Analysis of existing products - Eduardo Pereira

The two music videos that I will be looking at are Kanye West`s Gold digger video and the TI live your life video. In this essay I will be looking at its conventions and subversions to its genre and what makes it appeal to the audience and also be relating these to my own creative choices. The Kanye West video follows the conventions due to the fact that it meets the genre requirements such as the use of objectification of women as this meets the audience theories of gratification as well as others such as belonging for the target audience.

There is also the use of Todorov`s theory used as in the video narrative there is an equilibrium, disruptor and a new equilibrium so this keeps the audience engaged throughout. The use of aspiration in the video is evident as it is presented in a manner to make it aspirational to men, for them to want to have that money and the lifestyle, whereas for women it creates generally a negative effect and image as within the hip hop industry they are viewed in an idealized and objectified manner and as gold diggers in looking for famous rap stars. The Laura Mulvey supports the fact that women are generally objectified and are at the centre of the male gaze, this also provides a sense of escapism from the target audiences own lifestyle.  

So for our own chosen music video of A Silent film – Sleeping dogs we are not looking to objectify women in our video as our genre differs in the expected content of the video, so we are going to be more focused on a more serious narrative as our video focuses on a corruption/Government element more.

The other video that I have chosen is TI Live Your Life; this is another song that is within the Hip-Hop/RnB industry, the conventions that the videos shows many type of aspects of the Hip Hop genre e.g. The clothes used, this is something that again in our video we will not be concentrating too closely on as in our genre as the target audience aspires to have a similar lifestyle of the artist in the video e.g. playing the guitar and being a musical artist whereas in the Kanye west and TI video the aspiration focuses much more on the lifestyle, clothing and women. The video of TI focuses much more on narrative so it ends up subverting in the fact that it does not objectify women in the video apart from at times they put Rihanna whose featuring in the video and focus her at the centre of the male gaze.

Due to the video being much more narrative based video it does not focus on money or women the conventional Hip Hop topic so for our video we are taking a similar approach as we are focusing on the narrative much more and sending a message in the video e.g. The effect of the government and corruption, whereas TI it is to live life. This also shows that the video is using the Todorov’s theory much more with the equilibrium in the video.

The video also uses elements of Dyer theory as it has a sense of belonging in terms of the lifestyle being lived e.g. Poor negative environment and having to be in gangs etc and sell drugs for a living, but it contrasts in that it shows a different lifestyle if you avoid the gangs and drugs etc, this is something’s that in our video can be effective as we can shows the affects and changes of corruption and not.

The video though still gratifies the audience even though it doesn’t focus on the bragging of their rich lifestyle or the objectification of women as it represents a lot of their lifestyles before they become rich so it relations to the Dyer theory of belonging. This is something that we intended to create an effect of, to make sure that we are able to make the target audience relate to the issue and have a sense of belonging.

The two videos that I have chosen have certain similarities to what our video has to include despite the difference in genre, so the use of clothing and typical features would have to be used effectively so this would include things such as instruments etc, these aspects symbolize the genre. There should also be things such as aspiration for the target audience to be used as well as the majority of audiences should be used in the video effectively e.g. Dyers Theory.

Analysis of existing products and how they are going to effect our video - Joe Wilkinson

Two Door Cinema Club – Sun

The narrative to this music video is very similar to the type of narrative that we want our video to encompass. The sense of community is strong in the video; it has many long shots to show all the band members. This shows that they have a strong bond, but it also shows who the front man of the group is and much like our video we want the lead singer of the band to be acting in the story driven section of our video 

This video offers a huge sense of escapism as we are taken out onto the sea front where everyone seems very happy and everything is bright and colourful. This conforms to what an audience would stereotypically expect to see in a light hearted indie song. We are going to try to subvert this convention; we will still have a narrative but instead of having it start bright and with an equilibrium we are going to have it start with a disequilibrium, something that the our protagonist will have to overcome  in order to reach his equilibrium. This will firstly entice the audience into watching the video all the way through in order to discover the protagonists own utopia, his equilibrium. In order to not subvert too far away from stereotypical indie videos we are still going to have a very confirmative performance section that will show the bands sense of community and will hopefully get the audience to become a part of that community.

There is little in order of camera movement in the video especially when we see the band performing all together, this is because they want the audiences gaze to be focused on the band performing again keeping their attention and creating a sense of community.

An aspect of the video that has personally appeal to me the old fashioned feel to it, It offers something new for the audience rather than the abundance of videos that try to include so much modern technology. We aren’t going to use this as a main theme in our video but I would like to weave it into our video just to offer a little something new.

Beastie Boys - Intergalactic

The sense of community is the main thing that will apply to our video, during the video every shot has the band performing together. Of course we aren't going to have every shot having the band performing together but the way that they use this to create a utopia, somewhere where the viewer can escape, as they are exploring the streets with them. The use of direct address also compliments this, again when ever the band is lip synching they are looking directly at the screen. This is something we are going to re-create in our video as we want to establish that connection between us and the audience.

This music video doesn't start with the track playing stright away, instead it has a sequence in order to set up the narrative of the video, it also includes ambient sounds. This is something we are really strong on including in our piece. We want the use of traffic and siren to help establish the setting which is going to be a city (London) and the use of these noises will give us the busy feel that we want the audience to get from watching. This will links in with audience segmentation theory, as using these sounds will appeal to a wider range of people from different class's as everyone can relate to those everyday sounds. It also links to one of Mill's power elites, which is escapism. The audience can escape from their boring city work life's and instead take their everyday enviroment and make it more exciting for them.

Places we intend to film - Eduardo Pereira

Places we intend to film on Prezi

Mood Board - Joe Wilkinson

Above are 10 images that give an overall representation of what is going to be include in our music video. I have included 2 pictures of a 3 piece band, this isn't the band that wrote the song we are using, but both have similar styles that we want to re-create when piecing together our band. Our band will include more diversity than the band pictures, as we want people to see that we are a modern band that has the ability to attract different cultures to play.
Included are pictures of famous London landmarks, we are going to include these in our video to create audience recognition, as the video will be filled with places audiences wouldn't of seen before, we wanted to balance it out with very familiar places. This will help our video appeal to larger audiences as these landmarks are famous all around the world.
The coat coupled with the outfits the bands are wearing is a similar style to what we want to achieve when doing our music video.

Production Schedule - Eduardo Pereira

Treatment - Joe Wilkinson, Ishmael Martin, Eduardo Pereira

Treatment - By Joe Wilkinson

A Silent Film - Sleeping Pills                

                                              

The target audience for our video is going to be both male and female viewers aged from 15-25, we have chosen this target audience because this is the audience that listens to this type of music as it is conventional pop.

The video for the track is going to be focused primaraly on Performance making more of an amplification video, However there are going to be elements of narrative in the video, this is to drive the video and to stop it from getting too dull for the audience. Our narrative is simply going to be a man walking through london as a he reads his paper and in each different section it will have the band playing in real time. Using clever editing we hope to be able to zoom up on the band playing, this also gives us the opportunity to use a wide range of settings.

We are hoping to shoot in london, but more derilict parts of London this is because we want to include strong iconography. The main theme of the song is government, therefore instead of using government buildings in the video as that might be hard to get permission for, instead through the use of broadsheet newspapers, costumes and props we hope to create the atmosphere of being in a governmental area of London that has elements of government.

We are going to use a blank room to record the band playing to start off, and as the holder of the paper turns into different sections, they band will be there. For example in the political section we can use a boardroom, or in the sports section we can have gym or some example of a sports team.

Comments

Ishmael - I like the idea of filming in london and using unused train/tube stations to indicate where our protagonist is living as he is on the run from the government. The only thing i don't agree with is the newspaper part as I think could be boring. 

Eduardo - The idea of the setting being in London I think is a good one as it helps create narrative and creates the idea of why they are against the government. The use of unused train or tubes stations I think helps show the protagonist and whats he's going through as he's against the government. I believe the newspaper also helps creates narrative and adds creativity and a possible reason to why they are against the government e.g. media.