1. Cover sheet
‘Nicki Minaj’
‘Right Thru Me’
By Rachel Burton for ‘Billionaire Records’
Rachel Burton
Hartlepool Sixth Form College
Brinkburn, Blakelock Road
Hartlepool, TS25 5PF
15160110@hpoolsfc.ac.uk
2. Concept
The concept for this video will be focusing on the main artist who has broken up with her
boyfriend and is struggling to forget about him. The video will show different time zones one
where they are happy together, another where they are constantly arguing and then the
present where she’s on her own. The video won’t ever be clear as to why the couple have
broke up but we will see the deterioration of their relationship. The video will constantly show
her emotions at different times and it will be nonlinear and constantly flicking backwards and
forwards between different time zones. The video will use a lot of symbolic elements to show
what’s happened at to convey her emotions through it because the song isn’t always clear
about what's happening and could be made into a happy or a sad song, so I will convey the
deeper meaning and how I interpreted the song through symbolic items. The goal is to
create a video that will be relatable to a lot of people because everyone has been through
some sort of breakup before, which is why I’m not going to give it a clear meaning as to why
they’ve broken up or how the girl resolves her issue in the video to leave it open to the own
viewers interpretation of what they think happens next. It will also explore the idea that
people need their friends and family around them because she is alone in the video and she
keeps overthinking things and going a bit crazy about it because she’s been left alone for too
long to brood about him and why their relationship went wrong. Also the fact that he keeps
texting her and won’t leave her alone which is winding her up even more. The video will
include another actor in it who will be playing her boyfriend in the flashbacks but because the
song is about her we won’t get to see any of his story except when he was in the relationship
with her, which also shows that we won’t get to see as much about his personality and again
will be left up to the viewers to decide what he was like and have a guess at who’s fault it
was that they broke up.
Narrative and Performance
3. The narrative and performance will work together in this music video because while there
aren’t any choreographed dance numbers in this she will still be telling a story through her
actions. During the chorus there won’t be any lip syncing, except for the final one, because it
will be going back to show another flashback of the couple when they were happy together.
But during the rap verses there will be lip syncing because these verses will be used to show
the present and to continue the narrative as it is in the present. The video will not present the
girl as being voyeuristic or present her as most females are presented in music videos
because of the nature of the song, because she is stressing out and losing it a little bit, which
will also allow me to challenge the genre characteristics on the hip hop side because a
female would never be presented this way in any other hip hop element but because of the
pop element in it I can do this. I also think that if I were to do it to conforms to the genre
characteristics then it would take away from the narrative and the point that it’s trying to
make. For the narrative I have planned different shots of my main actor smashing things and
being very emotional to help show the story that I’m trying to create because the lyrics don’t
do that. There will be shots that show both the present and the past, I will use the past shot
to show what the pair were like in a relationship so people can see why she’s like this now,
and I will use the present to show that obviously they have broken up because she’s
smashing up pictures of them and to show that she’s very angry with him now and she’s also
very emotional. The narrative will be very minimalistic and will only clearly show that they’ve
broken up which leaves it to the audience's interpretation of why they have broken up and
what happened after the flashbacks to make her react like this.
Mise En Scene
The location for this video in the Flashbacks will be somewhere outside
(Parks,Beaches,Arcades) and for the present it will be mainly indoors
(House,Car,Bedroom), this is to show the changes in mood, when she’s with him
4. she's out having fun and enjoying life but when they’ve broken up and her mood has
changed she’s isolated herself from the rest of the world and everyone around her. In the
flashbacks the actors will be wearing very neutral colours depending on the weather,
obviously because I’m filming in winter and not summer they won’t be in shorts and T-shirts,
it will be jeans, boots, hats and scarves. But when it’s in the present she won’t have any
makeup on and her hair will be a bit messy and she will be in relaxing clothes like leggings
and a hoodie. The lighting will be very natural and low key for most of the video but when
she’s angry and stressing out I will incorporate some darker lighting. The only props that will
be used in my video are the Pictures and necklace that she’s going to break the rest will just
be natural and how it already was.
Camera and Editing Techniques
5. In the flashbacks of the couple the camera will stay at a normal page and use a variety of long shots
to close ups depending on whether I want to show their emotions or their movements. But when she
is smashing things up then the camera will go in slow motion to put emphasis on what she’s doing
and so it’s shown clearer and it gets the right effect that I want it to have. When she’s going towards
her har I will use a tracking shot to show it then when she slams the door shut I will use multiple shots.
When the couple are together I will use a shallow focus so only the two of them can be clearly seen to
put emphasis on how they feel about each other. When she is alone I will use both High and Low
angle shots to show what her mood is like. When she’s feeling better about the situation it will use a
low angle shot to make her look bigger, but when she is stressing out I will use a high angle shot to
show that she’s feeling very low and to make her look smaller so it seems that she’s not really in
control.
