Moodboards

Moodboards

These are all my mood boards used during this project, they were used fro inspiration for shooting, styling and editing, some were sent to the clients we contacted to explain further our project and the reason we needed their services.

Northern Soul

The northern soul scene was about being unique while being part of something, people were brought together through music and fashion . The scene revolved mainly around (American) soul music, with northern soul club nights being famous as the best of the time. It was all about being the first to hear a new song and the first to try a new dance move. Friendships were formed through the scene that were stronger than some family bonds, the feeling of being completely free and having no worries but the music and the women created relationships deeper than other types of friendships of the time. This mood board is inspiration for the aesthetic and mind set we needed throughout this project, we had to think as if we had been part of it as a way to fully show the feelings and thoughts we want to portray, this moodboard was referred to throughout.

Modern 'Northern Soul'

This mood board showcases a contemporary comparison to the Northern Soul scene. A broad overview of the modern indie scene has similarities to northern soul through that, the fashion is all about being unique and having a style not worn by the ‘mainstream’, and the scene revolves heavily around music however more live music rather than club nights, indie nights are about sweaty gigs rather than sweaty dance floors. Modern indie style is all about cropped jeans, Vans and layers, its about making things that don't necessarily match or go with mainstream norms work.

MUAH

Showing both male and female models, to show a part of how the images might have looked if female models were used. Both gender aesthetics are similar, very simple, natural make up, kept to a minimum if any. Male hair is either buzz cut and short or longer and left to grow and style itself naturally, typically in the northern soul scene male hair was either shaved off or grown long, but little styling was usually involved, reflected in our choices. The female hair is left to be naturally wavey, no curled or straightened hair, in the scene a Bob was most common on women curled up wards only at the end, another long haired style was natural waves or if hair was put up it was popular to style a beehive ponytail commonly featuring a fringe.

Photography and Composition 

For the majority of our images we wanted to show movement projecting the feeling music gives you, these images show some of the inspiration we worked from when shooting these movement images, we wanted these images to be fluid and natural as if they were taken as someone was naturally moving to music. The other side to our shoots was more portrait based, with our final images we wanted to show a contrast between the movement and the stillness, showing both how you act listening to music and the calmness music and the feeling of music can give you.  We showed these and a few other images to our models on both shoots so they had more of an idea of the kind of images we wanted, we shot these and also some images that happened naturally on the day.

Concept 

This mood board portrays the concept we aim to bring across through our final imagery and concept film. The title we chose for our concept is ‘You, the music, the feeling’, broken down our concept is about the feeling that the atmosphere and the music of a northern soul night gave to those who attended. With our final pieces we aim to show how hearing the music and being imersed completely in the moment can take someone to a place of peace and escape from every other thought in their head. This concept comes from the involvement of music and drugs in the scene, the mixture of the two creates a new reality in your head, one that takes you to a place of peace where you are able to feel everything more intensely, this is what we hope to portray through our imagery.

Model aesthetic

 Male models only were chosen to fit to the scene of northern soul which was known to be male dominant, a natural looking model with a rougher aesthetic rather than a more photo ready aesthetic was the chosen look for our images, which we thought fit with those actually involved in the scene. We didn't want to change the look of any of our models other than their clothing as in the scene focus was on styling rather than features, the most that was changed was hairstyles. We wanted a mix of different look in our models hence choosing 6 different models, this is a nod to the friendships formed through northern soul, using so many models and showing them in images that show connections, shows the n=bonds formed through music.

Location

The idea behind the locations we wanted for our shoots was that we wanted to mimic the look of a club night to show the actual physical side of a northern soul night and the second location we wanted was somewhere that showed being alone and free, away from all distractions (and a place that had a quite plain background so most of the attention is drawn to the pose and the styling), this we hoped would symbolise the feeling felt by club goers of northern soul nights, with the music being a massive influence and the involvement of amphetamines this would show what was felt and where the atmosphere took you. The club location will have brightly coloured lights, much like the actual clubs, however this also symbolises the effect of the amphetamines and the feeling of loosing reality. The outside open space of the second location shows being alone with the music and having nothing else on your mind but the feeling. 

Styling 

Male styling was all about wide leg denim and polo shirts. Common brands were Fred Perry and Adidas. Less mainstream styling consisted of button up shirts over vests, which could be taken off during a club night to cool off, also a leather or denim jacket was a staple for any male soulie, which could be worn with any variation of northern soul style, usually showing off patches promoting which clubs and artists were your most visited. Our styling focussed on denim paired with doc martens and Adidas trainers, along with branded tracksuit tops, polos, and patterned shirts, we wanted to try showcase every aspect of northern soul styling in our shoots.

Promotion 

This mood board shows some of the inspiration used when creating promotional pieces for the upcoming ‘Northern Souls’ exhibition. Inspiration was taken from all of these while creating both promotion for the exhibition and gig posters for the band. I wanted to create window pieces and posters that could be plastered around the city. The style of the promotion I wanted to keep the focus on the imagery, using just simple bold type but trying to focus on the composition and placement of this.