R+P Post 25: Costumes, props and make-up

Costume

We solidified the costumes we would need for the shoot after finalising the aesthetic of our music video and band, as well as the media inspired set-ups that would affect the costumes of the performer:

Aesthetic of music video - pastel, bright, fun, playful
Aesthetic of the band - fun, playful, enthusiastic, energised
Media set-ups - Singing in the Rain, (Beatles) Sergeant Pepper, Alice in Wonderland, Mortal Kombat

After we decided on this, we could pin down the costumes for each band member on a costume list:

Our Costume List

We broke our costume list down by band member. We agreed that each member of the band should each have 'band clothes' that fit the band/track's aesthetic (e.g. pastel colours), and a separate themed costume for their characters in Casey's dream (e.g. a Sergeant Pepper outfit, a three piece suit for the man from Singin' in the Rain etc.).

We found inspirations for what we wanted for our band's costumes:

These clothes worn by the band Echosmith channel the pastel aesthetic we would like for our band, such as Sydney's light pink shirt and Graham's light blue jacket. We also liked the look of the bright tops above dark skinny jeans, as this brought the viewers eyes up to where their faces are. Therefore we decided that all the members of the band should where black skinny jeans and a different pastel coloured top.

As for the themed costumes, we decided to find/design clothes that fitted the costumes of the original characters as closely as possible. For my character, this involved finding a dark blazer, waistcoat and trousers, a grey hat, black shoes and a red tie.

Our visual references for themed costumes
Left to Right: Don Lockwood (Singing in the Rain on Broadway), one member of Sergeant Peppers Lonely Heart Club (The Beatles), Alice (Disney's Alice in Wonderland), Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)

Here are our band's final costumes:

We got positive feedback from our target audience on our band's costumes. One piece of feedback told us that 'the costumes make the band look like they belong together', which is what we wanted to achieve.

As for the costumes for our extras, we allowed them to pick fun and/or iconic pop culture icons to act as and source their own costumes. They sent us pics of their costume prior to the shoot for us to approve. This meant we could check that the costume would meet the aesthetic of our video, both in colour and in the nature of the character; super violent characters, for example, would not fit our fun, fluffy video.

Our extras in costume

Props

We compiled our needed props on a prop list:

Our prop list

We broke our prop list down by set-up. After pinning down what props we would need we allocated who should get each prop. For instance, I was allocated to bring in the white toy rabbit and the red umbrella. We also created a separate list (seen in the box on page 2) of props that needed making. All of the crafted props needed to be made by cardboard to suit our low-fi aesthetic for our music video, so we first drew them out to establish how they would look and work.

Our design page for props

Above, we designed the look of the 'FIGHT' signs...

... as well as the components that would need to go into making the power-o-metre sliders, which would need to be operated manually; the design process helped us work out how to pull the green slider over the red backdrop to give the impression of a video game health bar,

Make-up:

We recruited the help of our good friend Lily Mo Browne to be our make-up artist. She is very experienced with make-up, produces great results in a short amount of time and we knew that she would be perfect for the job.

Our make-up artist Lily Mo Browne

Although our group decided on minimal make-up, we did discuss reference points to give to our make up artist so that they knew what look we wanted for our band members make up.

We decided for the makeup for Terence and Guy, as the most standoffish of the band, should have minimal makeup of foundation and concealer.

We decided foundation would make the performers look more aesthetically pleasing under the lights of the studio.

For Casey in her band attire, we decided that she should wear some additional make-up, including: 

• eyeliner
• glitter
• contour
• lip gloss

Casey Make-Up References

Lily Allen was one of our influences for Casey's image, and this make-up is perfect for the type we would like in our video

For Hugh, the most outgoing of the male members of the band, we wanted to try giving him black eye shadow. As part of a liberal family, we decided it was fitting for him to be unafraid of wearing makeup and disturb gender norms. 

The Killers' Brandon Flowers was debatably the original pop icon to wear eyeliner - we wanted to replicate this look for Hugh Tyler