Lighting and Set Design

Lighting

Before we planned our lighting setups, we looked at other music videos shot entirely inside a studio like ours. Below are some stills from different music videos. We liked these because of the high-key studio lighting used, along with the coloured backgrounds, which we intended to use in our final video.

Stills from 'Do The Right Thing' - Dog Is Dead

Stills from 'Love Is On The Radio' - Mcfly

Stills from 'Girls' - The 1975

Stills from 'Just One Of The Guys' - Jenny Lewis

This is a short video of us experimenting with the lighting in the studio. We tried to create a blue coloured background, as well as lighting anyone who is on set with bright, high-key lighting. However this was difficult as the light lighting the band would also 'leak' onto the backdrop and cause it to lose its colour.

This is another video of us, in a different session, experimenting more with the lighting. We experimented more with colours and intensity of the light. We saved some of the light setups we made, so that we can access them easily for the day of the shoot rather than recreating them each time.

Reference to the number of colours we wanted for each setup

When we were looking at lighting we decided that we wanted many different colours for different setups within the video to aid visual the progression. The notes above indicate that we wanted 2 different background colours for the performance shoots (so we will film all the performance shots twice - one in one colour, one in the other). We also wanted to do the same thing with all the performance shots with confetti and balloons. For the close up shots of the band members lipsyncing (or Kayvon playing guitar) we wanted them to have one colour each. Then for the shots of the band members playing with the props on set, we wanted each of the different props used to have a different colour. 

This accumulated to 24 different lighting setups. However all the lighting is the same for the different setups apart from the background colour, so 24 lighting setups aren't as many as it sounds.

Set Design

We essentially only have two sets: performance and the empty set (for shots with of the band playing with props).
For the performance set we have taken influence from The 1975's 'Girls' video and Mcfly's 'Love Is On The Radio' video. We liked the simple set with the amps and the band performing in front of them.

Mcfly - 'Love Is On The Radio'

The 1975 - 'Girls'

We did some further research into 3-piece band setups and how they are positioned. We looked at bands like Blink-182, Green Day, Biffy Clyro and Band Of Skulls. We noticed that they all have the same arrangement. The lead singer(/guitarist) is always placed at the front, either on the left or right. The bassist is always placed slightly behind the lead on the opposite side (left or right). Then the drummer is placed furthest away in the centre.

Music video for 'Basketcase' by Green Day

Music video for 'Up All Night' by Blink-182

Music video for 'Nightmares' by Band Of Skulls

Music video for 'Mountains' by Biffy Clyro

To conform to these conventions, for our performance setup we are having two amps at the back, at either side of the drummer. The lead is off-centre but he is still established as the lead. The bassist is also off-centre but they are placed further back to take less attention from the lead. The drummer will then be place in the centre at the back. We may play around with the positions between the shots to add variation, depending on what looks good.

Sketch of our setup for the performance shots