Music Video: Costume and Colours

Costume plays a key aspect in the construction of our iconography, probably the most important since it is the aspect that will be receiving the most attention in our music video. Nature is something that plays an important part in Amanda's image, and therefore will be a key theme in our project. It appears on nearly all the photographs on Amanda's website and Amanda herself has an eco-clothing line on the website Esty, promoting vintage and eco-friendly clothing. For this reason it was mutually decided that all of the colours and textures that Lorna will be wearing are going to be bright, natural colours all connoting to nature and natural beauty. Below is a collage our team mate Cary constructed to start to brainstorm ideas.




On the day of the location research, we decided that we were thinking of a possible costume contrasting a pair of biker-style boots (similar to images displayed above) with a short, bright dress which would reflect the similar contrast in the location between the rough, autumn-leafy ground and the bright green colours of the tree tops. The images of the dress below is the costume we have allocated specifically for this location. During our costume planning we also discussed a way of perhaps dotting parts of Lorna's costume and hair with flowers and other natural decorations. However, as it is not the season for many flowers, leaves were the alternative and fit in best with the autumn landscape anyway. The dress below is our completed costume with hand-sewn leaves to represent Amanda's close relationship with nature.

In addition to the dress above, we discussed having a "billowing dress" in some of our shots, to reflect the liberation from the pressures of being "perfectly beautiful" shot in the open areas of our locations. The sketch completed below by Cary demonstrates the ideas we had for either constructing this dress ourselves or (the most likely) using a pre-existing dress and simply adjusting it. 

Colour 

The colour selection for our music video will be the natural colour palette of our locations (green, brown, blue) in addition to the bright hues of the costumes. Green is going to be a particularly key colour, appearing in nearly every single shot due to the locations we're filming in and will most probably be accentuated in the post-production process. The colour of the thread is a primary concern of ours and if it will be bright and bold enough to stand out from the darker browns and greens in shot. For this reason and also to reflect a brighter mood, high-key lighting is what we will be aiming for to give our shots as much light as possible. This may prove to be a particular challenge considering our locations are mainly wooded areas. Through choosing neutral but bright colours for the costume hopefully the red colour of the string will stand out.