Casting...

Male Gaze

Music Video concept:

Betty Grable

Betty Grable - an extremely influential and important pin up girl of the 1940's.
In my music video I will use extracts of her life and make symbolic references to her relationship with Harry James.

A small section of this documentary is about the domestic abuse that Betty Grable suffered from her 2nd husband Harry James. I will convey this matter in my music video as my video is a political statement about the hardships of pin up girls in the 1940's and how they were supposed to 'keep smiling' throughout.

This image (left) is Betty Grable's most famous image. Her 'million dollar legs were what 'helped America win the war'. During the documentary above I found out that Betty Grable was pregnant here with her first child. This image was considered one of the most famous pin up girl images and has been compared to Marilyn Monroe's dress blowing shot. I will recreate this exact image in my music video to make a contextual reference to Betty Grable.

Linking in with storyboard...

At this current time I am in the process of creating my storyboard. Using this template:

However for one section in my music video I will have my two actors looking at 3 short snippets from three movies from the 1940's. The era that I am setting my music video in. These videos will be:

Citizen Kane - The Theatrical Trailer

(0:47 - 0:58)

Rebecca (1940) - Full movie

(0:15:17 - 0:15:48)

Notorious kiss (the most erotic kiss in movie history)

(0:43 - 0:49)

Research into women in the work place, 1940's.

These are images I found from a website (see below) taken from a book made for industrial bosses on how to introduce women to the workplace during the Second World War.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/08/when-you-supervise-a-woman-the-1940s-instructional-manual/261619/

This document gave me an insight into the role of women and the treating of women within the workplace at this time as women were recruited to do the roles of the men whilst they were at war, as well as making machinery and weapons. On top of this many women were homemakers or carrying children. This put massive strain on the family and on women as they had to become the main breadwinner in the family. In my music video I wish to display the themes of the pressure of working class women and women workers in my music video, although this will be subtle because my main focus is on the 1940's celebrity lifestyle.