Locations for the Music Video

Our first choice of location was The Forum, Norwich; this was primarily due to the fact that we needed to film some form of protest in order to create opposition for the planned business man shots, and it so happened that there was a teacher strike occurring here whilst we were in the planning stages of our production. Moreover, this location for protest worked in our favour, The Forum has the aesthetics of a corporate building (the structure and use of glass give it similarity to buildings in Docklands, London); in addition, the contrast between this and the protest gives a strong sense of the 99% against the 1%, a message we are strongly trying to promote within out music video.

Interestingly, The Forum faced St Peter Mancroft's church, giving this location in itself, a sense of architectural binary opposition; The Forum on the left bearing a rather modern, corporate structure, whereas, the church holds a traditional gothic style of architecture. Moreover, perhaps contrasting the followings on each side; the religious followers maybe seen as standing for morality and equality, whereas, the corporate side standing for greed and self-interest. However, these lines can be blurred as corruption isn't unheard of in both.  

Secondly, after deciding that we were going to London, me and the other member of my group discussed with our teacher locations that may be best to visit in order to properly represent the ideology within our planned music video. We decided upon shooting at the American Embassy due to it's rather intimidating architecture, political connotations and history; the embassy has been home to many protests including the Anti-Vietnam war demo in 1968. Moreover, the building houses an interesting structural feature that is a large golden eagle underneath the towering American flag, giving the impression that America is in control and are watching over the public ready to prey on the unexpected and "weak", giving it political connotations such as corruption. Funnily enough, whilst we were filming at this location we had the police called on us for "suspected terrorist behaviour" because the inhabitants of the building believed we were taking pictures of security cameras.

Furthermore, we thought that for our business man character a necessary location would be the docklands in London. This is as it is renown for it's home as the workplace to the majority of businessmen and women within the city; the buildings are stunning, and we were able to capture some incredible examples of modern wealth in the business world, such as the people and surroundings. Additionally, there was a digital display that we were totally unaware of before arriving at this location that showed rolling updates of current stock shares on the market, as well as the news; moreover, allowing us to further strengthen connotations of our wealthy character to give an idea of his occupation e.g. investment banking. Again, we were stopped by numerous security guards at this location and asked for identification to ensure we were allowed to film within the area.

Shot of a business man we got whilst filming in the area.

In the planning stages of our music video we decided to incorporate a few time-lapses to fit in with the more ambient parts of the track, to do this we decided we needed somewhere there would be a lot of movement whilst we could keep one subject still. Therefore, we looked to busy underground tube stations as the solution. Moreover, me and the other member of our group chose Canary Wharf and St Paul's Station; Canary Wharf was clean and modernly furbished, we were also at an advantage in the way that filming of the time lapse begun as the business men and women were leaving to go

home and so we caught a variety of smartly
dressed characters in the mise-en-scene allowing for better contrast with the other side of the screen. In opposition, St Paul's was a lot more decayed, dirty and unkempt; the people entering and exiting are shots within the time-lapse were mainly casually dressed, giving us a contrast between the business attire in the opposing shot. Moreover, these locations were brilliant for creating a highly visual binary oppositions between character and environment.  

Derelict house in "Fight Club".

In order to contrast the time-lapse of the large, corporate JP Morgan building, we filmed the outside of a derelict house at Bracondale Mill Gate. Moreover, the inclusion of this building within our music video was to highlight the idea of Broken Britain, its use for filming was inspired by the derelict house in "Fight Club".

In terms of the morning routine scenes, we used interior locations and setting that contrasted each other greatly to immediately establish the 99% and 1%; primarily though the very wealthy and working class. Firstly, to the left we can see the protestor waking up on a sofa, this gives an idea of less wealth or perhaps less essential need for material possession i.e. a big bed. Additionally, the mise-en-scene is quite packed and colourful to give the idea that it has a lot of life; the variety of books also indicate a high level of intelligence. In contrast, the business man wakes up in a large double bed with an alarm clock at his side and a suit hanging to the side of him. This immediately suggests a rather characterless individual, whose only focus is work i.e. making money; the mise-en-scene is rather dull and cold further promoting this idea of lacking personality.