James Dean

James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955) was an American film actor. He is a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment. In the song's lyrics:

Oh, well I'll look at you and say it's the happiest I've ever been
And I'll say I no longer feel, I have to be James Dean

This intertextual reference plays a part within the wider context of the song which we feel is important to reflect and manipulate in our video.

 

We used this photo to doodle on: horns, a mustache, a beard and geek glasses. This was then filmed and uploaded onto Adobe. We fast-fowarded the timing of the action which added a satirical yet cinematic effect. The black and white photograph used, (yet above is sepia-coloured) is unusual within the sequence which highlights and colours the music video effectively.
 

Iconic symbolism within our video

During the post-production process of filming the video, we have carefully studied and analyzed the outstanding and salient features of the collected footage so far. The third shot of the sequence is myself skipping down a street in Primrose Hill wearing a mango-coloured, bright dress that is the first real establishing shot of the song.

Prior to the shot is the fast-motion shot of the title spelt out in Scrabble letters followed by the successful stop-motion shot of the sun gradually traveling. This connects to the themes of sun, positivity and fun within the song's lyrics as well as our video.

We have decided to shoot more clips of myself/ another actress lip-synching and improvising, whilst wearing the dress in order to develop the video's narrative and allow the viewer to focus their attention on a specific character.

This is definitely influenced by Spielberg's Schindler's list as the little girl in the red dress, is the iconic character in this classic, avant-garde, black and white film: 

The primary colours attract the viewer's attention in order to provoke their senses when watching entertainment or any visual form of media. 

Gymnastics and talent within our video

During our second day of filming we encountered stuntmen who did freestyling tricks in the park where we briefly filmed. This gave us a deeper insight into exploring the possibility of inserting acrobatics and special tricks into our music video. Madonna's pop song: 'Hung Up' spurred us to experiment working with young people and gathering footage of their own freestyle stunts to insert into our final video. This may steer away from the initial narrative yet it grants us opportunity to electrify and urbanize our video for a positive representation of young people.




A friend of mine from my gymnastics club is a skilled and talented gymnast who has agreed to work with us to get some fantastic and jaw-dropping shots of backflips etc.

We asked our actor to fill out a health and safety form as well as a risk assessment before proceeding with the stunts to ensure his safety and assurance during the filming.

More album cover creations...

This album cover allowed us to experiment with different layers of the photo's composition.

 

This is my own draft/brainstorm of the what I envisage the Digipak cover to look like. Using the technical wonders of Corel-Paint 11, I used special effects such as the solarisation tool to alter the colour and tone in order to achieve my studied artist's genre.

I also copied and pasted love heart doodles and positioned them on the corners of the image to create a college effect. I also filled in the backdrop image layer with a blue coloured sky that works well with the overall positive image.