About The Specials

Origin: Coventry, England
Genres: 2 tone, Ska, New Wave, Reggae
Years active: 1977 - 1984, 1996 - 2001, 2008 - active
Labels: 2 tone, Chrysalis, Virgin, Kuff
Associated acts: The Selector, Fun Boy Three, General Public, The Colourfield, Special Beat, The Skabilly Rebels, The Spatial AKA Orchestra
Past Members:  Jerry Dammers, Neville Staple, Silverton Hutchinson, Tim Strickland, Dick Cuthell, Rhoda Dakar, Garry McManus, Stan Campbell, Egidio Newton, John Shipley, Nigel Reeve, Caron Wheeler, Claudia Fontaine, Aitch Bembridge, Mark Adams
Active Members: Lynval Golding, Horace Panter, Terry Hall, Roddy Radiation, Joh Bradbury, Jon Reed, Adam Birch, Tim Smart, Drew Stansall, Nik Torp

The Specials
The Specials are also known as The Special AKA. The 2 tone and ska revival band formed in Coventry, England in 1977. Danceable ska and rocksteady beat with punk's energy and attitude. The Specials focused and informed people on political and social stance alot more than other ska griups did.
In 1980 their song "Too much Too young" reached number one in the UK, which was only 3 years after the band had formed. In 1981 "Ghost Town" also hit number one in the UK.
After 7 UK top 10 singles within the UK, 3 band members left and formed the group "Fun Boy Three".
After releasing new material in 1984, which included the top 10 hit "(Free) Nelson Mandela", founder and songwriter Jerry Dammers dissolved the band and persued in political activism. The band refored in 1993 but without Dammers.


Career
The Specials where formed in 1977 by songwriter and keyboardist, Jerry Dammers, vocalist Tim Strickland, guitarist/vocalist Lynval Golding, drummer Silverton Hutchinson and bassist Horac Panter (also known as, Sir Horace Gentleman).
Strickland was replaced by Terry Hall after the band had reformed.
The band was firstly known as the The automatics. They then changed to The Coventry Automatics and then The Specials AKA.
Vocalist Neville Staple and guitarist Roddy Byers (Roddy Radiation), joined the band in 1994, a year after their reformation. 
Joe Strummer from The Clash attended one of their concerts and asked them to be an opening act for his band on their "On Parole" UK tour. This gave them a new level of experiance and national exposure. They briefly shared the same management with The Clash.


Reunion Tours

• 1993
• 1998 - Japan (Panter missed due to illness)
• 2000 - limited tour lineup
• 2007 - Hall and Goulding performed together for the first time in 24 years. They played together at two festivals. At Glastonbuury Festival they performed the song "Gangsters" with Lily Allen
• 2009 - Goulding claimed that performing with Lily Allen played a massive part in their reformation
• 2008 - Autumn reformation tour
• December 2008 - tour dates announced for 2009 for their 30th anniversary
• April 2009 - guested on BBC Two - Later....with Jools Holland
• July and August 2009 - Australia and Japan
• 2010 Dutch Festival Lowlands
• 2012 Performed in Hyde Park for the Olympics
• American tour 2013 - sold out crowds at: Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver

Test shots

We did some test shots to see what lights we would need and how we would set them out. We also tried different colour gels too look at different effects that where suitable for the look we want to go for. We did the test shots so that we can plan ahead what equipment we need, how we are going to set it out and to see if we are able to acheive the look that we want to go for.

 This is an image of the lights that we used set up and ready to be used.

 When useing Fresnel  lighting we had to use gloves when moving the barn doors and adding or taking down the gels. This is because the lights and barn doors get VERY hot.

We added different colour gels to see if we could create an old looking effect that wasn't too bold.

There was a few differnet colour gels that we liked that we thought could be used within our video. We liked this blue/green that we thougt that we would be able to use. We thought that this would work as it is a happy colour and could be used when the words 'do you remember the good old days before the ghost town' as this is referring to happy memories.

We also liked this orange look as it gives a sepia look which makes it look old.

We looked at different camera angles and lighting angles to get the best look and the look that we ae going for. 

This effect can be used within our music video if the camera is going to be moving or at the first time you see a doll. 

We tried creating a very harsh shadow using very harsh lighting. We half got the effect that we wanted but the lighting within the room was too bright although the blinds where down. We needed less light and to change the aperture and ISO to create a more dark look.

We experimented with different angles with the camera and moving the light around. We also changed the ISO which gave us a more dark effect/look creating a harsh shadow which is what we want to go for.

Make up and hair ideas

Me and Saffi talked about different makeup and hair ideas. After doing some test shots we thought that by having their hair up in a bun, bunches or scruffy it would give them a more doll like look. The bun and bunches give the dolls a very neat look where as the messy hair will give them a look as if they have been well used or have just been sat around for a while.

After looking at different images on Google of make up we came up with an idea we wanted from a few different images. We liked the very long eyelashes, the pale face, and bright red lips with pink cheeks. This is the perfect example of the type of makeup that we want. The only thing that is missing from this image is the pink cheeks.

This image is the kind of thing we want for the pink cheeks.

This image we liked as it gives the pale face and the red lips which is the look that we want to go for.

The softness of the face and the lips is the reason we liked this image. The soft face gives them a very good doll like look.

Idea change

After talking with Saffi and Corran we have decided to change our idea slightly. 

We looked at many different mannequin hire companies and realised that it was too expensive for us to be able to hire about 6/7 mannequins. To hire one for a day would be about £30. We came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be possible to raise enough money for the amount of mannequins that we want along side buying costumes and any props needed. 

We wanted to keep the idea the same and thought about how we could change the mannequins for something else. We came up with two suggestions. The first on being taking all different images of mannequins and making a background on photoshop and using the green screen to creat the effect that we originally wanted. The second idea was using people. We want to be able to use teenage/young adult women and give them doll like make up. We thought about how we wanted the makeup to look and what they would do within the video. 

Saffi came up with the idea of that whenever he says a certain word that appears within the song the girls will move into a different pose, otherwise they will be completely still as if they are lifeless like a doll. Whenever the word 'ghost town' gets mentioned the girls will act completely normal. After thinking about this we believed that this idea would be far better idea and a lot easier to work with than the original idea.

My job role

As a producer I have many different jobs that i need to complete before production.

•  production schedule 
• set up auditions
• location recees
• risk assessment
• decide on equipment needed with the director and Do.P
• talent release forms (consent form) 
• booking (equipment, room hire)
• call sheets

and to also make sure that my crew are doing what they are supposed to be doing and are keeping on track with everything and not falling behind. I also need to keep up with any new ideas that come up with and decide if they are going to work with the video.

Idea

The idea that Saffi came up with or the music video, to me was very well suited.
Ideas for the video:

•  Abandoned dance hall filled with mannequins - eerie and vacent faces, harsh lighting, silhouette , hard shadows, low angle close - up's and desaturated
• Performer amongst mannequins, singing to camera 
• Bridge jump cut turning mannequins into real people when it says 'do you remember the good old days before the ghost town' - movement, happy, enjoying performer interacting with people who are oblivious to the cameras.
• jump cuts back to mannequins 

Ideas for lighting, look, location and clothing: 

• braces and shirt
• stop frame
• ska
• kicker lighting
• uplighting
• harshly lit mannequins
• shadows
• silhouette
• empty dance hall
• disco ball
• singer
• close up of faces
• low angle shots
• eerie
• derelict
• abandoned 
• anxious

Group

Monday 20th January 2014
As a producer I sat and listened to the ideas that the Do.P's and the directors had come up with. After listening to all of them I then had to decide who i wanted to be within my crew. I chose people based on how good their ideas where.
I chose Saffi and Corran.
They had both come up with good ideas that I believed where suitable and would work very well for the music video of the song that I chose.

song choice

Monday 13th January 2014 

Brief was given. Talked with Amanda as a class about the brief, what we needed to include within the music video planning and certain dates such as when Producer would pick the song they wanted to do.

Thursday 16th January 2014

All directors sat together and got told to listen to about 10 different songs. From there we each picked the song that we wanted to do. The song that I chose was Ghost town by The Specials.

I picked this song as I believed that it could be recreated very well and that it was a good song to be able to pick a decent music video for it.