Audience Research

We have decided that it would be a good idea to gather some research form those who aren't involved with our video, we can then get non biased opinions across about our video so therefore we can get a good response from our video once we show people.

One way we have decided to gather this information is by creating a questionnaire which includes personal opinions on the RnB and Pop genres and what they expect and what to see in music videos of that genre and also what they like and dont like about the music videos involved around that genre.

By gathering this information we can use it to keep note on what people would like to see and to avoid anything that they would not like to see int he music video, this then can help us create a final product that pleases the audience.

Mirror Shots

Our video includes a series of mirror shots and in order to get the best looking angles and shots we have  gathered some information from other music videos that we could use in ours.

In Justin Timberlake's song Mirrors they seem to take the shot at a slight low angle but also keep the person in focus whilst the reflection in the mirror is slightly blurred but also remains in focus still.










There are also other mirror shots that use lighting to create a dark shadow across the side of the persons face so we are unable to find the identity of the person until we look in the mirror, in these shots the reflection is in focus more than the person itself.












This music video is particularly good with filming mirror shots as they use various techniques which we  could use in our video, one of which includes a superimposed image placed over the top of a reflection in the mirror in order to support the narrative of loving someone you've lost which fits in rather well with our narrative.

Possible Locations to Film

As a group we have looked for suitable locations that we believe would be good for us to use for filming some of our shots. Grace has found a great studio in Stansted Mountfitchet where we could use the mirror for a few of our shots, these include the mirror shots that we have decided are going to be definitely used in our video. We have also decided to use the Newport Graveyard in order to film our graveyard shots which is involved with the videos narrative. We have yet got permission to use the church and the graveyard but hopefully we will be able to get that soon. Our narrative also involves a scene based in a bar, as we are limited in the amount of possible places we are finding it quite difficult to find a suitable bar and get permission to film inside it. 

Possible Names for Our Artist

As a group we have decided to come up with a name for our artist, we want the name to be similar to most names that are associated with the RnB genre for example Rihanna and Beyonce. Here are a few examples:

• Lyla
• Lhani
• Nyla 
• Jasmine

We hopefully will be able to come up with a suitable name for our artist.

Uses of Black and White Filters in Music Videos

As a group we have decided to have a black and white filter throughout, this is mainly due to a limit in lighting equipment, I have decided to have a look at a few videos that use the black and white filter and see how it looks when the video takes place in various areas and times. Beyonce's 'Sorry' uses a black and white filter throughout the video, this use of the filter makes it much easier to create shadows and various different light tones that would look good in our video as our videos narrative covers a rather dark topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxsmWxxouIM

Useful Narratives used by Other Artists

One other narrative that we have come up with was the idea that the women would be seen as the dominant figure rather than the stereotype of which the men are seen as the more dominant figures. The artist Pink uses this narrative in her video 'Please don't leave me' where she is in an abusive relationship with a guy and the video tells us the story that no matter how much she abuses him and hurts him he'll always stay with her. However at the end of the video she ends up being far more hurt than her lover due to her own actions whilst she was trying to hurt him. From this video we have gathered information from the narrative which we think would be a good idea to use in our music video. This is because the lyrics in our chosen song tell a story about a girl who needs a man to do everything for her, the lyrics also depict a slight sense of this psychopath who may have killed her previous lover due to the fact that she did not get what she wanted.

Costume Conventions of an RnB Music Video

Male


Smart/Smart casualThe majority of R&B music videos nowadays have male artists dressed in smart/smart casual clothing. This could be to represent class or status in society. Artists such as Drake, Chris Brown, Usher, Ne-Yo and many more all follow the Smart/Smart casual look.


Tattoos Tattoos are a big part of R&B culture again, with the majority having lots of tattoos all visible to the public. This could be used to show creativity and independence from other artists. Even if two artists sound similar, the tattoos and personalities they have could set them apart from each other so much that they wouldn't be seen as similar anymore.

Jewellry Jewellery is one of the most conventional piece of clothing in both R&B and Hip-Hop genres. In every R&B video you see, some sort of jewellery, whether that be a watch, a necklace, or an earring, the artist will have some form of jewellery, showing wealth and status in society.

Women

Classy/Very Little clothing                                                                                                             Depending on the sub-genre of the song, and the song itself, the women in music videos are usually dressed in accordance to the song lyrics or narrative of the music video. Women in the videos generally wear classy but revealing clothes, making them attractive to the males, who are the target audience for the conventional R&B music video.

JewelleryAgain, women also follow the idea of having jewellery in the music videos, whether they are the main artist or just an actress. This catches the eye of the male, which is who the target audience is, therefore doing its job in making the target audience watch the video, even if it is just because of the women, and not the actual song itself. 

Updated Plan

Performance

• (camera shot) Singing in the mirror (used from Amy Winehouse's Back to Black), with pictures of men around the mirror, (lyrics: i'm f*cked up, i'm black and blue).
• Singing in drama studio, using own lights (Grace's lamps).
• Black and white filter throughout.    

Narrative

• Bar- use his credit card to separate drugs.
• Graveyard- (lyrics: "I need a gangster who loves me better...").
• Puts flowers on multiple graves (used from Amy Winehouse's Back to Black).
• She has her own chauffeur who lights her cigarette (used from Beyonce's haunted) and holds her umbrella.
• Using black car (Kate's Dad's). 

Useful Aspects of a Music Video to Use in Our Video

For our music video, we have been looking at other similar songs and videos in order to get an idea on what we should include in the video and how to use it.

One of the videos we have looked at was Back to Black by Amy Winehouse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJAfLE39ZZ8

One of the key aspects in our video that could be an issue is the lighting, in Amy's video she uses a black and white filter in order to suit the topic of the song and in order to make it easier to maintain the low key lighting used in her video. We believe that we could use the same technique of having a black and white filter over the top as we aren't able to supply ourselves with the high quality expensive lights.

The video has a very similar topic which includes a well suited narrative, in Amy's video the narrative includes a funeral and Amy is seen to be the widow of a wealthy man. In our song the lyrics 'I need a gangster to love me better' has the implications that her lover may have died, as a group we have decided to use a similar narrative to this. Amy's video is an amplification narrative video where the video is split between performance and narrative, this is seen to be the most popular type of narrative video for our RnB/Pop genre. It is also much easier for us to produce as we have a limited budget and amount of professional technology.

The video includes a number of interesting shots and angles that we believe would be good for use to use in our video, for an example in Amy's video there are a few shots where she's singing in the mirror. We thought as a group that it would be a good shot to use because it gives out the intention that her backs turned and she wants to hide her emotions however the mirror shot allows us to see her true emotions that she doesn't want us to see.

Narrative

Narrative is the way the story is told or happens. An open structure is one that means that it has no final ending; the story is left open. A closed structure is one that means the story is concluded, usually satisfactory. An interactive structure is one that means that the story is not fixed and will change depending on different factors.

Andrew Goodwin stated that there were three different ways in which the music video can connect back to the song itself.

These are:

• Illustration
• Amplification
• Disjuncture 

Illustration: Where the song bases the video around the lyrics in order to express them in visual form.

Amplification: Creative and artistic statements performed through the lyrics, usually a combination of narrative and performance.

Disjuncture: Tries to create a new set of meanings, usually the videos don't make sense in order to   create the artists image. 

Narrative structure can be split into 3 simplified categories, these are:

• Linear: Follows a line (story) till the end (e.g. Taylor Swift-Wildest Dreams).
• Episodic: Start and ends, broken up into sections (e.g. Taylor Swift-Bad Blood).
• Circular: Goes from start to middle to end/start (e.g. Schoolboy Q-That Part).

Target audiences suited to our genre of song

As a group we have decided that our chosen song falls under the RnB genre, from this we can gather information about the target audience we have to impress with our music video. From own knowledge and little research I already know that people who are aged between 15 and 25 tend to prefer to listen to RnB music compared to people aged over 30.

One example of this is Drake, Drake's music falls into the RnB genre quite easily with his style of music and music videos, from own knowledge I know that people aged 15-25 listen to drake as he is a very modern artist and seems to follow all the recent trends in fashion and culture. I also know that the majority of people who go to his concerts are mostly aged 15-25.

This is because Drake supports the RnB stereotype and gives his audience what they would expect to see, especially in his music videos. For example in the song 'Hotline Bling' the music video involves Drake alone dancing with neon lights in the background. This abstract style of video suits the RnB genre as he has modernised his music video by using the bright neon lights to represent the party lifestyle which teenagers and young adults tend to have. His song with Rihanna 'Work' also represents the RnB genre as the video is highly stereotypically RnB. This is because it objectifies women and has that nightclub theme.

 

Our Chosen Song

This is the song we have chosen for our coursework:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPDw4MH6hjQ

We decided to go for this song because we could gather a well suited narrative to go with the lyrics, we have decided to go for a story involving an abusive relationship which could perhaps be where the women is the abusive person in the relationship and that she gets a high out of hurting people. We also thought of a nightclub theme where the woman would be singing on stage and would have a male audience and throughout the video she would use her sex appeal to distract the audience from the fact that she was slowly killing them and so at the end the club if full of dead bodies.

Why do genres change?

Some artists often change genres or try to blend two genres together for many reasons, one reason for this could be to follow a trend, for example the artist 'Chip' used to be involved with hip-hop and pop songs, whereas now that 'Grime' music has become more popular over the last few years he has been involved in more 'Grime' music to gain  popularity and to follow a trend. Another reason artists the genre of the music they produce is to change their image and to attract a larger audience. An example of this is Justin Bieber, his first music was a form of 'Cheesy Pop' with songs like 'baby' and now he's got older he's now trying to move into the 'RnB' genre.

 
  

Possible Genres of Music to use for My Video

For my music video i have come up with a few possibilities, these are as follows:

• Rap
• Hip-Hop
• Indie Rock

I believe that these genres of music would be good ideas for a music video as the sort of videos that are involved with this sort of music tend to be not as heavy on editing and special effects that are used in pop and dance music videos. They also include a variety of different camera techniques that would be good for me to develop my skills in using the camera. Genres such as 'Rap' have relatively simple music videos which allows me to have the ability to create my own version as I have a much smaller budget and limit on equipment.

Preliminary Task

For our preliminary task we decided to choose a song that had a video that would be easier to do but could still include different techniques to express our knowledge and skill of producing a music video. We chose to do 'Hello' by Adele as it includes various different angles and shots in order to create a story to back up the lyrics.We chose a 30 second segment of the video to reproduce, this segment included various different camera angles and shots for example there are a few close ups and long shots of which we could copy in order to develop our understanding and knowledge of how a music video is produced.