Planning: Artist image

My music video falls into genre of both Hip hop and Soul music.

A hip hop artist has different traits to a soul artist. Our male artist will have more hip hop traits as he is raping and our female artist will have more traits of a soul artist.

Traits of a hip hop artist:
- Confident
- Laid back
- Street Wise
- Boyish

Traits of a soul artist:
- Humble
- Niche
- Relaxed

Female artist morals and values:

• Speaks about equal rights
• voice of the young people
• Represents reality
• controversial lyrics

Male artist morals and values:

• Voice of the ghetto
• Wants to inspire people
• Wants to be wealthy
• Wants to educate

Female artist media perception:

• Young fresh
• Media perception based off her lifestyle
• Social media - instragram pictures/videos, relatable
• Relatable

Male artist media perception:

• Chilled out image
• Iconic
• Relatable

Similar artist:
Female - Jhene Aiko

• Stripped back
• nude make up
• loose clothing
• young
• looks innocent

Female - Corinne Bailey Rae

• Big messy hair
• Looks innocent
• Neutral colours (costume)

Male - Eminem

•  Looks very ordinary
• Not dressed up
• Looks humble

Male - J. Cole

• Sunglass
• Simple clothing
• Dark colours

 My female artist is a young girl between the age of 16-18. She looks quite plane and stripped back only wearing nude make up, if any. We want her to be presented as innocent and vulnerable in order for the audience to sympathy with her.













My male artist is a young boy aged around 18. He isn't over dressed and comes across cool and humble. He dances in the video as well as rapping.


















Using Goodwin's theory of star image both of my stars will be shot using close ups, extreme close ups and mid shots.
We will not be using Mulvey's male gaze theory on our female star as we want her to be presented as vulnerable and innocent.

Our male star will be following the popular culture theory as he will be more mainstream than our female artist and will be street dancing which is a part of popular culture.

Will we not be following hebdige's theory as our artist do not represent one subculture, however our female artist will be quite niche.

Planning: Location

Dark, isolated room

 Here we will have our star perform throughout the duration of the music video and there will be a dim spotlight on the star.

• This is relevant to the lyrics as she says " I cant recall the last time I took advice from anyone". This is relevant because she is alone in this dark room showing that she trusts no one and only counts on herself.
• This is relevant to the soul genre as soul music is often about real life issues and being in this dark, empty room alone is allowing the star to reflect on life and herself.
• This is relevant to the target audience as it is common for young people to feel alone when they are going through stress.
• Advantages of this location:

- There should be no disruptions
- Should be easy to direct the actor
- There is not much needed to create the shot.

• Disadvantages of this location:

- It may be hard to film as there is going to be low lighting in the room
- Low lighting can cause bad quality footage

• Jhene Aiko - The Pressure, influenced us with this idea.

Empty Streets





Here we will have our 'Prom girl' character getting laughed at and bullied by her peers and then running away. The streets should be empty, dark and isolated.

• This is relevant to the hip hop genre as it is an urban setting and hip hop is a very urban genre.
• It is relevant to the target audience as young people often want to just run away in times of stress. In this case the stress of being bullied is something a lot of young people, especially teenagers, can relate to.
• Advantages of this location:

- Lots of options as there are so many streets we can use
- Realism
- Can film locally

• Disadvantages of this location:

- May be traffic
- May be people in the shot

• Ludacris ft Mary J Blige - run away love, has influenced this idea

 House

 

Here we will be using a house and portraying it to be our 'couple' character's house which they live together in. We will mainly be filming in the living room, kitchen and bedroom.

 

 

 

• This is relevant to the lyrics when she says " I can't recall the last time I took love from anyone, I called daddy, Who's got one anyway?". This is relevant because a home is supposed to be somewhere you feel loved as you are often living with family, however in this case she doesn't feel loved and her boyfriend being her family makes her feel unloved in her own home.
• This is relevant to the genre because soul music is intimate and a house is a closed intimate space.
• The target audience would be able to relate to this as it is sometimes the case that young people don't feel happy in their own homes and feel like they just can't get away and like they're trapped.
• Advantages of this location:



- Easy to find a house to use

- Easy to use in the narrative

• Disadvantages of this location:

-The house we're able to use may not be spacious enough

- The lighting may not be good

• Eminem ft Rihanna - Love the way you lie, influence this idea.

 

Train Station

This location will be used in one of the final scenes where our 'Prom girl' character may or may not be about to commit suicide.

 

 

• This is relevant to the lyrics as the artist is saying "crucify me" meaning she wants to die.
• This is relevant to the target audience as there are many cases of teenagers and young people wanting to commit suicide and they often use train stations.
• Advantages:

- Many train stations near by

• Disadvantages:

- People may think its real and someone is really trying to commit suicide.

Planning: Analysing similar videos

Jhene Aiko - The pressure (structure)

Structure -

The video is structured how we want to structure ours. Throughout the video it switches between the different narratives and the star image. This is done through a pan and fade in and outs where as we are going to do this using straight cuts. 

As the song goes on we start to see the problems the characters are going through in each narrative and by the end all they narratives are negative, this is how we want out video to play out. 

Narratives-

The narratives in this video are similar to our narratives/themes, e.g relationship problems, feeling alone. In the end the character is left all alone in each narrative which is how our characters will be left except our characters will commit suicide. 

Performance-

The star is sitting in a dark room with a light over her making her look quite shadowy. This is very similar to how we want our star to perform as we want her sitting on the floor in a dark room surrounded by nothing.



Five Finger Death Punch - Coming Down (Content)

Narrative-
Shows two teenagers who are victims of bullying and are now wanting to commit suicide. The narrative tells the story of their struggles and how one people giving them the support they need saves them from taking their own lives.

Performance-
The video is completely narrative based and so there is no star image. The band is heard and not seen.

Concept-
The video is completely narrative based and features no concept.

Mise En Scene-

Setting = School, Streets, House.

Props = Gun, Pills, Phone, Laptop and Make up.

Costume: Female character = Black dress, loose shirt.
Male character = Jeans. shirt, back pack, hoodie.

Facial Expression: Female character =  scared, angry, emotionless, nervous, painful and worried.
Male character = Distraught, angry, nervous, emotionless.


Rihanna - Stay (Artist)

The artist portrays how we want our artist to be. Her facial expressions are emotionless even when she's crying whilst lip syncing. The camera is often close up on her face or extremely close up on her eyes showing how emotionally drained she is.
She its in the bath through the song and she is hugging herself in a ball and sinking lower into the bath, this body language shows how ,much she trust wants to be alone and not let anyone in.
She doesn't have any costume as she is naked in the bath, however, she doesn't reveal any body parts and is able to come across and vulnerable  and innocent. Her make up is very nude and looks as if she isn't wearing any. Although we want our star to be clothed this is a perfect example of how we want her to come across to the audience. Also, her looking so stripped back allows her to look more realistic and for the audience to be able to relate to her.

Planning: Outline of of narrative

I personal really like the song we have chosen as it talks about themes that a lot of teenagers and young people (especially females ) go throught , such as ; suicide , problems fitting in , parental problems and not liking their appearance.

My music video will be mostly performance and narrative based with a little bit of concept. We have decided to plan our video like this as we want to be able to tell a story and raise awareness of some of the struggles people go through such as suicide , abusing relationships and bullying; in order to do this we need to make sure it is very narrative based. However, we also want to make sure the audience is able to make a connection with the artist and so we have to make sure there is some star image by making the video part performances based. lastly, we want to make the video relevant to young people and so we are using some concept and having street dancers in small sections of the video.

Theories: 

Goodwin-

We are following some of this theory as we will be including editing that matches the pace of the song and the visuals will make sense to the lyrics. 

Dyer-

We will be following this theory as we are using star image with our 2 main characters by using lip syncing. 

Mulvey-

We will not be using this theory as we do not want our female characters to be represented as sexy and instead we want them to be represented as vulnerable and innocent in order for the audience to understand their struggles. 

Hebdige:

We are not going to use this theory as although our visuals and themes are not mainstream they do not resist mainstream and do not fall into a subculture.

Adorno:

We are not following this idea as we are not trying to manipulate put audience and turn them into masses with out video.

Planning: My audience

Intro : It is important to know about audiences when creating a music video because you need to know who your target audience is and how you are going to appeal to them.

Age:
The target age for my video is 16 - 25. This is because I feel the themes such as, relationship problems and bullying are relatable  to this age group.
Gender:
My video is targeted towards females as the song is sung by a girl with a small male featuring. My star image will focus on the female character and most of my characters will be female.
Race:
My characters will be from different race groups in order to make it relatable to girls from all different races.
Audience Category:
The audience category I am aiming my video towards is category E as this age group falls into the unemployed and student category.
Income/ Bracket/Status:
I am targeting my video towards people with a low to medium income as most of them will be unemployed, have a low paid job or be a student.
Hobbies and interests:
Skateboarding, Listening to music, Partying

Audience Reaction:
I want my audience to be able to react in all the ways offered to them.

Audience engagement:
I understand that audiences are active and I want them to be able to interact with my video in whichever way they see fit. To make this happen, I have chosen to represent various themes and characters.

Audience expectations:
I want my audience to be able to expect certain things from my genre and artists as it is a genre that has a clear set of codes of conventions. I will make sure I include themes that the audience can develop expectations from.

Audience Foreknowledge:
I want my audience to be able to enjoy the music as well as relate to it and feel as if the artist made the song for them.

Audience Identification:
I want my audience to be able to relate to an artist and think of them as someone that understands them. I want them to relate to the life experience the artist is talking about.

Audience Placement:
I want my audience to feel that they can relate to the song and like it was made personally for them. In this case I will make my artist and characters fit the age group and gender of my target audience and make sure my costumes are the type of clothing my audience can relate to.



In conclusion I want my audience to relate well to the artist and the song. I want the song to tackle issues that my target audience have to deal with in life, such as; bullying, relationship problems and suicide. I want my audience to have a strong connection with my artist and feel as if the artist understands them and the things they go through in life.

Planning: Graphs

planning : copyright letter

Oasis Academy Hadley

                                                                                                                                                                                           South St, Enfield

En3 4PX

TEL: 0208 804 6946

Friday 7^th November, 2014

RE: Single SZA ft. Kendrick Lamar- Babylon

 

Dear Top Dog Entertainment (TDE), Interscope Records

We are ‘Notorious Productions’ A production group created by 3 AS media students in sixth form from Oasis Academy Hadley. We are writing to request your permission to use a song by two artist signed to your record label. The track we wish to use is Babylon by SZA featuring Kendrick Lamar.

With your permission we would like to use this song and create a music video for our A2 Media project which contributes 50% to our coursework final grade. Our task involves filming and editing footage to match the meaningful words of the song targeting a similar audience that you produced the song for.

With this music video a Digi pack album and magazine advert will also be created to insure that our coursework is complete with the full package.

 If we received your permission, this track would only be used for educational purposes and for no other commercial purpose and will also be used for the OCR exam board moderator. The music video however may be shown on some social networks such as Facebook, YouTube and twitter in order for us to receive feedback to help us evaluate our production process. 

The artist and your company would of course be credited and acknowledged on our blog page showing our appreciation of you letting us use the song. A copyright notice with wording supplied by you can be included in the records of the project. If this is required, please send the full details within this notice.

Thank you very much for reading this letter, we look forward to hearing from you.  

Yours sincerely

From ‘Notorious Production’

 Lashane Williams

 Chardelle Willer

Jordan Cleveland

 

Planning: Ouestionnaire

Research: Hebdige's subcultures

What are subcultures ?

A subculture is a group of people who unite on their own accord through common values and tastes and do not fit the mainstream culture.

How are they evident in the music industry? (examples)
Subcultures are evident in the music industry as each subculture tend to all have the same taste in music genres. Examples of different subcultures are:

- Skinheads - Ska, Raggae, Soul music
- Teddy Boys - Rock 'N' Roll
- Queer - Pop, Classic Pop
- Hippy - Alternative, Indie
-Punks - Punk music, rock music

McCracken said that the world is full of diversity and creativity. He said that if we look at array of values and ideologies then we can't say all subcultures come from one culture.


Hebdige on the other hand said that although some people think subcultures appear to be different, deep down they are the same. Subcultures are seen as 'little cultures' at they are doing the same thing of resistance. People try to resist main stream culture and create a subculture.

Subcultures and historical times in relation to music - images

It is argued that cultural music tastes depend on the historical time and structure of social, economic and political change. For example, Skinheads were around in the 60s and were known for their racial beliefs and actions. Now we rarely hear about them in todays day as racism is less accepted and its something less tolerated. It's not something people would now be proud of.