Lexi Grace

We decided to name our popstar "Lexi Grace", after much deliberation.Her full name would be Alexandra Grace, or Alex Grace for short, with Lexi Grace as her stage name. We think it's short, easy to remember, and edgy yet relateable to. We had names like "Pixie Lott", "Lily Allen", and "Katy Perry" in mind to draw inspiration from. We also did a bit of research into the kinds of fonts we could use for her name on the album cover (pictured above).

Our 1st & 2nd Shoots

There were both postives and negatives from our first and second shoot days (Thursday and Friday of half term). 

 

 What worked:

The weather was perfect both too days (if a little cold on the second), not too sunny, but bright and dry. The settings were beautiful, and very vibrant and colourful just as we had hoped.  The costumes were effective (we ended up dressing her in a white vest top with a red rolling stones sign and a leather jacket; a floral dress and sunglasses with military boots; a navy dress with gold rope designs; and a black bandeux leotard with navy harem pants). The shots of our actress walking, especially once reversed at the editing suite, were really effective. The well planned shots for example the apple flying out of the basket, and the lipstick shots worked really well.

 

 What didn't work so well:

 

 Detailed planning of our shots was something we all decided we needed to work on more for the second shoot. We had placed too much hope on being able to just turn up at the shoot and improvise on the areas we hadn't planned in as much depth, and although we did want that element of "spontenaity" in our video, this was still something we would have to acheive through careful planning. We also let ourselves down with the directing of our actress as we didn't really set up the role for her before the shoot so she found it hard to get into, especially the lip syncing. Our actress was cold on the shoot in skimpy clothes! Also, costume changes were awkward when we were out and about. We didn't get permission to film in Trafalgar Square.

Shot List

Shot List

Test Photo Shoot with Liv

We had our first photo shoot with Liv yesterday, which was a success! Unfortunately (and typically, seeing as the shoot went so seamlessly), lots of our photos got deleted during the uploading process. However we still have a few shots left that we like, one of which (the first one pictured below), we may use for the actual album cover. It was interesting and exciting learning how to use all of the studio lights, which could be controlled from a laptop, and we all had good fun using the props and costumes to try and create an edgy, cool look for Liv. 

Costume Changes

For the days of the shoot (which have been confirmed as the 28th and 29th of October), we have each been assigned to come up with one costume change, which matches each of the four locations we have divided up between us. My location is Camden, and I want to have Liv walking through the market stalls and down by the canal. Below are some ideas for clothing for my particular section:

Although it's quite hard to see from the photos above what the overall effect would look like, I would like to have her dressed in a black bandeu leotard, with high-waisted harem pants over the top. Perhaps also with a plait belt similar to the one the girl is wearing in the picture. This look will be quite sexy but also with a hippy-ish 'festival' vibe that will fit in well with the surroundings.

In terms of accesories, I think red lipstick would pull the whole thing together nicely and make it look a little sexier, and aviator sunglasses might compliment the 'festival' vibe. Military boots would also go well with the harem pants:

Clothing Moodboard

Photos For Possible Locations

In our last lesson we discussed the criteria for the locations. We want to use beautiful or recognisable, iconic scenes in London, however without falling into the trap of using all of the obvious, touristy locations in London such as the London Eye and Big Ben etc. We want stunning places like the cobbled streets and markets of Covent Garden, the view from the bench that looks out off Parliament Hill, the coloured graffiti and the carousel at Southbank and so on. These are just some photos I found online, we have a location reccie booked in this week so that we can test our how busy these areas are and how effective they will be, and will post our actual photos onto the group blog.

New Actress

Although Abi and Tara were both good choices for our project, we decided the look we wanted for our actress would be a little more "edgy". For this, we thought a girl from our school year, Olivia D'Lima would be perfect. She's good-looking, but her look has a slightly more "London-look", edgy feel to it. She has short cropped brown hair and a striking face so she really looks the part and could also be dressed up into various different styles. She also does A-Level drama and was really enthusiastic to take part, so she seems to us the perfect choice. She's free during half term when we plan to shoot, she's punctual, good at time keeping, and gets along with all of us well. We're excited to work with her for the project!

Development of Our Ideas

The group decided to try out my idea of shooting a video in reverse on a trial run - there could be the potential for it to look tacky or to have technical problems and this is what we want to eliminate by testing out that a reverse video would work. We've also been brainstorming further ideas for what we want the video to include, and what we want the girl to look like. We were thinking of asking either Tara or Abi, two girls in our year to play our main singer:

a

Tara is a strong actress who is confident and looks the part. She's photogenic which would work well for our album cover, and is also reliable and punctual, and gets on well with everyone in our group, all qualities which would be perfect for our main singer.

Abi is also confident, good-looking and photogenic. Although she doesn't have much past acting experience there isn't really any narrative in our idea so this is not a high priority, as long as she is confident in front of the camera. She also has a strong 'london look', which is key for the part we have in mind, and gets along with everyone in our group.

We haven't asked either girl yet but if one of them agrees we will be drawing up a contract for them to sign and calling them in to style them and give them the lyrics of the song to learn and so forth.