Tuesday, 15 November 2011

Ancillary Task - Digi Pack

The target audience can be clarified by looking at some of Rizzle Kicks' interviews as they use language such as "big up" which may suggest that they are looking to reach out to the younger generation, by trying to use the same mode of address. A typical fan would be a teenager who studies at college or sixth form and uses the internet on a daily basis to check e-mails, socialise and watch videos. Rizzle Kicks' costume and dress code appeals to the younger demographic because of the mainstream fashion they express.

For our digi pack, we decided to go for a brick theme throughout the pack. So bricks are included in the front, back and the inside covers. We chose this layout because we thought it would reinforce the sub-urban demographic of both the band and the target audience. Also the bricks can be very useful, for example, the back cover where we used the bricks to add text on it through the middle of the two artists. The bricks makes the audience feel that there are two young men hanging around in a warm, late evening, sub-urban estate which fits in with the target audience because they might have brought up in the same way as the band did.

By looking at the digi pack, the viewers and we can see that there is a narrative going on which are two bored young men out on a warm evening in the sub-urban estates and up to some mischief. This will appeal to the target audience because it is likely that this is what they did when they were younger or they may be still doing that now. This boredom is justified in the digi pack on the inside front cover where you can see one of the artist pulling a funny pose and a face and the other artist being laid back and looking slightly bored.

On the front cover, back cover and the inside cover, the viewers can instantly tell that there are two different types of characters in this band. Tom (grey t-shirt) is supposedly the 'stupid/funny' character with his funny faces and poses. In contrast to Tom, Jihad (black t-shirt) is supposedly the 'cool/laid back' character with his serious faces and poses. The two different personalities are shown throughout the music video as well especially a scene in the second verse where Tom is wearing fake bling, sun glasses and a hat which does not suit him at all because he looks like an idiot but it represents his character as he does not care what he looks like and he likes dressing up for fun as he is bored. On the other hand, Jihad sticks to his laid back character by not over dressing himself with bling and hats etc even though it would suit him but he tends not to as he does not want to express his inner self. On the front cover, Tom really reinforces the target audience and young people in society today with what he is wearing. The fact that he is wearing mainstream clothing represents what young people wear today with the chinos, checkered shirts and flat shoes etc. Because the artists have dressed like this, it would attract a specific target audience especially the younger generation.

By listening to the song of the music video, the audience can pick out a clear genre. Rizzle Kicks' music is classed as British Hip-Hop with one artist rapping and the other artist singing. However, looking at the way Rizzle Kicks dress and how the two artists in the digi pack dress, the audience may feel that it is not a Hip-Hop genre as they have different conventions of a Hip-Hop character. The conventions of a Hip-Hop genre include the characters wearing bling, sports cars, half naked women, champagne, the use of drugs etc. If you compare Rizzle Kicks to a modern day Hip-Hop band such as G-Unit, they are completely different in terms of their dress code, audience and what they rap/sing about. The genre of G-Unit is clearly American Hip-Hop/Rap and it is justified by their dress code with the American Football tops, flat peak hats and their abundance of bling. G-Unit seem to rap about money, women, drugs, ghetto life, crimes and alcohol etc, in comparison to Rizzle Kicks who have an obvious British touch in their lyrics talking about everyday life and the fun things they get up to in Britain. The element of 'fun' is shown throughout the original music video and our music video and our ancillary tasks. I think a sub-genre is needed to describe the music of Rizzle Kicks as I think British Hip-Hop is not the best genre to describe them as. I did a bit of research and asked my friends that if i said British Hip-Hop what artist do you instantly think of? I had very similar responses and my friends came up with artists such as Dizzee Rascal, Professor Green, Tinie Tempah and Giggs. These artists are in the Grime scene and brought up in the ghetto estates of London where they rap about the tough lives they have lived with drugs, prison and stabbings. Rizzle Kicks are nothing like this, they are more upbeat, raised in Brighton so they cannot really rap/sing about a ghetto life and this is why a sub-genre is needed to describe Rizzle Kicks.

When looking at the digi pack, it is clear that one character is from a different ethnic background. This will widen the fan base of the band on the digi pack and it represents a multi-ethnic society and a multi ethnic-band.

Costume







Thursday, 29 September 2011

Permission E-mail to Universal Island Records

To whom it may concern;

We are students who are studying A level media at Gordano School in Portishead near Bristol. As part of our A2 media coursework our task is to create a music video using an existing song.
We would like to use the song 'Down With The Trumpets' by Rizzle Kicks. We were wondering if you would grant us permission to use this song in our video as we would like to upload our final version of our music video onto YouTube.
We would appreciate this very much if you were to grant us permission.

Yours Sincerely,
Jihad Khan and Mark Read

Thursday, 22 September 2011

Todorov's Theory

Todorov believed there are 5 main parts to a movie.

1. Equilibrium - A period of calm, balance or equal elements.







2. Disequilibrium - An event occurring that disrupts this previously established balance.







3. Acknowledgement - Characters acknowledge that the equilibrium has been disrupted.







4. Solving - Characters attempt to fix this disruption.








5. New Equilibrium - The disruption is solved and the story returns to the previous or new period of stability.









Wednesday, 14 September 2011

Down With The Trumpets Verse 1 (Lyrics)


The screenshots match where the lyrics are said and where that particular sceene comes in.

Down With The Trumpets Verse 1 (Location Changing)

This shows the change in location and what time they occur. The arrows then point to where abouts in the lyrics.

Down With The Trumpets - Verse 1 Analysis (Locations)

This shows all of the screenshots from the different locations used in Verse 1. A wide variety of different angles are used in the same location. Cuts are made frequently with different locations interwining.





















Monday, 12 September 2011

Rizzle Kicks - Miss Cigarette Video

















These shots are known as a 'Fish Eye Lens'. The purpose of this shot is to provide an expansive, circular iamge of the entire surrounds. The circular effect allows the main subject to be emphasised. We really liked this type of shot and we thought we would use this in our music video. The shot on the bottom is taken in some sort of alleway, so we thought we could do the same.

Tuesday, 6 September 2011

Filming Ideas

Locations: Port Marine(near the colourful houses), Home? Alleways, Lake Grounds? Fields?
Props/costumes: Trumpet, Bra, Baccy, Filter, Lighter,Rizla (associated with lyrics). Costumes - casual clothing such as; Shirts, shorts,jeans,t-shirts, suit, trainers, sunglasses etc.
Cast: Me - Artist, Tom - Artist, Partner - Camera man, Dave - 'Drug Dealer', Will,Ben,Ben - Extras.
Equipment Needed: Video Camera (HD preferably), Tripod (Holding shot steady), Mobile Phone (To play the song whilst filming)

Sunday, 4 September 2011

Questionnaire Results - Analysis

The people answering our questionnaire varied in age ranging from ages 15 (youngest) to 43 (oldest). This allows us to collect different opinions from people with different ages rather than friends or people the same age us. The younger people seem to pretty much have the same opinion as us but the older people however, have opinions that contrast to the younger people's. This is a good thing because we want our video to appeal to the older people as well.

The majority of the people who answered our questionnaire were females and a fair amount of males did answer as well. Others may think that it is not fair because more females answered but we thought it was reasonable.

Unsurprisingly, most of the male clients looked for women in a music video and most of those male clients were hip hop/RnB fans. Others however looked for find the artist and a storyline which are very obvious. In our video we would definitely include the artist(myself) and a small storyline.

When we asked how they would like to see different conventions in a hip-hop music video, most of them came up with a response of different clothing. So if we decided to make a hip-hop video we would use clothing like shirts and shorts instead of jeans and hoodies.

In a hip-hop video we expect to see women, alcohol, cars and money etc. When we asked our clients they seemed to think the same.

Most of the clients favourite music videos belonged in the RnB genre. Most of them clients were at the age from 15-25, this may show that the RnB genre is now growing on young people today.

From this research we decided, to choose our song we are going to do our video on which is Rizzle Kicks - Down With The Trumpets. This song is a cross between hip-hop and RnB because it includes rapping and singing. Rizzle Kicks use clothing that you wouldn't expect to see in a hip-hop/RnB video, they wear indie style clothing which we though we could use for our video.

Questionnaire Results










Saturday, 3 September 2011

Coursework Promo

After analysing the Kanye West - Good Life music video, my partner decided to try and create a typography of a small part of the song. Using Adobe After Effects, my partner made a small video clip just to test how easy/hard it is going to be to add text in time with the lyrics sung.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVNofvNEeM8

Analysis: The typography turned out better than we expected but it took us hours just to create the first 30 seconds of the song. So we decided that we would only use text in time with the lyrics only for the words that are emphasised in the song as it would take us ages to do a typography of the song plus filming and editing of the video.

Thursday, 21 July 2011

Audience Research Questionnaire

For our audience research, we decided to ask a questionnaire to people with different ages, race and gender. The questionnaire will mainly focus on the conventions of a Hip-Hop music video.
The questions we will be asking are as follows;

1. How old are you?
2. What gender are you?
3. What do you look for in a music video?
4. What do you expect to see in a hip-hop genre music video?
5. How would you like to see a typical hip-hop genre music video use different genre conventions?
6. What typical features do you think are in a hip-hop genre music video?
7. What are your favourite music videos?
8. What are your favourite hip-hop genre music videos?

Tuesday, 19 July 2011

Wiz Khalifa - On My Level Video Analysis




Typical Hip-Hop/Rap Conventions: Expensive Vehicles, Women, Use of drugs, Smoking, Drinking, Bling, Hats, Seductive Dancing, Explicit Lyrics.

Things we liked: We liked the fact that there are cuts in time with the beat of the song, we also liked the fact the propps used in the video suited the lyrics that were being rapped for example, 'High as f**k, sloppy drunk,' the video had the use of drugs and drinking.

Things we could use: We could use the beat matching the cuts.

The reason why we analysised this video is that it is an example of a typical rap/hip-hop video with pretty much all of the rap conventions we could think of in one video.

Tuesday, 21 June 2011

Rizzle Kicks - Down With The Trumpets Video Analysis

Link:http://www.virginmedia.com/music/video/player/rizzle-kicks/down-with-the-trumpets/971343498001#vid-971343498001




Genre: To decide the genre of this music video is hard as it is a mix between hip-hop, jazz and mainstream pop. But i believe this is a mostly hip-hop genre.


Typical hip-hop conventions: Stereo, Black rappers, hoody, hat, dancing and dealing.


Other conventions: Indie clothing, transitions/fast cuts, dealing trumpets instead of dealing drugs.


The particular element we loved was the part when the rapper is about to pass out in one location and ends up with a fast cut to another location. We believe this is a great idea and we could use this idea but with a lot of attempts to perfect.


The props and costumes used in this video are very easily accessable such as a trumpet, football, bra etc. Also the clothes the rappers wear in this video completely contrasts to what a typical rapper would wear. For instance, the 2 rappers in this video are wearign casual t-shirts and shirts with an indie style. The clothing is also easily accessable.


Overall, we could use most of the elements in this video and we are considering to make our video on the basis of this music video.



Kanye West - Good Life Video Analysis



Genre: Hip Hop/Rap


Typical Conventions used: Woman, Rappers(Black), Money, Cars, Alcohol


Other Conventions used: Text on screen, cartoon effects, Black and White effect.


Firstly, we liked the idea of text coming on screen in time with the words of the lyrics, we decided we could use this effect in our video as we thought it is completely 'do-able'.


The greyscale colour scheme of Kanye and the rest of the cast and the black and white theme gives it a vivid contrast with the colourful images and text that appear around them.


The clothing used in the video is very simple and we believe we can easily acess it.


As the video is at a very high budget we cannot use most of the ideas that are shown but we decided we would use the text idea in our music video.