Planning lighting and colour - Miss Georgiou

Lighting and colour of a music video is essential when planning the project as it determines when you will be filming to capture the shot that you want. Different uses of lighting can portray different connotations within the music video you're creating, for example, low key lighting is when the frame is presented to be very dark, like the audience cannot see much in the frame, this could be used to show the artist's darker side to him/her self, however a back light, which is a source of light behind the character, could show they have a brighter side to them or that they have hope depending on the context of the shot. Colours are just as important because certain colours may illustrate different meanings, for example, a lot of black in a shot could suggest death or depression of a character, however, white could suggest hope and innocence of a certain character.

In our group, we've decided to use a wide range and variety of colours as well as lighting, I will start by talking about the different lighting techniques we will hopefully be producing for the music video. Firstly we want to use high key lighting as well as natural key lighting as it will be shot in the day time, near the beginning of the video just after the first scene where our artist taps in his oyster card and later when he starts performing around central London on the streets. This is conventional to our genre because in the context of this scene where our artist leaves his hometown in hopes to become famous in the music industry by playing his music in the city, the high key lighting is used to connote that things will be good for our artist or he thinks he could make it into the industry. This presents our artist in a hopeful way but also shows that he's willing to take risks for his dreams to come true, the lighting should also connote that he is innocent because he isn't shown to be a bad person in the video at this point. This is conventional because it gives the artist and the audience hope that he will be successful by the end of the video, it's also to show hope that he has for himself to get into the indie music industry and finding that it's much harder than he presumed, the audience then understand the bright high key lighting means hope and also become hopeful that he will break into the industry enabling the audience to further build a relationship with the artist.

The next use of lighting in the video will be low key lighting towards the near end of the video where our artist has ran from the cab to get to his home. Due to the artist not being successful in the city, the artist has no money so he has to run from the cab as soon as it stops so he doesn't get forced to pay for it. This is conventional to the indie genre as the genre's videos normally contain a hard hitting concept surrounding the video. This illustrates our artist as unsuccessful in the city and shows some of the situations he had to face to become famous, the low key lighting also suggests that by the end of the video, our artist has completely changed as he has ran away from paying a cab driver due to him having no money whereas at the beginning of the video he seemed as though he had hope of making it in the city. The theme or ending of my video is very much conventional to the indie genre that talks about negative messages or depressing stories because they feel more raw and harsh for the audience, the audience like this type of style in the indie genre because some genres try to cover that it's nearly impossible to get into the music industry on your own. The use of low key lighting can relate to the lyrics of the song because there is a lyric "been down some dark alleys in my own head", low key lighting connects the video and the song together and can also infer that the story of the song is a personal tale of the artists.

The next topic i'll be discussing in our video is the colour that we plan to use in several scenes. We have thought of the idea to use black frequently in the video by making that the colour the artist wears throughout. This is conventional to the indie genre as it portrays a darker side to our artist but it also presents a particular image about him, this is what the audience will remember about our artist. This is also conventional because it may even connote a darker message about the narrative of the video, the dark messages could be that our artist is all alone with no money by the end, the fact he wears black throughout the video shows foreshadowing of the artists later decisions in the video.

In conclusion, the audience can build up a relationship with the artist as they feel sympathy towards him, they understand he is caught up in his dreams in the beginning of the music video and wants to pursue them, but they also understand he is doing all of this alone so they understand one of the concepts at the end of the video is that it's very hard to become famous in the music industry if you're doing it on your own.