Coursework: Pre-production

Pre-production is an essential part of the filmmaking process. You now need to plan your music videos in detail to ensure you capture everything you need when filming.

There are three key elements to pre-production: music video treatment, mise-en-scene planning and a comprehensive shot list.

Music video treatment

You may already have a finished music video treatment from your summer project. 

However, you may also need to update it or even change it completely now you have finished your preliminary exercise. The original details from the summer for music video treatments can be found here.

Post your latest music video treatment to your blog in a blogpost called 'Music video treatment October 2020'.

Mise-en-scene planning

Plan everything that will appear in front of the camera in your music video. 

Remember CLAMPS: Costume, Lighting, Actors (cast, placement and movement), Make-up, Props, Setting.

Costume
What will your characters wear? What is the costume supposed to communicate to the audience? How does this link to your Statement of Intent in terms of creating representations?

Lighting
How will you light your music video? Day or night? Interior or exterior? If outside, can you use streetlights, shadows, reflected sunlight or other creative techniques to achieve the lighting style you want? If inside, experiment with creative lighting techniques using windows, blinds, artificial lights, phone flashes and more. You may also want to use our professional lighting set-up with a white or greenscreen background.

Actors/performers
The first thing you need to plan is your cast - who will be in your production and which characters will they play? Try and cast people who are reasonably similar to the character or performer they are playing (both in age and personality). Next, plan their placement and movement in key scenes in your music video. Do you want them to appear trapped in a claustrophobic close-up? Or isolated as a tiny person in a wide shot?

Make-up
Plan any make-up you require - this can be very important for music video.

Props
What props will you require? Remember, you can't use anything that might resemble a weapon in a public or school location (this is VERY important). Well-planned props can help to communicate genre and narrative quickly - vital in a music video where you can't use dialogue.

Setting
This should already be largely planned using your music video treatment. However, now is the time to specify exact locations - if a classroom, which one? How will you arrange it with the teacher? When will you film there? For external locations, try and take pictures of settings or use Google Maps and Google Earth. Spending quality time planning your locations can make a huge difference to the professionalism of your film. AQA also seem to prefer external rather than school-based locations.

Here's a video guide to Mise-en-scene at degree or film-school level:



...And here's Darius Britt on the top 15 mistakes new filmmakers make - there are a few key aspects of Mise-en-scene in there:



Post your detailed mise-en-scene planning to your blog in a blogpost called 'Mise-en-scene planning October 2020'.


Shot list

The final aspect of your pre-production planning is to write a comprehensive shot list for every single possible shot you plan to film for your music video.

A shot list is a full list of all the shots in your music video with detailed information for each of them (shot type, action etc.) Creative shot choices aside, it’s easy to forget that a shot list is a strategic document. Creating a shot list is essentially like creating a shooting gameplan for the day.

Here's our friend Darius with a reminder of the different shot types and angles:

 

Here are some top tips for writing a shot list:

 

Your a shot list needs to contain EVERY shot you plan to film for your music video AND additional shots to create flexibility when editing. These additional shots are often close-ups, cutaways, alternative angles or similar. Remember, music videos have fast-paced editing so you need a LOT of shots.

We advise using a simple table on Microsoft Word to set out your shot list - you can find an example from a short film here. It makes sense to write your shot list by scene or location rather than a huge list of every shot in the music video in chronological order. 

Post your detailed shot list to your blog in a blogpost called 'Shot list October 2020'.

Optional pre-production: Storyboard
Hollywood filmmakers and big-budget music video directors will also storyboard every shot they plan to film. They use storyboard artists to create a visual representation of the shots they wish to film - and use it to communicate a visual plan to the film crew. If you work well visually or are artistic you may wish to create storyboards for key shots in your trailer. If so, storyboard sheets are available in DF07 or online here.