Tuesday 9th November - Mannequin Filming

Filming - Mannequin

(Below are some production shots of our filming session using the mannequin in the drama room)

This filming session has to be scheduled in the evening after college because it involved the “drama room”. This room was chosen due to its black walls and stage lights. These aspects of the room enabled us to film “studio” shots, which only contain the artist without distracting mise-en-scene. These shots will only contain the mannequin and Sophie. The purposes of these shots are to get the message about the artist “designing her own boyfriend” and the mannequin symbolically represents this. We have chosen the mannequin to be bare and naked in all the shots. This decision was made to make the mannequin look vulnerable and powerless so that it gave the impression that Sophie is controlling him. Also this mannequin is supposed to represent physically her boyfriend. This prop was chosen so that Sophie can physically “move” it around but still show intimacy towards him and is easily breakable, therefore towards the end of the song she can become violent and symbolise hurting him for revenge. Sophie had three costume changes in this filming session to create different emotions and enhance certain voyeurism angles and shot types. To make the lighting perfect in these sections we used the media strong lights and re-adjusted them in every shot to prevent shadows and bright or dark shots.

Firstly we put down a black sheet on the floor and placed the mannequin on top of it with Sophie placed by the side of him. We filmed her looking at him and hugging him without singing to fill certain instrumentals throughout the song and to portray her character more to her audience. Then we filmed the first verse and chorus. She was dressed in a black dress with a cream coloured bow at the chest of the dress. This dress couldn’t easily be moved in therefore we only used it for the lying down sections. This section was filmed using a crane, bird eye view, shot. The camera was placed on a piece of rostra, which was heavy enough to hold a tripod and member of our group and recorded Sophie from above (tom recorded this shot). We ended this section of shots by filming Sophie singing the chorus as she turned over oh her side, this shot was at ground level and showed her shoulder quite provocatively therefore increasing the voyeurism aspect of this video.

The second shot we did was with Sophie in a knee length, low cut black dress. This meant that she could move more around the mannequin and dance in the instrumental. We filmed this section in two parts, once with using a long shot and a second time using a mid shot. Sophie sang the second verse and second chorus and similarly like before had certain sections without singing which we could use to enhance the narrative of the story. During the bridge of the song, which she also sang separately, she removed the mannequin’s arms whilst staring at the camera and held them. This shot will portray the character getting violent, angry ad determined for revenge. During the instrumental she removes them and throws them, this also reinforces her anger and will make up the climax of our music video.

The next shot filmed was quite an experimental shot. I brought in a real microphone in from home and we filmed Sophie singing the song in to a microphone. This was sung in a preset setting, we had the rostra covered with a black cloth against a black background with parts of the mannequin in bits around Sophie, suggesting she had broken him physically and metaphorically mentally as well. She was in a pink long elegant dress singing the ending of the song and the bridge. Obviously due to these shots being in black and white the pink wouldn't show.

I thought this filming session was quite successful in terms of footage, however we underestimated how long it would take to set the room up in terms of lighting, space and costumes and do quick transitions between shot.