Textual Analysis

Textual Analysis

In this textual analysis I am going to analysis a song by The Wanted called 'I Found You' which was directed by Chris Marrs Piliero. This song by the Wanted genre is pop. I have chosen to analyse this song as it is completely different to our chosen song for our music video, so I wanted to see how different it actually was. I can tell This is a Pop Video by the flickering of different scenes one moment it is the guys walking to go save the women, then jumps to her been tied up and then it goes to another scene of them with her the night before. You can also tell it is a pop video by the long and medium shots that are used. An example of this is the band walking outside towards the house where the girl is. However there then are close ups used on the girl to show her emotions.


Through out this video music lyrics and visuals are hardly used. You think that the lead singer (Nathan) is singing about the girl, to the lyrics 'I found you' which would then go with lyrics to visuals however they are actually singing about a box that they find at the end. Lyrics and Visuals are used right at the end when they find the box in the river and the lyrics are as simple as ' I found you in a river' at the point in the video they are pulling a box out of the river.

 

With the relationship between the music and visuals, there are a few points to illustrate one of them would be when it is a quick beat in the song they are walking in sync, with the beat. This is to show they are in a hurry. Another example would be when Nathan (the lead singer) goes in to kiss the girl and as soon as he does the bass drops perfectly to the kiss. Also in the this scene it looks like it is going in slow motion, although it never actually slows down, they do this as it attracts the audience and makes them want to carry on watching. Then as the beat picks up the kiss happens.

 

When it came to research, I looked up the wanted on Google and I found out that The Wanted do not have anything they do the same in all there videos. There is nothing in particular apart from them always having girls in there videos. This could be down to the director wanting them to look a certain way and also a way of coming across to the audience. During this video and other videos of theirs The Wanted usual have a girl, they are either after, wanting or losing them. With this song The Wanted are after one girl, as she has the key to safe which has the diamonds in. However the women is still shown in a sexual way, this can be shown through both the outfit she is wearing in the video and that she is tied up.

 

Lastly the area I looked in to was what the type of music video it was. There are three types to choose from: Narrative (a video that follows a storyline), a performance based (artist performing there song to the camera), or a concept based (message behind the song). ‘I found you is’ is not a performance based video as the are not singing to the camera or dancing, however they do mime, but I would not count it as a performance video. It also is not a Narrative video as the song does not go with the word until the end. So I would say it is a concept based music video as there is a message behind the video and you find out at the end what it was.

 

 

 

 

9 shot analysis

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9 shot analysis from JessTarling

Secondary Market Research

Secondary Research

After we had gave out our Questionaire and Filmed a few different people to create our VoxPot. We then moved onto to do our secondary Research; we decided to go onto Youtube and see what others had to say about videos in the same genre as ours.

Whilst doing this we discovered a variety of different views, such as when we searched 'Stupid Hoe' By Nicki Minaj, it did not give us very good comments which could and couldn't help us. But it did show us a lot of people dislike her because of her songs saying she is untalented. A few comments were:
'Nicki, Why you so fake?' This shows us if the music video shines some one is a way which doesn't approve to the audience and makes them think the artist isnt being real then they will not enjoy the video.
Also a comment said 'I don't even have words to describe this sh** is poising my ears' With comments like this mean if someone doesn't like the song it will effect the outcome of the video. The picture to left shows a few comments from youtubers and even though the song is not very new it still recieves bad comments. But out of all the coments there is one who seems like a fan because she has told all the haters if they hate Nicki Minaj why are they listening to it. This video did not show much good feedback; which meant it didn't help us a lot except it showed us if the audience does not like the song or artist it will not get a good reaction when the video comes out. The gender was averagly mixed and ages started from 15 - 27

Another video we looked at was 'Love the way you lie' By Eminem And Rihanna. This song recieved a much different reponse fromt the audience. The two artsits coming together was a great success because they are very popular and have a very big fan base. A few comments on this video were  "EMINEM LEGEND BEST RAPPER EVERRR!!!" this was actually posted 5 minuets before researching which means this song is still popular around the world and still gets listened too. This comment was posted by a Boy aged around 12-15. Also looking at other videos he has watched have been other Eminem, Chris Brown, Ne-yo and Rihanna songs which means he is a fan of hip hop songs.

This was another comment on the video which was done by a male around the age of 20 from brazil who is a fan of the song and loves Eminem; You can see this in the picture to the right because of the comment posted and also it has been added to a playlist called Top Tracks for Eminem.                                                                   

 

The third song we looked at was Nig*** in Paris by Jay Z And Kanye West. This song is also very popular because of the collaboration involved. To very big rappes come together to make an audience favourite. The comments on this video shows more good feedback then bad. Even though there is a lot of comments about illumination (which Jay Z and Kanye are involved in) some people enjoyed the video. There is one comment which says "Hate the video but love the song" This is different from other comments cause most people like both but from this fan he doesn't. This was from a Girl/women aged in her teens.

 

 From the research done through music videos on youtube it is easy to notice if a lot of people like th artist or song they will like the video; but if the audience hate the artist they won't care if the video is good they will just keep there thoughts about the artist and relate them to the video. Audience who like Hip hop/ Rap songs are mixed between Men and Women. The age is also mixed between teenagers from 15 to adults to 29.

 

Costumes & Make Up

Costumes and Make-up

For our music video we researched into others that are in the same genre as ours which is Hip-hop Rap. We noticed a lot of female artists such as Nicki Minaj and Rihanna use bold and statement makeup. They make there eyes very viberant and stand out. For men artists they do not use make up. Even though our artists are men; and we are women playing men we decided we shouldn't be wearing make up. Except for some shots we have put Hannah with some bright eye shadow and lipstick we have choose Bright Pink because it is a colour that stands out very well on camera. We decided to put her make up because she does alot of the lip syncing and it stands out well. We also have two raps in our song and Lauren and Hannah rap those. The first rap is done by Hannah in a forest and she has no make up except lip tattoos, with leapord print effect. This was to give a wide life feeling towards to forest and the animal masks that have been used in this scene by the extras around the table. We use the animal masks in various scenes throughout the video.

Costumes do not change dramatically in the scenes, it mostly bagging clothings; such as tracksuit bottoms, hoddies and baggy tops. This is to add the man side to the video because it is men rappers. Many of hats are used in this video to add a random side to it. Beanie, fur, snapbacks, swimming and shower caps are used.

For the running rap scene which Lauren does she wears sports wear; such as running leggings and a football shirt.

9 Shot Analysis

Watchtower - Devlin Feat Ed Sheeran

For my nine shot analysis I have choose to do Watchtower by Devlin feat Ed Sheeran, this is a rap-hip&hop song which is in the same genre as the song we have chosen.

Contacting Our Artist.

When choosing our artist we knew they were not well know and didn't expect to be able to contact them. But with having social network sites it was easy to find them on there and contact them through one of our own personal accounts. We sent a message to Das Racist from Lauren's Account explaining where we were from and what we needed there track for. Also asking for permission. This is what the message looked like;

We will now wait and see what there answers are. If we do not recieve a message within a week we will take there answer as a Yes!

Shooting At Our Third Location.

Good and Bad Points of Shooting.

This scene was the most difficult to sort out; this was because we were faced with different challenges to get done before shooting. These challenges were before we arrived on location and during. These were:

• Getting enough extras to be in the shoot 
• Timings- It was hard to judge when the lighting would change dramatically 
• Everyone getting to the location
• Enough food to use more than once in the shoot
• Smoke bombs working
• Getting everything to the location.
• neighbors being angry 

All these problems were solved during the course of the day. Getting extras was difficult because we had friends saying they could do it but pulling out at the last minuet which meant we had to get new people quickly. The lighting and timings worked out by its self because we started at 3 and finished by 5 o'clock which meant by the end it was only just getting dark. The people we had got to help could drive which made it easier for people to get around and to the location. Before coming to the location a few of the people in the shoot went to a local Tescos to buy some cakes, sweets and jelly. This all worked out to have enough for the extras to use. The smokes bombs were one of our biggest troubles because they would not last very long during the scene at the table this meant we could only film it about once which was not an option for us because we needed to film it more then once, we decided we wasn't going to use the smoke bombs during the table scene but instead use them in another scene during the forest which we decided on the day. Getting everything to location was easier then anticipated because Lauren's house was the very close, and taking the tables, chairs and props was very easy because we had enough people. Also having one of the extras Emily living very close to helped as well because if we had forgot something we quickly access one of these homes to get it. Lastly we thought we would get complaints from neighbors because they lived next very close, to stop this we knocked on the closest houses and asked if they would mind and luckily they said it was fine.

The good points of the shoot was the location because it had easy access to the forest and everyone could get the stuff we needed in there. The weather turned out alright and it didn't rain; which meant we did not have to reschedule. The people we had got worked out and it didn't look bad. Also being able to use the forest without any complaints. Also the props went good with the theme and worked with the masks. Lastly using two cameras meant we were to receive double amount of footage which meant it didn't use a lot of time.

There are two things that would have been changed would have been to have given extras enough time to be able to do the shoot and to get more smoke bombs or none at all, this is because they did not last very long which meant we didn't get a lot of shots with the smoke. 

The Third Location.

The Forest

Our third location was in a forest near Lauren's house, this was to give a change in the usual scenes we have filmed in so far and change the atmosphere of the song. We used this forest and placed a table in the middle and covered it with food, sweets and random objects. This was used to have four extras to be placed around the table with there masks on and Hannah rapping one of the raps sitting at the end and also getting on top of the table.

The forest was very spacious and could be used in different ways. There was open areas to place the table and there was also areas with trees and bushes to use for a more enclosed scene. We didn't know what to expect on the first visiting to the forest; we didn't know if it was going to be over grown which meant we couldn't use it or was to empty and not usable. Luckily when checking it out we realised it was perfect for what we needed to film.

Animatics

To help illustrate our music video, we have created an animatic, playing our song to the moving image of our story board. Below is our Animatic video:

Target Audience Questionnaire results.

Results

 

From the results we got from the questionaire, we asked 15 different people and above are a few results. It showed majority were females aged in the teens and early twenties. It also showed they were fans of Hip hop and rap songs. And enjoy listening to them more then other artists.

Shooting photographs

Squash Courts Shooting Take One!

On the second day of shooting we went to Montem Leisure's Squash courts. The first photo is of Lauren getting a close up of Hannah's face with the mask on. The second is where people stand to watch the game, but we used it to film birds eye view shots. The third photo is Jessica helping Hannah with the hat and putting the phone in the hat so Hannah could hear the song. Fourth photo is of the actual squash court and the space we used. Lastly a photo of the tripod ready to shot and all the belongings pushed to the side so no one could fall. 

codes and conventions in music videos

The genre I have chosen to analyse is Hip Hop. I have selected two music videos to help me understand the codes and conventions within this genre.

In Hip Hop music videos the location is usually set in a party, or a club with the use of alcohol shown and no narrative, money is also shown in shots normally being thrown up in the air. The artist is usually focused on and very involved in the video, showing off their expensive jewellery with attractive women around them and close up showing off their assets, establishing shots and long shots are also used to show the location and what is going on around them.

I chose to analyse Lil Wayne- 6 Foot 7 Foot this Hip hop Music Video challenges the codes and conventions, for a Hip Hop Video. Throughout this Video, it is narrative everything Lil Wayne sings the mise en scene is shown establishing what is going on. However it is stereotypical when there is alcohol shown and also money being thrown up in the air. This video is focused on Lil Wayne and no one else however there is scenes which involve other female dancers, but they are in the background and only briefly shown.
There are lots close ups of Lil Wayne’s face to show that he is the main focus of the video.

The Video is set in fewe locations which are forming to the stereotype for Hip Hop Videos. Establishing shots are used to show these, such as the bathroom, the streets and in a big white room. Artificial Lightning is then used in most scenes as they are inside, an example of this is when he is a completely black room with no light and then a light appear above him showing his face and a punching bag.

The other Hip Hop Video I chose to analyse was 2 Chains ft Drake- No lie, this video confirms to the codes and conventions of a Hip Hop video.


There is no storyline in this video, Drake and 2 Chains are rapping throughout the video, whilst girls are dancing around them. A lot of cut aways are used to jump to different scenes. There is an establishing shot to show that it is in a house as you see sofas and chairs.

The only part that is challenged is that it is all un black and white, with Hip hop videos it is normally bright clothing.

 

Primary Research -Questionaire

For our primary research we have decided to add a questionaire to get a wider range of answers for our Target Audience. Here is the questionaire made.

Primary Research- VoxPot

Our VoxPot!

To start of with our primary research task we have interviewed a variety of different people to see what they say to the following questions:

1. Age & Name?
2. Favorite Genre?
3. Favorite Artist?
4. Favorite Rap song or Artist?
5. Favorite Hip-hop Song or Artist?
6. Where do you watch music videos?
7. Is there a song which inspires you?

After looking into the answer we received from the vox pot we discovered a few points:

• The potential audience is mainly female 
• aged 13 upwards
• Eminem, Rihanna and R.kelly is liked by many people
• A few people get inspired by songs but some are not in the genre we have chosen 

Introduction to Target Audience.

Target Audience

When figuring out the target audience for a music video, it is good to look into other music videos of the same genre. Music Videos should be entertaining for the audience and they should stay interested in and not get bored.

In any music industry the company would have to establish the target audience there video would appeal to. And what channels they want there video to be shown on.

The song we have chosen to do is "You Oughta Know" By Das Racist. They are signed onto a record company called Greedhead; other acts which are associated with this label are Keepaway, Lakutis, Big Baby Gandhi and Mayhem Lauren. 

Our song is a hip hop - rap song and some of the conventions we are conforming to are: 

• Close ups of the artists face- This is to show upbeat emotions on faces
• Long establishing shots; this will show the audience where the artist is.
• Doesn't follow Story line- this is a convention of a hip hop video. 
• Artist rapping and singing to the camera
• Clothing be quite outrageous -We are using a lot of outrageous hats and mens clothing, but also loose and baggy
• Variation of Camera angles
• Editing cuts

A few conventions we are challenging are: 

• Normally hip-hop or rap songs use fancy locations, we have choose to challenge this to show the crazy mind
• Use of props- Instruments, microphone and jewelry.- because our song is not performance based

Over the years hip-hop and rap have become more well known and joined together to feature in different artists songs. Hip hop artists could include Chris Brown, T-pain,  Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj,  Drake and Rihanna. Alot of these artists have joined together to create songs. Even though Rap has its own genre as well; there are well known rappers who are associated in the genre of hip-hop and known as Hip-hop Rappers. These include Eminem, Jay-Z, Kanye West. A lot of hip-hop and rap songs are based on life experiences, Eminem is a good example because it all of his raps he mostly adds the names of his children and there  mums and wives. 

When thinking about what channel our music video would be played on would be quite difficult because our song and artist is not well known to the public. Where as the other artists (above) are well known are popular with the public. These artists are played on television on all different channels, including MTV, 4MUSIC, VIVA, KISS, FLAVA & STARZ

for our music video we would be hoping to have our video start on small channels like STARZ  until it becomes well known and starts to get into music charts such UKTOP40 this will mean it will be played more on channels such as MTV, 4MUSIC and VIVA. 

During this process of figuring out the target audience for our music video we will be looking into Primary Target Research and secondary. Our primary sources will be interviewing members of the public to see what music they listen to and where they watch them. 

From our own knowledge Hip-hop Rap genres is normally targeted to the younger generation and late twenties. Normally from 14-26. 

First Day Filming.

First Filming Session 

02/10/2012

When we decided to figure out how and where to start with our music video, we decided to start at the beginning and go to Montem Leisure Center. This was to film our opening which we choose would be us jumping into the pool. When we got there we had to wait till the pool was empty from the previous woman's only session and fill out a consent form to film in the pool. On this consent form we had to write down the names involved, what it was for and date/time.
When we got into the changing village of the pool, we got changed into our mens clothes and choose the hat we wanted to use. A change we made in the costumes was to swap the idea of wearing tutus to mens clothes to seem similar to the actual artist, Because when we looked at them we saw they wore a lot of shirts, tracksuit bottoms, baseball jackets and hats. (Hats included beanie, snapbacks and fur).
We moved into the pool, but realized the pool we were going to use which was the baby pool was actually to shallow and we wouldn't be able to jump in that pool without getting injured. This meant we had to move into the pool next to it which was the teaching pool and was deeper. We then organized who was standing where and which way we were jumping in. Jess was at the back running forward, Lauren was jumping from the left and Emily (A friend) came from the right. We tried out a variety of different shots to give us enough footage. We then moved onto close ups of faces jumping and then added the singing parts of us in the pool coming from the water. We also filmed above the water looking down in a birds eye view of us under the water saying "lalalalala". We repeated this shots few times and then changed to squirting water out of our mouths to slow down when we get it on the editing stages.

From the teaching pool we moved into the main pool which was much more deeper this allowed us to swim a length with Hannah filming from the end to get us approaching we choose to do this on the night because it gave us extra footage and would let us see what it would look like when we got to the editing stage. When we got to the end of the pool we decided to get a shot from behind of the three of us jumping into the pool.

We were told a life guard would have to be on duty while we film this to stick to the rules. This was good because Gareth was a friend of Lauren's and when doing our story board we needed to add a big splash and decided to use him, we got a few shots of him doing a back flip of the life guard chair, which Lauren did aswel; also we got him to run and jump in to make a huge splash. These were the last shots so we moved out of the swimming pools and back to dry off.

Conventions of Rap

Risk Assessment

Above is the risk assessment we put together for the different places we are going to which could cause risk to our selves or the camera equipment. 

• In the swimming pool; we could be faced with the camera falling in the pool and breaking and we could be in risk by slipping over and hurting ourselves. To prevent this from happening we could keep a good distance from the pool and camera and also walk carefully around the pool. 
• When using the Squash court we could easily fall over and hurt ourselves; this could be prevented by wearing suitable footwear.
• When we film the first rap stage which is in the forest we could be at a risk of splinters and falls this will be solved by watching where we walk and be careful around the equipment. 
• St Leonard's hill is the last scene which we have a the second rap, because someone will be in the back of the car filming the person running, we are faced with the risk of dropping the camera from the back of the car and falling or getting hit by another driver. The best way to solve this is to strap the equipment and watch where we will be running and chose a safe place to film. 

All this risks have level of risk starting from Low-Medium-High. Above will show you what we have choose to level these risks. 

Shot List

Planning And Organisation

To prepare for our music video, Lauren had to get in contact with her manager and Montem Leisure Centre. This was to get permission to use the pool after closing time.

First Email Sent:

Manager Response:

Second Email:

Managers Final Message:

Our Last Message:

Auteur Theory - Hype Williams

Auteur Theory
Auteur Theory translates as 'author' which means that a directors film reflects their creative vision. Not every music video director has earnt the title of an Auteur. One director who has however, is Hype Williams.

Below we will be comparing two songs of which the video has been directed by Hype Williams. We will be looking for similarities between the two which will show the signature of Hype Williams, that will be included in either all, or most of his videos.

The two videos we are analysing is 'Stupid Hoe' by Nicki Minaj and 'We R Who We R' by Ke$ha.

With these two videos they are very simular, they both use bright colours, jump to different scenes, this involving short cut scenes where you will see one thing for less than a second and see another scene taking place at the same time.
Mise en Scene
This involves everything we see i.e settings, props costumes and lighting.
In Nicki Minaj it is filmed in a big room, a cage, on a giant chair and in a car.
To compare, the Ke$ha video also uses a car, but unlike Nicki Minaj, Ke$ha uses 'normal/realistic' props such as a DJ set. Although Nicki Minaj's video is inside and Ke$ha's is outside, both artists/auteur's use a large space to film.
Throughout both videos, the aueteur's signature is also visible through costume. I.e. minimal, extravagant clothing. It is also clear that Hype Williams focuses on big eye-makeup.
Another similarity between the videos is he lighting- both use artificial lighting e.g strobes and bright unnatural lights.

Camera Work
Hype Williams likes to use close-ups to the artist's faces, normally with them singing the words; this also shows the make up they have on because these two artists like to wear a lot of over the top make up. He also uses long shots in both videos to establish this is to show to locations; this is also to use in his editing techniques. The Auteur has used very similar shots   such as close ups, extreme close ups and medium shots. Even though these are common shots he using editing techniques to change the shots and make them interesting. 

Editing
Hype Williams has used different editing techniques which are very similar in these videos. The first one is he loves using is flickering between different clips and other lapping them. In Kesha's music video he uses clips of her, cars racing and people dancing. Nicki Minajs music video uses clips mostly of her and her body parts including her bum; There is also clips of her using dancers but aren't being seen by the audience.