Photo Shoot for our CD Cover

For the photoshoot, me and becky set up in my living room and Marie and Cally were unable to make the shoot, with a white screen. We wanted to have a picture of Connor and Lily as we want to show the audience that they have some kind of connection, as it shows in the music video. We tried many different poses but used the same mise-en-scene. We wanted our picture to be similar to the cover of TheWeekends.

Setting up:

We set up the white screen in the correct position and then got the professional light out and put that in the right corner to give the correct lighting. We set up a stool for Connor for him to sit on and then asked lily to stand behind him and put her arms round him. We decided that because there is a sense of mystery in our video as the audience never find out what happened to lily, we thought it would be a good idea to cut her face out, again, making it mysterious.

Lighting:

We used one of the professional lighting lamps so that the lighting improved the quality of the photos so that we could edit the tones to make them darker rather than lose the quality of the images by trying to photograph them in dark lighting. This is what the images looked like without the professional lamps on; as you can see the quality is poor and it is difficult to see what the model looks like. Therefore despite us wanting the images to be dark to create the correct depressing tone and mood it was necessary to shoot the photos using the best lighting and then edit them to produce the right tone. Although we can easily edit them to change the brightness, however, the quality has to be good from the start.

Mise-en-scene:

We chose the mise-en-scene carefully as we wanted everything to have a message to it. We added the bottle as a part of the iconography as we have used alcohol throughout the process, in the video and on the back of the album. We dressed Connor in all black to portray the darkness and the depression he feel and then asked Lily to dress in white to show her purity and innocent. We also painted her nails so they stand out from Connor’s black clothes. White is also a colour linked to angels which give an idea that Lily may have died in the video, again creating some mystery. These contrasting colours worked well as it coincided with the tone of the video as the colours were continued throughout the music video. We wanted Connor to look quite rugged as he is a victim of alcoholism and mental depression so we asked him to not shave to give this look.

Photo shoot outcome:

We decided to take some shot of Connor on his own in case we decided this would look better on our cover. We also took them in case we could use one for our poster. We took some with him just looking depressed on his own and we took some with him holding wine bottles, again, showing his alcohol addiction and therefore, relates to our video. We had Connor looking at the bottle as if he is relying on it and aware of his problems. In one of the photos we had Connor holding two bottles to show his extensive drinking. Despite none of these images working the ones with the bottle definitely worked the most therefore we will keep this variable the same throughout as it relates to our music video and message. The photo's needed more mise-en-scene to fill the empty space in order to attract the audience.

We then decided to add Lily into the picture. We found that these images were more successful as it creates a better effect. Also Lily’s arm frame Connor which adds a good feature. By using Lily in this position it visually shows the hold she has on Connor as she is draping her arms around his neck which could be classed as quite suffocating. By having the wine bottle in the shot, it highlights how she has made him rely on alcohol and caused his drinking problem. We found that these photos are more successful than the other ones as Lily adds a visual aspect which makes the photo more interesting and eye catching. We made Connor turn his head from left to right in order to show how he is turning away from life and his problems, the fact he is looking away could be in desperation or despair which matches our tone and mood.

We then thought it would be a good idea to ask Lily to hold the bottle showing that it is because of her that Connor has turned to drinking. We had Connor look left and right again as if he is turning away from the alcohol bottle as he knows this is a problem. We then had Connor looking at the bottle while Lilly holds it to highlight how he is aware of his drinking problem.

The Chosen Image:

We chose this as our final image for our CD front cover as Connor is looking up at Lily and she is holding the bottle, Connors hands are creating a nice feature as he is holding his hands quite intensely. Lily becomes almost angel like as she is standing over him in her white clothes, he is in black as he is depressed and in danger due to the alcohol bottle she is holding as she is the reason he is drinking. He is looking up at her with quite a lonely look on his face as if he is desperately missing her and looking at her for help form his alcohol problem. We thought that for our front cover it would be best to edit it to make it black and white but then keep the colour of the wine bottle showing that it is an important aspect of the picture.

FINAL FRONT IMAGE:

This is the edited version that I created to put on the front of our cd. By doing this I made the image black and white by decreasing the saturation, and then enhanced the brightness and contrast in order to improve the lighting. By doing this, this made that background clear white and made the dark aspects of the picture stand out. I then created another layer for the wine bottle so that we could make it red to stand out against the black clothing. We couldn't make it too red as this would be unrealistic as red wine isn't very red when it is in their normal dark bottles.