I would name the target audience of 'The 99's' as the younger generation. The genre could be labelled as indie electro/pop/rock. It is important for me to match this style to the costume for my video so that the target audience are both intrigued and can also relate to what they are consuming. After a brief research into my target audience and the characteristics of that particular social group, I came up with some ideas for costumes from websites such as www.topman.com which I feel these days, are consumed by both men and women of my chosen target audience. The store mentioned is accessed worldwide and has proven very popular in the UK during recent times. This makes the costume of my video quite mainstream and can be related not only to the general public, but also shows a similarity to bands such as 'Two Door Cinema Club', 'Foster the People' and 'Noah and the Whale' who I believe perform a comparable style to 'The 99's'.
Cameron (boy)
Coat - Fred Perry
Shirt - River Island
Jumper - Topman
Jeans - Levi's
Shoes - New Balance
I felt it necessary to ensure that the boy character, Cameron, in my video was wearing lots of layers. This will show that he is using his clothes as a metaphorical form of portection. He perhaps feels that wearing an exaggerated number of layers of clothing than is necessary, helps to keep him feeling secure. He has recently seperated from his love and so is feeling vulnerable and the various layers including a thick, wooly jumper act as security for him.
The jacket Cameron will be wearing is a Fred Perry harrington jacket. This particular item has lots of history behind it. First worn by pilots, post world war 2, this style of jacket has since become very popular, with its highest popularity being during the 70's and 80's. Shane Meadows series of films, 'This is England', highlights this with the majority of the characters wearing something like this at least once during the films which are set mostly during this time period. Nowadays, the jacket is often worn by many youth subcultures rather than one particular group due to the fragmentation of subcultures in modern society. Seeing as I feel my video should reach out to a wide, younger generation, audience, I felt the use of this jacket in costume would help to attract my target audience due to the realtability factor.
The levi's jeans Cameron will be wearing are another key aspect of costume. Although made popular in the US rather than the UK, the jeans have been hugely popular in Britain, again mainly in the 70's and 80's eras by culture groups very similar to those in Shane Meadows franchise of films. Modern day society also see's the success of Levi's jeans across a wide variety of youth subcultures, again, meaning a wide audience is attracted which is exactly what I am aiming for with my video because the exact genre and audience is hard to determine with the style of music I have chosen.
The shoes I will be wearing are of the brand, New Balance. These shoes were originally intended for the sport of running and they designed the world's first running shoe with the model 'trackster' in 1960. Up until very recently, new balance have been made solely for running - however in 2011, mainstream stores such as Jack Wills and schuh have sold these shoes for fashion purposes and because of the severe popularity of these certain stores, new balance have become a shoe worn for fashion as well as sport, although the latter purpose remains dominant. I chose to have Cameron wear these shoes for two reasons. The first being a fairly obvious explanation in that the shoe is popular amongst the youth of today and so this aspect of costume will appeal to my target audience because they are able to relate. The second, more symbolic purpose is that the shoes are traditionally running shoes; in my video I have interpreted Cameron to be running from his troubles of the seperation from Ellie and so this is both symbolic and ironic. It is also worth noting that the specific shoes I will be wearing are from the 'retro' range of new balance shoes. I took this into consideration when purchasing the shoes for the video as I feel they will fit well with the other aspects of costume, e.g. Fred Perry harrington.
Another thing I considered with the costume choice for Cameron was the colour. His shirt and jumper are relatively colourful compared to the costumes of Ellie because I felt this portrayed him in a positive light. Brighter colours can be seen to symbolise happiness whereas darker and duller colours perhaps represent sadness. This fits well with the lyrical storyline because, although at first unhappy, Cameron eventually 'get's over' the break up from Ellie and the table's turn with her being the unhappier of the two. So perhaps the colouring of his outfit is foreshadowing the storyline.
Another thing I considered with the costume choice for Cameron was the colour. His shirt and jumper are relatively colourful compared to the costumes of Ellie because I felt this portrayed him in a positive light. Brighter colours can be seen to symbolise happiness whereas darker and duller colours perhaps represent sadness. This fits well with the lyrical storyline because, although at first unhappy, Cameron eventually 'get's over' the break up from Ellie and the table's turn with her being the unhappier of the two. So perhaps the colouring of his outfit is foreshadowing the storyline.
Ellie (Main girl)
Coat - Topshop
T-shirt - Vans
Shorts - Zara
Tights - Topshop
Shoes - Vans
Lauren (Girl)
Cardigan -
T-shirt - Urban Outfitters
Jeans - Topshop
Shoes - Converse
I didn't see it as necessary to think too deeply into the less significant characters and what they would be wearing as it is the main boy and girl who tell the story. Therefore I directed my focus towards Cameron and Ellie more. However, I still took into consideration the costumes for the secondary characters as I believe that this particular aspect of mis-en-scene can say a lot about the music video as a whole; as does Andrew Goodwin in his theory of music videos. He said that both 'genre and characteristics' and 'label influence' have a major say in to what a music video consists of. Here I am displaying both: Genre and characteristics would be the costume of the characters; Production influence would be my choices, as the director, producer and editor of the video because there is no label present.
I decided to keep the colours of the costume for the less important characters neutral (blacks, greys, navys etc) because I wanted the girls to blend in with one another so that the bright colours of Cameron's clothing stand out and thus highlight his eventual happiness in the video. I almost chose to do things in reverse with the two girl-friends wearing bright colours along with Cameron which would ultimately emphasise the eventual sadness of Ellie. My decision was swayed because when reviewing the song I felt that it gave off more of a 'feel good' vibe than anything else and therefore I felt it was important to correspond with this in the mood of the song - in this case using costume.
