Mise-en-scene

Costume

As I was directing, filming and editing my music video, it would of been impossible for me to star in it as well. However i didn't want an adult in the video or even a teenager of my age, i.e. my friends in it either as I thought this would look unprofessional. I finally decided to ask my eight year old sister Teagan to star in it and she happily agreed to. I thought having a young child in it would set the scene that i was trying to create. When it came to deciding on what she should wear I wanted to make her look innocent but portray her to be evil in the actual music video. The image that came to mind was of the girl twins in 'The Shining' directed by Stanley Kubrick. I chose to replicate this costume idea as the characters look sweet and young but are later perceived to be scary.

Props

I decided that I didn't want to use a huge amount of props in my video due to the continuity and I didn't think it was necessary. Teagan holds a barbie doll in a few pictures to show how young she is. Further on into the video I wanted to match the image on screen to the lyrics in the song. The lyrics say 'and you wake up just head and shoulders in a glass jar', for this bit I dismembered and burnt the barbie doll so that it was just its head and shoulders in a jar. I thought this was a nice contrast and also a back reference to what the viewer would of seen earlier when Teagan was holding it. Through some parts of the video Teagan is playing with more dolls, again this is to emphasise her innocence and that she is a young girl. On certain pictures throughout the video and on my ancillary tasks I, along with my mum and other sister held three hair dryers beneath Teagan to make her hair blow up, another prop that helped me set the mood for my video.

Equipment

Before filming away from home I had to make sure that I had all of the necessary equipment so that I was fully prepared. If i were to forget anything important then I wouldn't be able to film or it would look unprofessional. Here is a list below of what I needed:

• Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ10EB camera
• Tripod for steadiness
• Spare SD card and battery 
• Any props that I used
• Same costume throughout for continuity