Music Videos

HEATHENS FINAL VIDEO.mp4

Final Music Video

link to published video - https://youtu.be/GYyWBSg0KIY

Pre-Production

Team members:

Caitlin Woodend, Zac Cardwell, Thomas Travis & Ginny Freeman

Response to the brief:

Client: Twenty One Pilots

Song: Heathens

Genre: Electronic, Hip Hop, Rock, Pop, Alternative Rock, Indie Pop, Synth-pop

Platform it will be shown: Youtube

Target Audience: Young adults and teens

Requirements: Tell a story

Purpose: To tell a story to the viewer through a music video

Deadline: 15-12-2021

Research:

Heathens premiered in June 2016 and was the first single from twenty one pilots following the success of their 2015 album and its singles.

The music video for heathens was filmed in a real-life prison and the prisoners shown in it are actual prisoners.

As the song was created for the film Suicide Squad, the music video contains many clips from the film to help link the song back to the film. The music video, released on 21st June 2016, shows Joseph singing the song in Belle Reve (a fictional prison in the DC Universe) with Dun appearing while playing drums through the course of the video. Joseph makes his way to a small stage in the middle of a room where Dun is already on the stage playing the drums. Joseph then picks up a floating bass guitar and begins playing it while the prisoners leave their cells and watch the duo perform the remainder of the song. At the end of the video, Joseph is sitting in the room alone and the prison guards surround him.

The demographic for Twenty One Pilots show that the main gender of people that listen to Twenty One Pilots are females aged between 18-24 and the average social demographic is C2DE.

Song, Genre, Codes and Convention:

Synopsis of the idea - we are basing our video around the original as we like the prison theme and think it matches the tempo and tone of the song very well, due to the song being primarily for a film the music video includes imagery from the film which obviously we cannot do but instead we plan to improvise it.

Codes and conventions - the ‘style’ of the music video is a performance based music video with vague narrative throughout the music video. The narrative in the music video comes from the video clips that are added from the film, the performance in the music video comes from the two people playing the instruments in the music video. The camera angles that are used in the music video are very varied, there are high angles, low angles and eye level angles. The high angles are used to show that the person in the video feels weak, the low angles are used to give the people in the music video a sense of strength and power over the other characters in the music video. The different camera shots that have been used are also very varied, there are extreme wide shots, wide shots, close ups, mid shots, full shots and many more. The different camera shots have been used to help show different things, the extreme wide shot and wide shots are used as an establishing shot to help the audience understand where the music video is taking place. The close ups have also been used to show the same thing, for example one of the first close ups that we encounter in the music video is a close up of the prisoners hands through the prison bars.

Mise-en-scene - location - the location for the music video was in a prison in Belle Reve (a fictional prison in the DC Universe). This is done to reflect on the film that the music video is for, this is also why there are clips from the actual film in the music video.

Mise-en-scene - props - drum kit, bass guitar. These are used to show the performance aspect of the music video.

Mise-en-scene - lighting - dimly lit corridors, dimly lit prison cells. This is done to reflect on the fact that prison is not a nice place to be and isn’t somewhere that is fun. Low key lighting is used throughout the video as this creates a dark and mysterious atmosphere, low key lighting is also used to build suspense and prepare the audience for a fright.

Synopsis of our idea:

Murder to show why he is in prison, he thinks he is an innocent man as we want to convey the point of the split personality. We want to show the descent into madness for the main character within the prison and during this show what it has done to the other prisoners and made them less sane. Use a white rose through the video to help show the decline of the character. The rose is completely white at the beginning showing purity and innocence and then as the video progresses, the rose becomes more and more red showing that evil is taking over. By the end of the video, the rose is completely red. At the end of the video, the rose could either be exploded or lit on fire to show the end of the mental decline he is going through.

Codes and conventions - the ‘style’ of the music video is a performance based music video with vague narrative throughout the music video. The narrative in our music video comes from the idea of the main character having a split personality and the main character's mental state declining as the video progresses. The camera angles that are used in the music video are very varied, there are high angles, low angles and eye level angles. The high angles are used to show that the person in the video feels weak, the low angles are used to give the people in the music video a sense of strength and power over the other characters in the music video. The different camera shots that have been used are also very varied, there are wide shots, close ups, mid shots, full shots and many more. The different camera shots have been used to help show different things, the wide shots are used as an establishing shot to help the audience understand where the music video is taking place. The close ups have also been used to show the same thing, for example one of the first close ups that we encounter in the music video is a close up of the main character in the prison cell.

Mise-en-scene - location - the location for our music video is in the underpass near college and the underpass near the bus station, a minibus, a prison cell (created in the classroom) and a courtyard (brick wall). This is done to reflect the idea that the music video is in a prison, this helps reflect the original music video and this also helps with the idea of the video being shot in a prison.

Mise -en-scene - props - knife, roses and colander. The knife is used to show that there was a murder taking place, the roses are used as a signifyer of the mental decline that the main character is going through and the colander is used to show the electricutions that are taking place.

Mise-en-scene - lighting - we are going to use low key lighting to create a dark, mysterious atmosphere, this creates a sense of unease which we are trying to portray.

Breakdown of the song:

Plan of action:

Resource management list:

Card log:

Behind the Scenes:

Locations:

Underpass near college - The underpass near college seems like a good location, possibly from the side as it can look like a hallway in a prison. This location is good as it is easy to get to and easy to transport equipment to as it is near college.

The first time that we tried to film the actual footage for the music video, we were unable to do so as there was a group of people in the underpass and we didn’t want to ask them to leave so we decided to go elsewhere and film a different shot. Then when we did go back to film another time, it was darker and the lights in the underpass gave the effect that we wanted.

Abandoned building - This building is a good idea as we would be able to portray the look of the music video that we want, however might not be the easiest as to enter the building you have to climb over a waist high wall and this may cause issues when transporting equipment into and out of the building. This location would be good for close up shots of the bars to represent the bars that are in prison cells, this can also be a close up shot of hands through the bars to help show the viewers where the music video is set. This location may also be very dangerous as it is abandoned and the building is not taken care of well and there may be things falling from above or the floor may fall in from underneath.

We didn’t end up using this location in the end as we had enough footage from all of the other scenes that we have.

Mini bus - The mini bus is a good location to film as we are able to get the mini bus through college, meaning that as long as we give them some notice we are able to use it whenever we want. The mini bus is a good location as it is easy for us to transport the equipment to the location and it is easy for us to get there. The only issue with the mini bus is that it could be hard to set up the lights and them not be in shot, meaning we would have to try to get good lighting through the windows, the only other issue that we could have is that the background from the outside of the mini bus could be an issue as we will be able to see out the windows meaning we might need to get the minibuses moved to a different location that is not in the college car park.

When it came to filming this clip, the lighting was very good through just the windows so we did not need to worry about trying to not get the lights in the shot. As we didn’t know which bus we were able to use, we didn’t know that there would be the Burnley College logo on the side of the door, this is hidden in the shot by one of the guards of the main character.

Dance studio - The dance studio is a vital part of the music video as we are going to create a set in the sports hall of a prison cell, this will work well as the dance studio has very tall plain white walls. We can also use some mats up against the wall to create the look of a padded cell. The dance studio could also be used for the scene with the electric shock chair as we could get a wide shot into a close up showing the large room that they would be in (indicating the isolation he has created for himself).

The dance studio did not work as well as we wanted it to as we couldn't get the correct atmosphere that we wanted, I think the reason for this is because the lighting was too far away and there was nothing in the background of the shot so it was just the main character completely by himself and it didn’t look like a prison cell.

Wisemen St - Burnley - This location can be used to film some outdoor scenes, when the camera is positioned at the correct angle, the area can look like a prison courtyard. This location is easy to access and easy to get equipment to as it is by the side of the road near college.

When we filmed this the first time, we filmed it on a sunny day in the middle of the day and the footage looked okay but after we filmed the rest of the music video, we decided that the footage shot the first time here was not up to the standard that we wanted it to be at so we decided to go out and re-film the courtyard scene. When we went out and re-filmed this we waited till it was dark and we used torches to light the shot, this created a better atmosphere and the shot looks more like a scene which should be in the music video rather than a scene which has been dragged from elsewhere.

Underpass near bus station - The underpass near the bus station is a good filming location for what we want as the lighting is dim. This location allows us to film the shot of the lights that we also wanted (shot of the roof and lights while walking towards the main characters then pan down to them).

When we filmed here, the filming went very well apart from the fact that due to it being a public walkway. There was an awful lot of people walking through the tunnel and this caused it to take us a while to get the shot without anyone in it. In the end, there was a man who walked into the shot at the end but you can hardly see the person in the shot and we were very happy with the shot we achieved.

Classroom - As the dance studio did not work as well as we wanted it to, Dave allowed us to create the prison cell again in the corner of the classroom. We had a much smaller area to work with but in some aspects, this was better as we were able to create the confined area that we wanted it to look like. We had better light positioning and better camera angles as we had help from Dave when recreating the scene. Re-shooting this scene also allowed us to add small details that we didn’t realise we had missed out in the previous shoot, such as the pieces of paper on the walls, these give an insight into what is going on in the prisoners mind as he is alone in this cell.

Costumes:

Props:

Rose - Red rose, white rose with blood dripping onto the rose, throw something at the rose to make the illusion that it is exploding, light the rose on fire and time lapse it?

To film this we are thinking either throwing something at the rose to make it look like it is exploding or burning the rose. Another option is using a white rose and splattering ‘blood’ over the rose to symbolise the purity in the main character being lost and that the ‘evil’ side of him is coming out. Have the white rose as like a symbolic meaning thought it like at the beginning of the video, it is completely white when the murder happens like hide the rose somewhere in the shot. Then like the 'transition shots' where there is a possibility of the white rose being splattered with blood, the rose is becomes more red and that happens multiple times thought the music video then by the end of the music video the white rose is completely red and then explodes if we can find out a suitable way to do that if not we just use a red rose. The white rose at the beginning being symbolic of the fact that he is pure and as the rose is getting more and more red, the more 'evil' he is becoming (playing along with the idea of the split personality becoming progressively worse). Then at the end, the rose could either explode or the rose could be set on fire and that shows like the end of the mental decline he is going through.

Knife - The knife will be placed on the ground during one of the shots that we get for the pre-song as this helps explain the fact there has been a murder.

We used an actual knife in the music video, we were very careful and made sure that all the people in the process of filming knew where the knife was. To get the blood on the knife, we used fake blood and sprayed it on as we thought it covered the area around the knife as well as the knife evenly.

Chair - The chair will be used for the electric shock scene. The actor will be handcuffed to the chair so that he is unable to get out during his electrocution.

For the chair, we just used one of the chairs from the staff room as they have handles on that we could handcuff the main character to the chair with.

Colander - We need a colander to use as the helmet for the electric shock scene. We will try to find a colander without handles but if this isn’t possible, we will get one with handles and deal with it as it comes, maybe cut the handles off?

When the colander was bought, there was no option to get one without handles as we ended up getting one with handles and then Dave snapped the handles off the colander so that they were no longer attached. We put copper wire through the base of the colander to make it look like it has wires coming out of it. We then added duct tape to the inside of the colander to stop the wire coming out and also to stop the wire stabbing the person's head.

Camera Work:

Jump cut

jumpcuts.mp4

Whip pan

WHIP PAN.mp4

Moodboards:

Test Shots:

Underpass near bus station - The top video was one of the first shots we tried, trying the filming from a different angle to what what we initially thought and we didn’t really like the footage that much. We then tried filming the save footage from a different angle (bottom video). These video clips worked but we thought that there was more that we could do and that we could push ourselves further and get an even better shot. I started by taking a video clip of the lights on the roof of the underpass, after watching back the footage of that, we decided to try filming the room shot and then panning straight down onto the main characters and tracking backwards (middle video). This shot works and we are very happy with it so we are going to recreate this shot for the actual music video.

IMG_1773.MOV

IMG_1769.MOV

IMG_1779.MOV

Wisemen St - Burnley - For this location we decided to make it into a prison courtyard. We tried getting footage from many different angles but going from a shot of the ground then panning up to a shot of Zac who was place holding for tom as he was also standing in for the shot. I then tracked back revealing both of the characters in the video clip. In this, there is the idea of the lighter portion of the wall and the darker portion of the wall. The version of tom who is crouching in front of the lighter portion of the wall is the more innocent version of tom who is also being the performer for this clip as he will be the person who lip syncing in this portion of the music video. The version of tom who is against the darker portion of the wall is the ‘evil’ version of tom who is also the person referenced in the lyrics ‘You'll never know the murderer sitting next to you’.

IMG_1816.MOV

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