4. A shot that shows a link between lyrics and/or music and visuals
The lyrics that correspond with the screenshot from
Travis Scott’s ‘Butterfly Effect’ music video as he sings
the line “Hidden Hills, deep off in the main” is
matched. Singing about being within the hills suggests
his lavish and rich lifestyle with can be reinforced with
the car featured behind him, this is a demonstration of
this screenshot carrying the rap genre it just indulges in
the rapper flashing his materialistic items. But hidden
in the ‘hills’ suggests the rappers need for
exclusiveness as his popularity may interfere with his
everyday life, an example of this being paparazzi.
The lyrics that match for what the audience is visually seeing
includes “Ride with me, yeah you wish you could now” along
with our character within the music video singing into the
camera solo. Signifying to the audience that he is really on his
own and whoever the mystery character he is referring to
wishes they could stay with him, a explanation for the reason
they cant is unknown but as to why is apparent by his lifestyle.
As our characters persona comes across as very relaxed the
character our star is signing about misses this, moreover
without another character to fill in the possible storyline
makes it more mysterious to the audience into who it could be
about. This can have positive outcomes as listeners feel hooked
on the stars lifestyle outside of their music also.
5. A shot that typifies the way a record company
would want their artist to be represented
The record label would want to advertise their rapper within the
rap genre as someone who stands out and brings something
new and difference to the rest. With rap growing as a genre and
becoming more and more popular, rappers are now trying to be
more creative and unique with their style to attract attention.
This screenshot from A$AP Rocky's L$D music video represents
his brand image well. Being very smart with an edgy look to it.
Rocky's video includes plenty of close ups of the artist with him
wearing expensive clothing topped of with gold jewellery to
emphasise his wealthy lifestyle.
Codes and conventions of how a rap genre would want to
show off and promote their artists includes plenty of close
ups . Our screenshot includes our characters heavy
emphasis on his costume as it gives the audience an insight
into our own brand image. We wanted to represent our star
in a similar way as its different in regards to working with
female stars as they can have features such as hair and
makeup to emphasise their image, therefore we wanted to
focus on what the audience will be mostly visually seeing.
Having our star acquire a different look with vibrant colours
lead to it being more visually pleasing for the audience.
6. A shot that illustrates how your video uses music genre
Music video within the rap genre focus heavily on their
lifestyle, as rap as a genre people often sing about their
lives and what their lifestyle may consist. Post Malone's
congratulations music video is a perfect example of this
and the connotations around rap in general. As he sings
about his growth within his career we can visually see
the outcome of his wealth and popularity. The video
consists of Malone celebrating his life this can be
reinforced by the screenshot I have used where confetti
surrounds the two rappers featured within the video.
This shot illustrates how our music video uses the
music genre as it shows the overlay of the shot and
how the effects contribute to the visuals. After
studying many rap genre music video it is apparent
that many including our does contain some
performance element but also rely heavily on abstract.
With two visual images happening on one shot
adrenalates the audience. Alongside the unnerving and
unique atmosphere of the song and the video, forces
the audience to almost be in the same position and
mind-set of our star.
7. A shot that shows an intertextual reference
This particular shot shows how the camera follows our
star from one location to the next. We took inspiration to
many rap music videos as location is important within the
genre, mise en scene all have to complement each other
with costume and the message behind the video. Using
very clean with a slight urban feel help reinforce the
genre, the locations we chose for our music video was
very important to us. As we didn’t adopt a heavily
performance or narrative music video the visuals for the
audience had to be in depth and visually catching as
possible.
In chance the rappers “Same drugs” goes slightly
against his intertextuality of a male rapper. The video
includes pinkie colours with very little happening s the
star as adopted a performance structure video,
including him at the piano lip syncing the song.
However connotations and conventions of the genre
still remain surrounding the costume and props used by
the star. Chance wearing very urban clothing shows the
simplicity of the video he is trying to portray, however is
accompanied by an interesting and off almost toy by his
side keep the audiences interest.
8. A shot that demonstrates your use of camera
The shot we have selected to demonstrate the use
of our camera work is one of our star as the camera
turns into a 360 angle. We made sure we used a
variety of shots within our music video to keep it as
interesting as possible however chosen this
particular shot to stand out and its purpose was the
throw the audience to really deliver the type of feel
we were trying to achieve. With the overlay of Ben
and a location still demonstrates the visuals of the
genre and how the editing effected the video.
The camerawork within A$AP Rocky’s L$D
music video also confirms the
representation of male rap artists within the
gene. The shot I have selected shows off the
band image well and within the video close
ups are important alongside the costume. In
this video the camera work is used to
highlight the mind-set of the artists to help
the audience to see things how he does.
9. A shot that demonstrates your use of lighting
I used this shot to demonstrate the use of lighting in
A$AP’s video as it helps contrast the video well. With
dimly lit lighting in previous shots with neon lights
illuminating the shot, however with this particular
shot a brightly lit room full of lights allows us to focus
on the artist himself. Within this sequence of the
music video contains the star rapping into a mirror
therefore with less visuals pushes the audience to
focus on what the rapper is signing therefore pushing
the meaning and purpose of the song and the music
video further.
I chose a shot similar to our inspiration,
with the use of a bright room it aloud
the audience to really look at our star
for example bens rings. Using
naturalistic lighting made a change
from the neon lights featured
previously to keep the video more
visually different.
10. A shot that demonstrates your use of mise-en-scene
Travis Scott being our biggest inspiration due to
his complex videos and visuals. All aspects of
mise en scene correlate well across Travis's
videos as he expresses his brand image. Using
setting and location we would expect to see
from the genre, meeting the audiences
expectations.
In regards to mise en scene lighting was
one of our main keys, using a lot of neon
and illuminating lights therefore lighting
was important in emphasizing this. Lighting
was key in this shot I have selected of
merging shots of the location of New York
as these lights surrounded the camera
work giving the lively vibe for the
audience.
11. Two shots which you feel demonstrate something
which shows you have watched other music videos
“Ice tray” and “Sunday candy” are two shots that
demonstrate something we have watched in other music
videos as hey both represent a similar star we are. From the
start of our project we made sure that visuals were the
most important key to make a successful music video and
our video dwelled less on the narrative structure. As
previously mentioned we took great deal of the rapper
lifestyle into consideration when looking at other music
videos, the genre of our video can be carefully depicted
through the codes and conventions shown through their
videos. We used “ice tray” for costume idea and how we
could meet the intertextual references. “Sunday candy” we
used to help with the setting and location side.
One shot that we had watched in another music video
that we co operated into our video was Travis Scott “L$D”.
The song itself does hint drug use therefore made this
apparent by the use of flashbacks by Ben and the use of
odd angles and effects to further hinder this state of mind.
The other shot we used with outside effects of drawing
onto the shot while moving we saw on a pop genre song,
this being Justin Biebers “sorry” music video. Although this
was out of our genre we still wanted to watch a variety of
music video to gain as much knowledge of possible.
Justin's video gained wide spread popularity therefore we
attempted to corporate the same creativity.
