Behind the Video: Micro Element #3: Amplification

Every Hip Hop artist is always looking to be portrayed as the finished article even if the themes in his/her songs are not pretty and perfect themselves. Thats why I feel it would be necessary to include a few hints to the audience that; although the images being presented may seem normal or realistic they are special because it happened to the artist themselves.

By 'glorifying' the bad experiences of our artist, we make them seem more connected to the evils of the world and more grounded as an individual. This is an attribute many music and film stars are often accused of forgetting once they become famous and adorned by many people world wide. Being able to bridge the gap between audience and artist is vital if the brand wants to last and create a stir with in the music world.

Behind the Video: Micro Element #2 - Fade Transitions

Here we see the cross between a close up shot of our artist a wide angle of
our artist, Ne-Yo.

The second element of many Hip Hop and R'n'B videos is the slow fade transition. We felt it should be included in our piece simply because our song has a real ethereal edge and would compliment the use of this flowing transition nicely. A wide array of videos use it usually to promote softer themes with in a video or to compliment the gentle nature of the song.

Behind the Video: Location Scoutting

Location of our performance

Our group decided that for the performance portion part of the video it would be good to get a simple white back drop with the to artists standing in-front of it. Our first and best choice was the school hall. We used the projector screen as the white back drop and used spotlights to increase the quality of the image.



Location of our narrative

Behind the Artist: Planning the Narrative

Idea 1

After facing financial struggle mikel seeks to find alternative and more deceptive routes for aquiring his payment. In order to do this he decides to fake a batch of drugs and sell them on for the usual price.

For a long time life seems to be OK, he has everything the money and financial happiness. Unfortunately the victim of the fraud soon realizes that he has been duped and seeks to kill the pesky drug dealer.

After this has happened, the victim gets his revenge however is over come with grief and cannot help but replay those moments over and over again. This then drives him to his end. 

Idea 2

Our main actor goes from drug dealer to done good musician, however can not help but maintain his drug dealing ways. This gets him into trouble in various ways and the story would progress.
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Narrative Choice
Our group have decided that idea one would be the best plot for our to video to follow as we feel it best suite the lyrics and pacing of the song.

Behind the Artist: Steve Archer: Narrative and Performance theory

Archer argues that every music video will switch between performance and narrative. 

He says that the video will contain a dance sequence or element of repeatability in it. Such as in the case of Soulja Boy's 'crank Dat' (www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UFIYGkROII )

He states that it is normal for the artist to be a part of the narrative as well as the performance, however extra emphasis will always be given on the artist carrying out his craft of music making to reinforce the idea that these guys or girls have a really close relation to their music. This kind of theory is mostly found in country and indie songs, as there is a strong emphasis on the lyrics and their meanings. For instance Taylor swift in this picture you can see has a real attachment to her instrument.

Behind the Artist: Andrew Goodwin - Illustrative, amplification and Disjuncture

Goodwin argues that a music video will take on any one of the three forms listed above. Music videos in our genre of hip hop may be typically illustrative meaning they aim to represent like for like what the lyrics are saying However this can vary given the fact that it is such a developing genre.

Behind the Artist: Todorov: Five stages theory

Todorov argues that there are five stages a music video will take from start to finish.

Behind the Artist: Driftin Away Lyrics

In order to better understand the messages and imagery trying to be portrayed in our song i felt it appropriate to write out the lyrics of our song and then analyse it.

Behind the Artist: Micro-Element #1: Emphasis on Narrative

As a group we decided that a strong emphasis should be place on the story of our song. With its strong imagery and entertaining metaphors I feel that we would be doing our song a disjustice if we were to take any other route.

Behind the Artist: Developing a Narrative

Narrative and Performance

As a group we decided it would be best of we all began to compile together an idea of what our video was going to be about. We did this in the form brainstorming ideas collectively as a group and  then noting them down on paper. We used the lyrics as an illustrative guide to help us create and develop an idea behind the whole story of the video.

Behind the Artist: Artists Image: Icons of Hip Hop

One of the most important factors when creating and image is to identify what makes an artist stand out form other artists in his/her genre and also to understand how that artist conforms to the regular conventions of the genre.

Every artists has their own unique style which we as an audience then associate to that singer. There are however styles that artists with in the same genre share. I have compiled this list of male hip hop artists to contrast and compare the differences and similarities.

Behind the Artist: Understanding Audiences: Theorists

There are various theorist who believe different things about the music industry and more importantly the videos they create. In the following posts i will list their theories and explain each of them in detail. In these posts you will find out about:

Todorov - Five stages Theory

Andrew Goodwin - Illustrative, amplification and Disjuncture

Steven Archer - 'Its mix of Narrative and performance' theory

Firth - 3 Broad Typologies theory

John Berger - Method in the Madness Theory

Vladimir Propp - Fairy Tale Theory

Behind the Artist: Creating Stronger Brand Identity

In order for our artist to be successful he must create a strong bond with his audience. Creating bonds is usually done through the artist attending events and performing at special charity events. While these are more aggressive forms of promotion for the artist there are still some promotional activities that should be undertaken online in order to spread the word of this mans music.

Behind the Artist: Understanding Audiences: Audience Theory

An audience can come in a few different forms, I will describe and analyses them in this post.

 1. HYPODERMIC SYRINGE THEORY
This theory says that we as an audience take our media product as we are given it, and don't complain or dictate what kind of media we consume.

Here Katy is being portrayed as a fun loving young girls who is trying new things. The shot is tinted orange making her seem warm and beautiful.

In one of her later videos she is representing herself as being a strong independent, and quite masculine figure. This change is something that we may to implicate with the difference being between our artist and the past version of himself. The color scheme is colder and more linear making her environment seem harsh and unforgiving. It is also quite clinical possibly giving the impression that her lie is much clearer now.

2.TWO STEP FLOW

This is the theory that describes how an active member shares a media product with a passive audience member and hopefully creates another active audience member and then the cycle continues. This theory also includes the distribution of a media product in general.

In order for our music video to be successful with our audience we need to find some real opinion leaders for instance similar musicians, radio stations and TV channels.

Here we see T4's website. This is a music and movie programme aimed at a teen age group. All of the content and celebrities on here are current and up to date, we as consumers use this programme as a source for the music and film that we are interested in. What makes this a two step flow is that the presenters who are celebrities in there own right are on the show condoning the product that the singer or actor is trying to plug.




INNOCULATION THEORY
This is the idea that we as an audience can create an intolerance to certain media products.



COMPASSION FATIGUE

This is the theory that says an audience can be exposed only so much to a media product before they become tired of it.

Some Journalists had said this on compassion fatigue:

  "Journalism analysts argue that the media has caused widespread compassion fatigue in society by saturating newspapers and news shows with often decontextualized images and stories of traedy and suffering. This has caused the public to become cynical, or become resistant to helping people who are suffering."

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compassion_fatigue

This post is unfinished!

Behind the Video:Top 5 locations of a Hip Hop Video

This post will look into the most common settings for any Hip Hop video. As always any other suggestions would be more than appreciated.

Behind the Artist: Possible Radio Station

There are many platforms for us as a groups to distribute our music for instance TV, the internet and CD, but we think that the radio would be a really useful platform to advertise our music on. In this post I will look into which radio stations would best suite our style of music.