Tip Toe

Tip Toe is an original music video for the song Tip Toe by Sam Lee. We wanted to capture the songs meaning and the themes of the song. The song’s meaning is that it promotes diversity and female empowerment. The message behind the song is that you don’t need to change your personality and style for a man and you just have to act yourself. The song has a religion theme to be proud of what god gave you and that you are accepted just the way you are. One of the scenes in the music video we wanted women to hold up what they like about themselves and the reasons they stand tall and proud. This goes with the theme of women empowerment and independence to not change for a man and that men should love you the way you are. We decided to use people we had access to like students on UTampa campus and friends that wanted to appear in the music video. We also wanted to show the theme of romance by having roses and rose petals on the piano at the beginning scenes. We also had it appear like a more formal event so this is why we used the grand piano and the special event hall. We had dancers who were wearing similar clothes but there were some differences between their outfits because everyone is unique in life. We made sure to show the chandelier for the beginning shot to emphasize the romance theme. We had the dancers dance in a form similar to ballet because we wanted it to seem more like a love story that was getting portrayed here and with them holding roses. We made sure to capture the dancers in all different angles and to cut to women holding up signs that show what they like about themselves. The different wide shots also showed more of the décor in the room and close up shots on Sam as the main singer of the song. We wanted to promote individuality and nonconforming just because someone tells you to change for them or if someone tells you that they will like you better if you change things about yourself. I was Director on this music video, along with Sheri Warner. We told the dancers to dance in front of the piano and we decided on cutting to close-up shots of Sam because we wanted to focus on him for certain scenes and show that he is singing the song. We wanted tracking shots to follow the dancers and we wanted to cut to low and high angles. We had to help with chorography and communicate what we wanted the dancers to do. We had to make sure they do not go out for frame during the dance. I helped the dancers pick outfits for their scenes and helped with cutting some of the rose petals. We were thinking of not showing the piano at one point but I suggested we have the dancers go in front of the piano. Sheri directed the cutaway scenes of all the students saying why they stand tall. We had to make sure the cinematographer got a close-up of the flower petals and of the dancer’s feet when they jump up. We also considered the layout of the room and what we wanted in the music video, like the designs on the ceiling and especially the chandelier. We wanted to have wide shots to show the size of the room and the ballet dancers to have a dance had a theme of romance. Have close ups of the piano and of Sam singing to show the person who made the song. We wanted to go for a ballet performance feel like the camera is the audience seeing this. We also wanted to represent diversity and we had different actresses for different races. Having everyone with their own style promoted them being themselves and not changing for a man.