MAN OF THE LAW

We went to a basketball court to film the rap scene and the masks being taken off. The original idea was for the rap scene to occur in a 'police station', where we would use the drama studio's spotlights to stylize the sequence. But due to the unavailability of the studio and of the photography room where we filmed Julia, we settled for an exterior location. We decided the policeman would come up to us and lecture us on the spot rather than arrest us and take us away to lecture us. We decided on using this basketball court below, as it has an appropiately urban look and is thus an expected place for these lads to be hanging out at.


Our filming location

The sequence goes as follows: the policeman walks over to us, shows us his badge (so that it is clear to the audience he is a policeman), and then starts his rap as an effort to persuade the characters to stop their violent tendencies. Unfortunately, Joe had not learnt the rap so although he could mime some words correctly, most of the time he was just moving his mouth randomly so there is a risk his mouth movements will not match the rapper's vocals once we upload the footage. We filmed him from the front, behind, and the side, and he moved around a bit and waved his arms about to imitate the swagger most rappers have; but if the rap vocals and his miming really do not end up matching we will simply have to re-film and he will learn all the lines.


Ali did all the filming today as the me and Aiden
are in the scene and used the bike to help keep
the camera steady during a panning shot

To show the process of the characters' understanding, we first take off our hoods (towards the end of the rap verse) and once the policeman finishes the lecture, we go all the way and throw away our masks. Because there is still a minute left of the song after the rap, we thought we would fill some of the time by having Joe give a thumbs-up to the camera after he sees us take off the masks (as if he was saying "mission achieved"), this is a post-modern element as the character breaks the fourth wall by doing this. The three 'cured' youths then start dancing briefly as a way to represent their transition from anti-social actions to starting a pleasant lifestyle, as well as a way to inject some silly humour into an otherwise somewhat depressing video.

Rather than have Joe wear the common uniform for British police, we decided his clothing to be in the style of those worn in cop films/tv shows (such as Miami Vice) - this included the use of aviators and smarter clothing. Our reason for choosing this appearance is that it makes the character look both mysterious and cool (he is rapping so he has to look cool!)


We modelled Joe's appearance on this kind of policeman look


rather than this one


JOE!

We also filmed the three delinquents sitting down on a bench, to be used around the start of the music video as an introduction to the characters. However, there was a problem with continuity regarding an item of my clothing. In my earlier scene, I am wearing white trainers. But today I was unable to use them and wore brown trainers instead. This continuity error can be fixed during filming the taxi driver reference scene which now involves me during which I will be shown changing shoes just so that the continuity flows correctly.