will not be
very relevant to our production. The main thing we have talked about is how the hair of
the actors will portray and represent the basics of the genre. For Example, Carl will be
the lead actor in our production and will usually have his hair up styled to look a certain
way. However, we have agreed that it would be better if he had his hair down for the
role as that will suit the trends of the genre. We will also have to have discussions with
the other actors about what they are comfortable with doing and the boundaries that
they have about their appearance and how they want to be portrayed. Obviously we
will try our best to have control over this as we know what will be the best result for the
video, but we also want to respect the wishes of the performers as that may help them
with their performance in the video.
In my opinion, I agree with the decisions that we have made. We do need to represent
the genre to appeal to the existing fans of the band but to also appeal to fans of the
genre. If we do this successfully then, we will be closer to making a good music video.
The reason that we have decided that make-up is not a large issue for the production is
because the all but one of the cast will be wearing it. Freya, will be the only cast
member and will be wearing some as that will link with stereotypes made about girls
that are our age, the same age as the characters in the music video. As to what I don’t
know, as I have no understanding of make-up. It will be worth consulting with the
actress to understand even though it will have little effect on the production.