2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media products?
We took a lot of inspiration from the original Azonto music video, we attempted to copy certain angles, shots, locations and mise en scene to show a clear link
between the two videos. However we have changed certain aspects to fit our college surroundings, budget and the time period in which to make the video e.g.
some outfits, some locations etc. although our music video is very similar to Fuse ODG’s original video it does challenge some of the media conventions of classic hip
hop videos which I will discuss via screen shots.
All the screen shots below are comparing our own music video and the original Azonto video.
This shot is our establishing shot for the entire video and we included it to set
the tone for the rest of the video. However we chose to change the colour of
the text to yellow as this colour fitted in with the outfit we dressed our Fuse
actor in and the colour reflects the African culture Fuse is alluding to. We also
chose to use yellow as it is one of the main colours in our colour scheme for
our Digi pack and magazine advertisement to show a clear link with all our
media products e.g. music video, Digi pack, magazine advert.
This shot is an extreme close up of a dancers feet free styling, we thought this
particular shot was very effective in the original video so we took inspiration
from it and used it in our video. However we did change the shoes that the
dancer is wearing as those shoes are around £120, and this is not within our
budget so we compromised and asked one of our dancers to bring there own
trainers.
This shot is a close up of Fuse, we decided to include this shot as close ups are
used to promote the artist and make the audience form a connection with
him. Also due to the fact Fuse ODG isn't a very well known artist these close
ups could be to allow the audience to recognise the artists face and create a
brand image for him using motifs which reoccur across his videos, similar to
creating a brand image so fans can easily recognise him (Andrew Goodwin).
Also we thought including close ups of Fuse were very important as it gives
him a sense of individuality and shows he is the main artist as he has the most
close ups and single shots.
3. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media products?
This shot, in the original video, shows a masked dancer outside an art gallery
performing the Azonto dance moves. We thought this choice of location was
very effective and we planned on using the famous art gallery in York city
centre, however whilst doing our location scouting we discovered the art
gallery was under construction and had a plastic sheet masking the whole
front of the building so we had to change our location to the Yorkshire
Museum in the Museum Gardens in the city centre.
This shot shows a large group of people dancing and partying with Fuse in
what looks like an unused basement. It was very hard to find a location like
this within our time scale and that was easily excisable for lots of dancers so
we used the photography studio in college and found props in the back room
e.g. a graffiti door, spotlights, an old tv etc to make our location look more
urban and inviting.
This shot shows the two masked dancers that feature throughout the video
dancing in an underground car park. We decided to keep the location as
college has a multi-storey car park so this location was easy find and was
reasonably empty depending on the time of day. However we did choose to
change the dancers outfits as we wanted to emphasise the difference
between the mysterious masked dancers dressed in black, and the bright
colourful happy dancers.
4. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media products?
Most hip hop music videos that I researched tend to have a narrative structure
e.g. a story line where a girl and boy break up (Akon – Lonely) (Kanye West –
Heartless) or drug and alcohol abuse. However our music video doesn’t have a
clear storyline or narrative as its all about the dance culture involved within hip-
hop and the African culture. The choice to not include a narrative challenges the
normal convention of hip-hop music videos greatly as the vast amount of videos
(hip-hop and most other genres) I researched have a clear story line that
develops throughout the video normally relationship related. However our
music video doesn’t develop a clear story line our narrative does develop using
Tzventa Todorovs theory as our video starts off with Fuse by himself walking
down a dark alley, then a disequilibrium occurs where he is joined by a few
other dancers and then progresses to the new equilibrium where fuse is joined
by a large group of dancers all together concluding the video showing everyone
happy and dancing as a large group.
Another common convention of hip hop music videos is the utilisation of Laura
Mulveys theory ‘the male gaze’ this theory depicts the female to bean object of
male desire, where men want a woman like the female in the video, and
females want to look and be like the female in the video. We decided to utilise
this theory in our video as its such a common convention within the hip hop
genre. In our music video we have the actor Tiffany (who's is featuring in Fuse
ODG’S Azonto single) dancing. She is an attractive female dancing in a seductive
way and being and pictured as being promiscuous. The male gaze also works
with male actors, as males want to look like the male in the video and females
want to be with the male in the video. We decided not to include this aspect of
Mulveys theory as we wanted Fuse to be depicted as an approachable character
and we didn’t want to ruin this characteristic by portraying him as being a
stereotypical strong male and a ‘player’ which is how males are portrayed in
most hip hop music videos. (appropriate screen shots to the right from Akon’s
‘Lonely’ music video).
5. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary
texts?
I feel like the combination of my main product and the two ancillary texts (an album
cover for the single, and a tour poster) I have produced are effective together as they all
share common themes e.g. colour schemes, fonts mise en scene and locations.
Firstly my group and I researched all of Fuse ODG’s previous album artwork and digi
packs to get inspiration for our design. We noticed there was a common theme of the
colour yellow in all of the digi packs. Yellow is a Pan-African colour which refers to a set
of three colours: green, yellow and red (inspired by the flag of Ethiopia) which often
represents the sun, wealth, and/or justice in the African flag. We felt this colour was a
very important feature to include as Fuse is of Ghanaian descent and is an "Afro-
hiphop“ artist. We deliberately included this colour in our music video to fit with the
native African theme and the warm colour scheme. We therefor then included yellow in
our final album artwork and the tour poster to keep the African theme clear and to
show all 3 products were related.
We then focused on mise en scene e.g. the locations included in our products. We shot
our music video in the city centre of York as we felt this was an urban location to fit with
the genre of music, there for both our ancillary texts have urban locations featured in
the backgrounds e.g. a black and white image of bright city lights in the album artwork
and a coloured cityscape skyline image in the background of the tour poster.
Another factor of mise en scene we focused of was outfit choice. We chose to dress our
main actor Fuse in plain black trousers and a black jacket and then a bright yellow t-shirt
to match the colour scheme and to keep the African theme in every aspect of our
project. We chose to have our fuse actor wearing this outfit whilst shooting our video
and in the album artwork photo shoot and tour poster photo shoot. We chose to do this
to once again show continuity between our main product and ancillary texts, and to
create an brand image of Fuse and his appearance to create an identity for him.
6. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary
texts?
Our first ancillary text is the album artwork for our music video. These two images are Fuse ODG azonto album covers,
the one on the left is the original and the one on the right is my interpretation of it. My group and I deliberately chose
to stick to the same predominantly black and white colour scheme as it shows a clear link between our album artwork
and the original. We also chose to stick with the yellow colour as it stands out from the black and is a stereotypical
African colour that relates to Fuse’s roots, we also chose to use yellow as it shows continuity between our music video
(as we have our Fuse actor dressed in a yellow t-shirt) and our album cover image. We also chose to have our Fuse
actor looking directly into the camera as this is to create a relationship and to connect with the audience and works
effectively as it gives the image a focus point which is the first thing you look at. However we added the facebook and
twitter logos onto the album cover as these medias create a link between the artist as Fuse has a twitter account, a link
to the video as you can publish the link to the video on these social media websites and they can create awareness for
the album artwork via retweets, likes and shares.
7. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary
texts?
The second of our ancillary texts is a tour poster. The
font is exactly the same font that is featured in the
album artwork, and at the beginning of out music video
