Planning the Location

Forest/Field 

We've decided that we want to use a forest/field as the original setting for our music video where the narrative based part takes place since we're going for a theme loosely based around the story "Alice in Wonderland", where Alice follows a White Rabbit into the dream-like land that she originally thought would be more interesting and better than the present one she lives in. However, in our narrative we're going to use one of us to stand in as Alice, but this Alice is oblivious or has false pre-made assumptions about the life and fame that London and the city 'guarantees'. Therefore, we decided that setting the first part of our video needed to contrast as much as it possibly could with London and the attitudes in the song. 

What we plan to happen in this part of the video is the girl who's representing the 'Alice in Wonderland' persona will be reading and settled underneath the tree when she sees the artist past and that's where the journey begins. A lot of this will probably consist of establishing and long shots so our viewers can get an idea of where the story begins and it'll also reflect the emotion of our 'Alice in Wonderland' persona  at the beginning of the video. However, while we feel this is an ideal way to begin our video, we could be limited with the variety of things we have in our shot since in the field we've selected, everything is very similar and there's nothing defining therefore the use of  too many field shots may make our final piece look very repetitive and dull. Also, we can't  predict what the surface of the field will be like when the tripod is on grass and if it's uneven then we'll have to make extra sure that our shot isn't wonky and be sure that we've got a straight and easy frame. 

We'll be moving around the forest/field a lot and it'll probably be one of the most active scenes throughout our video. I think the main health and safety procedure we'll have to take with this is to be sure nobody in the filming process steps on any disguised holes and twists an ankle and avoids things that'll cause injuries (i.e. sharp thorns, loose branches). To make sure that we don't have any of these complications, we'll be sure to check all the places on the field that we're planning on filming properly and carefully so we can remove and avoid all possible hazards. 

If it's to rain on the day we plan to film this will cause problems for us because we need to sit on the grass and possibly run across it as well which again will result in more injuries and we also won't get the overall look that we want for that part of the video. Our back-up plan is to save that part of filming for a day that is dry and if that isn't possible then we're going to have to film in that weather but change the ideology behind that part of the video slightly to fit the connotations of rainy, wet weather. 



London 

The location of London will fill the whole middle section of our music video. This is the destination that'll represent our 'Wonderland' as especially West and Central London have connotations of promise, glamour, dreams and fame. This is where the girl playing our Alice in Wonderland persona will find fame. I think London connotes 'Roc the Life' well because it talks about the glamour of city life and how the style can draw you into believing that you can be a part of it. With help from "Final Cut Express", we hope to emphasize the lights that'll be found in the city to make them that more attractive and persistent as well as create a visual metaphor. It's fair to say that London is where the journey in our music video plays out. At the beginning it's seen as a desirable place as I've said and then as the song progresses, we start to see how it can be deceiving and not cut out for everybody - no matter how nice it looks from the outside. 
Our group is hoping that London will be worth it and create the perfect modern fairy tale that we're looking for, however we realize it comes with a lot of limitations and catches. Since it's a huge city, we're aware that no matter what time of day we choose to film, it's going to be pretty packed and getting the right shot might not come as easily as we hope. Also, we're going to be restricted with the way we film  because Central London has a lot of packed and narrow streets and placing a tripod on them may not be convenient. Following this, there are a lot of Health and Safety restrictions that we should probably also be aware of. For instance, we'll need to be sure to set up filming in a place where we won't clash with members of the public or on somewhere that may cause congestion.

As far as the weather is concerned, it'd be ideal if it was a bright day for the filming of our music video but I think rain or cloudiness could work in our favor as it could be a connotation of how everything (London in this case) isn't how it seems - but a bright day could also help along our theme of "lights" and "dreams" which persists throughout the whole narrative. 

Bedroom 
We decided to consider a bedroom as our back-up option to the field since we'll be shooting in November/December time and it gets dark quickly and the weather gets wetter, therefore making it extremely difficult for us to be able to film and get the kind of quality footage that we're looking for. So we decided that a bedroom would be a good alternative option because it has connotations of "comfort" and "warmth" which suggest how our artist hasn't stepped out into the 'Wonderland' of the city yet and feels perfectly safe with their surroundings.
Also, there'll be no real complications with shooting in a bedroom as it'll be in one of the group members houses and we'll be able to pick a time to film where it's convenient for us. However, we do have to consider that if shooting the bedroom scenes takes longer than a day, when we return back to the location we'll have to make sure everything is as it was and the lighting is the same brightness/darkness to allow continuity editing. 

In Our Video... 

The following screenshots from  my music video are the locations we ended up using. As you can see we visited London which was our Wonderland and we used the bedroom to open up the narrative. I think this worked well since the two contrast and represent two very different sides of the artist. For instance, the bedroom is where we originally see the artist which can connote "comfort" and "safety" as we originally planned but also it had a good light and was a recognizable setting which also was a place the audience could relate to and gradually throughout the video became familiar with. 

On the other hand, our London setting displayed identity and was a lot more packed and busy than the  bedroom. Not only did we want London to be our metaphorical 'Wonderland' and have the connotations of a lot of people going after the same dream and wanting the same life due to the frequent crowds you see in the city, we also thought it'd be a good setting as it's a familiar city that people know of from all over the globe and from a production side of view, it'll therefore help a bigger, more commercial audience who know what connotations Central London (Bond Street, Knightsbridge and Oxford Circus) have.