PLANNING: production of Princess Jasmine photoshoot

Model: Savani Kale 


I decided to pick Savani as my Princess Jasmine model as Savani has an Indian ethnicity and has long brown hair. Princess Jasmine was the first non-European Disney Princess who was from Middle East/South Asia and her recognisable long ponytail with blue ribbon in her hair. In order to create a strong intertextual reference and audience connection, I had to cast a Middle East/South Asian model preferably with long hair. This would allow my second cover to be a different social group as my first cover would be a gay British white male and this second cover would be a South Asian female. Since the release of Aladdin in 2019, I thought Princess Jasmine would challenge stereotypes of a female being on the front cover but, also with a different ethnicity that is under-represented in the media.

Mise-en-scène - Location: Chelmsford 


I decided to take pictures in Chelmsford behind the train station to highlight the scenes where Princess Jasmine explores the marketplace. So, I would take shots behind walls and old buildings in order to highlight the fact that she is exploring life outside her castle. This would hopefully reflect that in the front cover that Princess Jasmine doesn't care about wealth or social class despite her luxurious upbringing. This challenges stereotypes of Princesses, celebrating different cultures and champion diversity.

Mise-en-scène - outfit: Blue Top

PLANNING: production of mine-en-scène - Elton John costume 

From my mood-board and watching Rocketman, I decided to go with this iconic Elton John look:


Since Elton John's looks were very extravagant and expensive, I thought it would be easier and cheaper to create the look myself. However, I needed some help and ideas on how to start this look. I tried to look on Instagram to see whether anyone has recreated the look for Halloween and found a lady who did. I messaged her on Instagram for any tips and tricks:
 

From her advice, I bought a white leather jacket from PrettyLittleThing, silver gems, hot glue and lots of white ostrich feathers. I hot glued lots of white ostrich feathers on the shoulders in order to make the jacket to create some height on the shoulders and hot glued the gemstones to the rim of the jacket. This was the result:


I had to make sure that the model had glasses to wear swell as this was an quintessential aspect of Elton John. I bought some large 80's pink tinted glasses from ASOS, small stick on pearls and fabric glitter glue. I filmed parts of the process when making the glasses as I thought it would be good audio visual and 'my readers' may want to know how to make the glasses which could create a relationship with the readership. This was the result:

PLANNING: production for Elton John photoshoot and risk assessment 

Model: Lewis Thorn

I decided to pick Lewis as my model as he is a white brunette male just like Elton John. However, I needed to make sure my model was confident and wasn't afraid to represent a flamboyant and outrageous homosexual in order to create a strong intertextual reference. This would challenge stereotypes and reaching out to a different social group as even though my model is a typical white male, the bold and extravagant clothing and accessories would reflect that the model is representing a homosexual male which is usually under-represented in the media.

Mise-en-scène - Location: Natural History Museum 

Originally, I picked 3 locations: 
- King's Cross Light Tunnel 
- Heal's London Furniture Store 
- Natural History Museum
I thought the King's Cross Light Tunnel would be a great location as the fun bright rainbow lights would enhance the fact that Elton John is gay and create PRIDE awareness. However, I decided to dismiss the location as the lighting would be harder to control, create many shadows, difficult to capture the model's expressions and body language which would decrease the audience connection and intertextual reference. 

I also thought that Heal's London Furniture Store would be a good location due to the simplicity of the staircase would contrast perfectly with the recreated flamboyant Elton John look and could create some unusual shot types to reflect Elton John's stage persona. However, I decided to dismiss Heal's Furniture Store as I thought the strings attached to the lights could get in the way of the model's head which could be distracting for audiences and the spiral staircase could be difficult to find good simple shot types. 

I decided that the Natural History Museum would be the best location as since the museum would have different simplistic walls which could also contrast perfectly with Elton's bold 'stage gear' which would make the intertextual reference to Elton John stronger and since the museum has a lot of windows, the natural light from inside would be easier to control. I also thought that the architecture from outside was beautiful so, I could take some shots outside of the museum using the natural lighting again. 

INDUSTRIAL CONTEXT

Industrial context from CharleneCheung2

GENERIC RESEARCH: case study 2 - Total Film 

TOTAL FILM from CharleneCheung2

PLANNING: flat plan for Rocketman cover


I have included two flat plans of my Elton John cover. Both are mid shots in order to see 'Elton John's stage gear' for intertextuality and to be able to see the model's face clearly. The first one is a silly, tongue-out pose which emphasises Elton John's silly and extravagant stage persona and the second shot type is a serious shot. I am still deciding the name of my magazine and cover-lines. 

GENERIC RESEARCH: case study: Empire

Case studies from CharleneCheung2

GENERIC RESEARCH – Intertextuality 

On the 30^th May 2019, I went to see the film, Rocketman which is a musical film based on the life of the musician, Elton John.
 

The film was described by the Guardian, “a fantastical account of the highs and lows of Elton John’s wild-ride rise, told in frenetically full blooded musical form”.

By watching Rocketman, has allowed me to have a greater understanding of Elton John’s life especially since Elton John was heavily involved when producing and directing the film. The film captured the exact details of the hardships and highlights of John’s life that the younger demographic may not know about or create nostalgia for those who grew up in the 1960s. 

Additionally, from the film, I learnt that when John was a young boy, he use to look through his mum’s fashion magazines which helped build his love of fashion and John’s flamboyant and extravagant outfits or "stage gear" throughout his career. Even though his dad strongly disapproved. But, also, John thought his flamboyant outfits would heighten sales with his over the top stage person (as no one would want to see Reggie). This inspired my choices of mise-en-scène for my front cover as John is known for his iconic and instantly recognisable flashy outfits. Some of my favourite looks in his career was his first dazzling outfit when John performed Crocodile Rock at the Troubadour in Los Angeles or his different captivating outfits during his performance of 'Pinball Wizard' on his global tour. 


The key aspects of Elton John's outfits:
-Big 1970s Glasses - either with gems or coloured tint or pearls
-Bold outfit - whether the outfit is colourful or not, the outfit was always flashy and striking with either ostrich feathers, sequins, gems, pearls or glitter.
-Greasy un-styled hair - had male-pattern baldness within the family