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

An essential part of the production process is planning costume, props and make-up, and as our group's video incorporates a lot of Andrew Goodwin's theory in Dancing in the Distraction Factory through its use of intertextuality, this importance is emphasised. This is due to the number of individual setups, and the different props and characterisations of GiGi needed for each individual scenario.

We used the reference point of Meghan
Trainor's 'Dear Future Husband' to
include a 50s housewife, and from
there began to consider the wider
history of the role of women.

Having already drawn up ideas during the analysis of our lyrics and instrumentation, and tweaked these during the construction of our Steal-o-matic, we finally drew upon any reference points of existing music videos to begin to narrow our setups down to:
-Puppet
-1950s Housewife
-Dolls House
-Land Girls
-Snow White
-Performance

We are aiming to achieve both a mix of relationships between the lyrics and the visuals (Goodwin) through e.g the Puppet and Snow White setups, as well as a strong message of female empowerment through both the conceptual narrative of breaking out of the rigid structure and patriarchal dominance represented by the Dolls House, and references to the history of female roles via the 1950s Housewife and Land Girls setups.

As a result, Phoebe collated and added to our list of costume, prop and makeup references:

As for the other characters in the Dolls House, Phoebe has bought green circular contact lenses in order to better connote the idea of a doll, whilst I will wear a shirt, jumper and tie to connote an archetypal figure of the patriarchy.

I am pleased that we are also planning to incorporate signifiers of each setup into our video, such as an apple and (cardboard cutout) dwarfs in Snow White, a typical 1950s hairstyle - even if we had to adapt the puppet, as Phoebe didn't feel using body paint on Georgina for a marionette effect would be practical.

I feel that we have researched, planned and documented a number of useful reference points and are now well aware of each reference, as well as how we aim to present GiGi in each setup with regards to costume, props and makeup.