Planning: Initial Ideas

MY IDEA:

Song: "Run This Town" by Rihanna (Trap Remix)

Genre: RnB and Hip Hop

Narrative: First shot of a group of girls standing together representing feminism. Throughout the video one main girl being 'Rihanna' to lead and mess boys around for example, cheating on them ad playing them around. Shots of a group of girls also walking down street together wearing tight clothes, being attractive however, not in a sexual way. Being a 'squad' - what boys would do. Causing problems in public, being the stereotypical boy. Challenging expectations of girls as they are playing boys around when this is a typical action from males. Also, challenging the expectation of girls being 'lady like' and portraying them as the one who wears the 'trousers'.

Narrative Structure: Performance/Narrative based.

Characters:

• Main girl for the role of Rihanna. 
• Group of girls behind her (backup dancers).

MES: Black tight clothing (leather), dark make-up (purple lipstick), low-key lighting (car lights shining on the girls), lighters, fires.

Application of Theory: Mulvey - against this idea of 'sexy', more feminism. Goodwin - matches the idea of the pace of music matching the visuals. This is because the edits will match all the beats in the song. Dyer - the idea of 'star' image as the camera will be focused on Rihanna.


Advantages: 

• The beats of the song will match the fast pace edits.
• The costume and make-up easy to provide.
• Narrative is easy to portray.

Disadvantages:

• The location may be hard to find. E.g. a car park, however will need permission for this.
• Many characters (back-up dancers) may be hard to find and control such a large amount of people.
• May be hard to use iconography such as lighters in order to show burning objects due to the location.

Target Audience:

• 14-25
• Both genders
• Occupation - C2-E

My Questionnaire:
We all conducted a questionnaire each in order to gain more research into the music video we wanted to create. This ensured our music video was appropriate for our target audience and would reach their expectations. I asked 20 people to fill my questionnaire in so I would be able to use their feedback and change what did not suit them. For example, the question "Do you listen to Rihanna?" was answered "Yes" by 19 people suggesting that the artist is well known and will match the target audience. Also, the question "What themes do you particularly associate with Hip-Hop/RnB?" which was answered "sex" by 9 people, "love" by 5 people, and "wealth" by 6 people. This gave me a clear guideline in what themes to include as this is what the audience expects from the music video. These questions gave me a general understanding of which direction I should take when filming my music video.  

JOSH'S IDEA:

Song: The main song I had in mind was Tory Lanez - Diego which consists of a combination of the R&B and Hip Hop genre. The song portrays the idea of 'being the new Tony Montana' which is an intertextual reference to the movie Scarface.

Narrative: Concept Based/Performance - My idea mainly covers a concept based music video with some performance of the star artist. Therefore the camera would linger mainly around the artist, the majority of the video, making him the main focus. In addition to this, I would then include the use of young attractive females acting promiscuously towards the artist portraying the stereotypical idea of a Hip Hop artist representing someone who all the ladies want.

Narrative Structure: The narrative structure would differ from scene to scene. Meaning that their will be a simultaneous edit, combining scenes from three different locations (Party, underground location, bedroom). Therefore the structure of this video would be conventional to the Hip Hip/R&B genre because it would contain the repetitive use of attractive and luxurious locations with beautiful females and expensive iconography (Cars, jewellery, clothes etc.) which represent the stereotypes of artist using the basic idea in music videos over and over again.

Representation of Artists/Characters: Due to the song portraying the idea of 'being the new/modern day wealthy icon (Tony Montana), I would include scenes or flashing images from the film 'Scarface' to match the lyrics. As far as matching the visuals; I will make my artist dress in luxurious 'classical' clothing e.g suits, fur, coats, trench coat and top hats mimicking the character of Tony Montana in which, this way a connection with lyrics and visuals will be displayed (Goodwin's Theory).

Mise En Scene (MES):

Costume: All White, Tony Montana costume.

Colour: Their will be a consistent use of the colour white ONLY on the artist to represent the wealth and 'significance'. In addition to this, I would include the editing of making some of the scenes black and white to portray the time period of 'Scarface'

Lighting: High key, focusing on my artist to represent the iconic role being portrayed with the additional use of low key lighting which would represent that underground and 'illegal activity' atmosphere.

Setting: Their will be edits transitioning from three locations: Central London, mansion, underground area e.g. abandoned warehouse or under a tunnel.

Body language & Facial Expressions: The body language and facial expressions i will direct my artist to display would be the conventional 'cocky' and slouching posture, with exaggerated facial expressions that rap artist usually do as well as throwing hand gestures to represent their aggressive and flashy characteristics.

Iconography: Generally I will also use the cliched background atmosphere of attractive cars and objects (jewellery, drugs, clothes etc). For the use of drugs i will use a close up of a females lips with them smoking, to portray the idea of smoking weed.

Target Audience: 

• Ages from 16 - 30
• Both male and female
• Stereotypical black race who tend to prefer the genre of R&B/Hip Hop
• Occupation: C2 - E class

EMINE'S IDEA:
Song: Run this town – Jay-z ft. Rihanna & Kanye

Genre: Hip-Hop/ R&B

Narrative: I envision chaotic scenes that involve large amounts of fire and explosions. I want to work with the themes of gangs and violence. I imagine showing the youth as disruptive and taking a stand, showing that they are powerful. Personally I would like to focus more on the young females and using these stereotypical male-like themes to show them in a more empowered light. Whilst doing this I will also like to challenge the theory of Mulvey.

Narrative Structure: The narrative structure would be performance and concept. I will do this because all there will be slight narrative I still want it to come across slyly abstract and exciting for the target audience.

Characters: In my video I will use attractive young females however they will not fall into the conventions of the ‘male gaze’ theory. I will show them in a very masculine light so that it empowers them.

MES:
* All black clothing
* Black masks
* Low-key lighting (red, blue, white)
* Bats
* Gas/Smoke
Setting: Dark, urban streets and areas.

Application of theory:
* Will challenge Mulvey’s theory.
* I will involve intertextual reference of youth being disruptive and chaotic

Advantages:
* Mise en Scene would be easy to accomplish

Disadvantages:
* Things such as violence and disruptiveness and mayhem may be hard to achieve without harming anyone or getting into trouble.



AMANI'S IDEA:
Song: 67 (Dimzy, ASAP, Liquez, Smallz, Monkey and LD) Lock Arff REMIX

Genre: UK Trap

Narrative: A gang (67) do illegal activities and avoiding the police whilst doing so police tape off the road (lock off) as a result.

Narrative structure: Performance/Narrative based.


Characters: Performers (Dimzy, ASAP, Liquez, Smallz, Monkey and LD)
Police officers would also be needed.
Female back dancers.


MES:
* Tracksuits, hoodies, bomber jackets. (Black/dark clothing.)
* Ski mask/face wear.
* Police uniforms.
* Female clothing that plays on the male gaze.
* Contraband iconography. (Drugs and guns.)
* Low-key/Dim lighting.


Application of theory:
Laura Mulvey – The male gaze.
Dyer – Star Image.
Goodwin – Lyrics connected to visuals.


Advantages:
* Slow-paced instrumental and beats means slow paced editing. (Easier and still effective.)
* Slow lyrics mean easier lip syncing.
* Easy MES costume clothing.

Disadvantages:
* Swearing and explicit lyrics must be censored which dulls the effect of the music video. (No clean version to this soundtrack.)
* Multiple star performances means it’s harder to do the music video.
* It is hard to recreate illegal activity and the usage of real illegal items is banned during the risk assessment. Making it harder to link the visuals to the lyrics as we can display this.



Overall, this post was extremely significant due to the research I did and presented to my group to persuade them to use my idea. By listening to each other's ideas and giving feedback helped in improving each idea. We did this by giving advantages and disadvantages for each idea and also each giving out a questionnaire. The questionnaire was also used to show the people in my group that the audience agree with my idea and it ensured its success if it was to be chosen as the final idea. Later on, as a group, we realised that working in a group of 4 would be challenging due to a complex timetable that was inconvenient to all members of the group, therefore, I decided to work in a pair with Emine Ibrahim.