People Involved
For my music video, I had numerous amounts of people involved for lots of different things. As I decided to be the main singer in my band, I then required two men to fulfil the other members of the band; a drummer and a guitarist. I also took on the role of being the main character in the narrative part of my music video as I thought this would be easier than having to rely on someone else. However, I did need another woman to play my character's 'metaphorical depression' and I needed someone to be available for filming or to be an extra character to include.
Performance:
Harry Withers played the drums for my music video. Due to the drummer from the alternative rock band 'Paramore' being male, I thought it would be best to also have a man playing the drums. This way I do not challenge any stereotypes in relation to my genre more than what 'Paramore' have already done as usually, alternative rock bands have all male members.
The guitarist in my music video was played by Jacob Brain. Once again, 'Paramore' have a male guitarist and I wanted to follow in their footsteps. Therefore, this doesn't challenge any conventions of the alternative rock genre. Neither of the boys are fluent with their instruments but they both listened carefully to the music and played along with it in order to be in time.
I (Keeley Allen) was the main singer in the performance section of my music video. Due to 'Paramore' having a female singer, it was imperative that I did the same as otherwise it wouldn't make sense if there was a man trying to sing along with a woman's voice. A female being in an alternative rock band -especially singing, does challenge the codes and conventions of the genre as stereotypically, these types of bands are made up of only men. In order to film these scenes, we placed the camera on a tripod, or whoever needed to be filmed using a close-up camera shot, one of the other band members would film it.
Narrative:
I played the main character in the narrative part of music video. The storyline meant that I had to portray someone that had depression and was struggling with normal, everyday activities because of it. My facial expressions needed to be neutral and my body language had to be heavy in order to convey the message properly. A teenage girl may fit in with some peoples expectation of who would be struggling with mental health.
The 'metaphorical depression' of the main character was played by Leanne Bressington. This was a difficult role to portray as she had to play someone that didn't really exist because she was only a metaphor and inside the other character's head. For this role, I had to find someone who looked slightly similar to me as this other character was something taken from my character's mind. Due to the fact that Leanne and I both have dark, brown, long hair and are roughly the same size, this qualified for plausible similarities.
Jacob filmed the majority of the narrative section of my music video which was very useful as he was reliable and gave his input as to what angle looked best for certain shots. I filmed the narrative scene where Jacob is walking down the street looking happy as I could then instruct him on what to do and film whatever way I saw best fit. I also filmed a few more clips within my music video, and this was mostly when I was in the best position to do so for example, the last scene where the camera pans onto the 'metaphorical depression' (Leanne) smiling was filmed by me as I was directly in front of her at the time. Harry and Mackenzie Steadman also filmed some scenes to help me out with getting all the possible shots and angles that I could get.
Beth Patch played another character in the narrative part of my music video. She was only included in one scene, so she's not a particularly substantial character. The scene she's in is where the main character (me) is walking down a path with her depression behind her and there is Beth and Harry walking whilst they are talking and laughing. I then try to catch up to them and the camera pans to show that they have disappeared or were never there in the first place. This further develops the idea that my character is suffering from mental health problems and therefore, allows the audience to infer and create their own ideas and meanings of my storyline.
Alongside walking, talking and laughing with Beth is Harry. This was a helpful scene -filmed by Jacob and myself- because this suggests that my character has friends but cannot reach out to them due to her illness. An alternative interpretation is that she is seeing things and the people were never there in the first place. Harry and Beth both fit in with the conventions of the alternative rock genre due to the fact that their outfits were made up of block colours and they appeared to have carefree attitudes.