Costume, hair, make-up

Throughout our 3 artefacts, the main aspect that varies in terms of our visuals are our costumes.This was to make the idea of us in a band more realistic as if the publicity shots and album shots and music video were all shot at different times.


Performance Costumes

We looked at many different bands, mostly of the indie genre, to see what kinds of clothes they wear in performance music videos. We found that they rarely wore very striking costumes and it was mostly clothes you would expect them to wear naturally.

My performance costume is a blue and white striped, short-sleeved shirt with all buttons done up, black skinny jeans and Doc Martens boots. We made me look slightly more dressed-up and formal than the other band members for the performance set-ups to make it more clear that I am the lead singer and front-man of the band. 

Gavin's performance costume is a white shirt with the top button undone and the sleeves rolled up. This clearly makes him look more casual than me but more formal than the props costumes. He is also wearing black skinny jeans and Adidas trainers.

Alice's performance costume is a black crop top with an checked, black and white shirt worn on top with the buttons undone. She is also wearing blue, ripped skinny jeans with black converse. The undone shirt and ripped jeans make this costume much less formal than my own and fits her character well as the quirky bassist.

Props Costumes

My props costume is a plain white t-shirt with a brown, long-sleeved corduroy shirt over it, with the buttons undone. I wear the same black jeans as in the performance set-ups and black canvas vans. This is more casual than my props costume which is the look we were going for, as in some of the prop shots I'm not lip-syncing and the whole band are messing about.

Gavin's props costume is a white t-shirt with a print on it, black skinny jeans and Adidas trainers. Again, this is more casual than his performance costume, the reason for which is explained above.

Alice's props costume is a grey jumper with blue skinny jeans with the bottoms rolled up and black slip-on vans. Again, the reason for this is explained above.

Superhero Costumes

The superhero costumes are almost just categorised as another set of props, as they feature in very few shots, to fit the playful nature of the music video, and to make another reference to childhood. We dressed me as Superman, Gavin as Batman and Alice as Green Lantern.

Publicity Costumes

Initially, we had intended to have 2 different costumes for the publicity shots and one for the album cover. In the end, these merged slightly, as we mix & matched some of the shots for the website and for the album digipack. The costumes we used are very casual, as we found when looking at existing publicity shots and album covers. We chose to not use any props in our publicity shots, apart from some we took on the last shoot in which we are holding instruments. Below are the costumes for each of us:

1st Costumes

My costume is a plain white t-shirt, blue denim skinny jeans with the ends rolled up, and black canvas vans.

Gavin's costumes is a patterned knitted jumper, black skinny jeans and Adidas trainers.

Alice's costume is a white crop top with a baggy blue shirt on top with half of the buttons done up and the sleeves rolled up. She also has dark skinny jeans with the ends rolled up and slip-on vans.

2nd Costumes

My costume is a brown corduroy shirt with the sleeves down and all buttons done up, black skinny jeans and black Dr. Martens boots.

Gavin's costume is a white t-shirt with a grey, short-sleeved shirt on top with no buttons done up, blue skinny jeans and brown shoes.

Alice's costume is a white, long-sleeved top, blue denim ripped jeans and black converse shoes.

3rd Costumes

My costume is a plain white t-shirt with a baggy, blue & green checked shirt, black skinny jeans and black Dr. Martens boots.

Gavin's costume is a grey patterned shirt with the sleeves down, black skinny jeans and Adidas trainers.

Alice's costume is a grey jumper with the sleeves rolled up, a black skirt, tights and black converse shoes.

For make-up, things were much simpler. As we were going for a very naturalistic approach, all our make-up was fairly minimal - just enough to cover up imperfections and make sure that we didn't look shiny on camera. We also made Gavin's eyelashes a bit darker so that they would show up on camera. 

The same approach was taken for hair styling. We initially used hairspray to keep my hair in place and not let it frizz, but realised it didn't really do anything, and so didn't do anything to mine or Gavin's hair, as we both have quite short hair and so there isn't a lot we can do to it. Alice straightened her hair slightly, but again, we didn't make any major changes to her hair.