We made a late decision to change the concept behind the music video, from a tender love story to a rap 'spoof'. Creativity was essential in coming up with a whole new set of ideas and shots and events.
We started to watch a mixture of serious rap videos from 'classic' gangster rap groups such as Public Enemy and N.W.A and also a a number of spoof videos, from artists such as The Lonely Island.
But this videos could only take us so far, and we embarked upon a sort of 'devising' process, where basically there was an open discussion and all ideas were entertained and thrown into the melting pot.
We managed to condense down the vast range of ideas thrown in and eventually arrived at an idea we all agreed on. The video would follow a day in the lives of 3 posh, middle class lads, and their attempt to act 'gangster'. From here, we just started to think about things that would make us laugh personally, and so we hoped would make our classmates and hopefully yourself feel a similar way. But from this we had to think about the following things:
Costume:
This was fairly straightforward, we decided we would sport some ghetto clothing, but in a more modern sense of the word. We were going to perhaps wear clothes from the 90's period of rap like the videos we watched, but eventually we decided a more modern approach to the costume would be more relateable to Dizzee Rascal's target audience, which is teenagers and young adults.
We needed to create the effect that of course we were not in fact actually gangster. Luckily, we could not have looked more ridiculous in our new clothing, and as this sort of clothing is not something we would wear often, the comedic effect is created effectively.
Also, when we put forward the idea of playing golf in one of our scenes, we talked about wearing a golf glove, as a signifier that we belong to our gang. In America, gangsters would often sport a certain colour to represent the gang the belonged to, so we felt that using a golf glove would be appropriate as it communicates an attempt to be 'street', but also denotes wealth as golf is considered a rich mans game.
Events:
We also started to think of the events that would take place in the day in the lives of the three boys. We needed to come up with things that would create comedy, but also convey the message of the middle class. We wanted to draw clear parallels between our video and the quintessential idea of a rap video, so we wanted lots of loitering with our gang, rolling out in the 'pimp wagon' etc. But we also wanted to juxtapose these events with ones that would show us being about as gangster as Prince Phillip. For example, we came up with the ideas of playing bowls in the park and wine tasting etc, so as to reiterate the boys as Middle class and thoroughly 'ungangster' as it were.
Locations:
This is the part of the creative process that we found most challenging. In the creative process, coming up with ideas for locations was relatively simple, we put forward the idea of filming in a local public school, typical middle class settings and parks. Also, as myself and Ned work at Waitrose, this was an easy location to use. It is also regarded as a very 'middle-class' supermarket, so we felt it was appropriate.
However, in this field, we suffered a lot of setbacks. Practicality delivered some blows to our creativity, For example, as Martin has mentioned in an earlier post, the famed English weather delivered some setbacks, as a great deal of our shots were planned to be outdoors. Also, the local public school prohibited us categorically from filming on their grounds.
Consequently, we had to think on our feet on a number of occasions, and draw from our creativity to come up with some new locations we could film in.
However, another problem we faced was that every time we came up with a good new idea, people were often reluctant to let us use their property or land to film. We tried Woodford Bowls Club, Prezzo's, and a local Wine Bar, all to no avail. This was incredibly frustrating, as coming up with ideas was often difficult, and so when we did come up with a good idea it was extremely annoying to be told you were not allowed to film.
But, ultimately we did come up with some new locations, like the driving range and the very first location in the video was one we found in Chigwell after Bancrofts declined to let us film.
In conclusion, creativity was vital in the process of making a music video.
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