Costume

After discussing that it would be a female character staring in our music video, Anna and I began to discuss costumes; firstly we both felt that the costume does not really matter too much as the nature of the song implies no sense of specific costume, but to fit our ideas, it must be casual. By wearing causal clothes, the idea of her "going about her day" is more realistic as the audience can relate to what she is doing. Anna and I wanted to make sure that our characters costume was relevant to that of our target audience (Teenager/young adult), so by our character not only being of that age, but also wearing high street brands, such as Topshop and New Look, the audience can feel a connection with the character.

By wearing black our character has a mysterious feel to them, and gives the impression that they want to 'fit in with the crowd', and do not want to stand out and be noticed. It lets the audience ask; what are they hiding? Why are they trying to blend in? When shooting at night in some long shots it was hard to see the character, suggesting that her dark clothing makes her become one with the night and is forgotten. A positive of our character wearing dark clothing, is that when she is walking along the beach, or past the colourful beach huts, she stands out above the rest, as the color tones are completely different to that of her location. Forcing the audience to focus their attention her. 

By having red lips or a red top, our character emphasizes her mystery by being that of a femme fatale character; 'one who leads men into danger or disaster'. Perhaps she has bewitched the lead singer into singing about her, however it could only ever end badly for him. The red stands out above the black, it suggests beauty, rubies and in china happiness, however in some cases red is associated with the complete opposite; death, anger and blood. Intertextual reference of Mia Wallace in Pulp fiction is an example of the idea of plan costume, but lust due to her blood red nails and lips. 

As Anna and I did not film in the summer, the costume of our character had to be relevant to autumn cold, hence the leggings and jacket, rather than shorts. The you tube videos exhibited relate to that of casual summer costumes (besides adele) but I managed to locate some aspects of costume which could be used in our production. For example in Carly Ray Jepson - Good time, the denim jacket could be used in our video. In these videos the representation of women is not for a sexual nature, by revising these types of videos the ideas on costumes were much more acceptable for the target market. 

Dick Hebdige is a perfect theorist to link with the idea of costumes: he establishes that subcultures challenge dominant social norms, and that a group expresses their identity through what they wear and their style is constructed through popular culture. Our target audience, is inspired most by current fashion trends, they visit high street brands for the next style. Also they are influenced by celebrities, especially in music videos, for example Arctic Monkeys have become a well known success in the past year, it is suggested that their style was influence from that of the T Birds in Grease. Now the style has come very much back in fashion. Arctic Monkeys have even produced their own T shirts with their lyrics on them, again worn by fans (subcultures).