Survey

Now that we have all been assigned our tracks, I decided to kick off my research and planning with a survey, in order to get some feedback on what others see when they watch R&B music video's. I asked some fellow classmates and friends "What do you see when you watch an R&B music video, performed by a female artist?" and these are my most popular results.


"objectification" - This was a very popular result. A lot of people said that they tend to see female R&B artists being objectified in their music videos. Wearing very little clothing, dancing obscurely with the camera focusing on particular parts of their bodies (e.g midriff, chest, legs etc.) A strong example was Christina aguilera's music video "dirrty" Which shows young Aguilera being objectified.   

"heartbreak"- A few others said that female R&B singers tend to sing about breakups. They will either be sad about an ending of a relationship, or the complete opposite, and have a "diva attitude" towards there unloving, most commonly cheating ex lovers.  

"dance routines"- This was a common answer, and many said that the majority of R&B music videos (performed by females) will incorporate some kind of choreographed dance, most commonly the female will be surrounded by muscly male dancers. 

"narrative" - Some people said that this genre of music videos will tend to contain some sort of narrative with a story line which fits the lyrics (Goodwin's theory- Relationship between the lyrics and the visuals) 




I found it really helpful carrying out this survey, and It has given me some initiative on how to start planning my own production. I plan to keep coming back to this original feedback in order to make my response as accurate as possible!

R'n'B music video conventions.

Main Task- Audio Track.

It is time to start working on our main task! We have been given a choice of 23 audio tracks to pick from, we each need to settle with one track which we will use for our music videos! 


Listen to all tracks here.


I quickly snapped up track 17, as each track could only be assigned to one person, and this was my first choice! The track has an R&B/hip hop genre which I decided would suit me best after researching the different types of music videos. I think this is a really fun track which is similar to many in the charts right now! I also think i will be able to successfully show a link between the lyrics/music and the visuals. I can't wait to start planning and processing my ideas! 

Andrew Goodwin

Andrew goodwin's theory

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Concept, Narrative or Performance?

As we will soon be making as start on our main task I have decided to look into the different types of music videos, to get an idea of what genre I would favor when it comes to choosing our tracks!

Concept.

Concept music videos are most often quite surreal. They are based around some sort of concept (idea). There is no set genre who use this idea for their music videos, but this type of music video is usually quite eccentric, so artists with contemporary, unusual music find this method applicable. 
Example- Gorillaz 'Feel Good inc'

Narrative.

Narrative music videos are a popular choice for the R&B genre. It contains a story which most often relates to the lyrics of the song. (Goodwin's theory: There is a link between lyrics and visuals) This can contain the artist of the song, but often uses other actors. 

Example- Eminem  'Love The Way You Lie ft. Rihanna'

Performance.

This type of music video quite simply shows the artist/band performing their 

song, this is most often on stage, but could be shot anywhere. The Rock 

genre predominantly chose this style but like the concept music video, it has 

no set genre.
Example- Kiss 'Rock 'n Roll all night'

After researching different types of music videos, I think I can identify Narrative as my favorite. I think this is because it includes my favorite music genre. I like the idea of having some sort of relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, and perhaps also the music and the visuals? Therefore when it comes to choosing my track I will be looking out for an R&B style genre, with interesting lyrics and beats!!

Preliminary Task- Editing.

When it came to editing I was hoping I would be able to develop these skills, as I hadn't been very involved in the filming process. However, because of of my reduced involvement and the way that roles were distributed I was in a weaker position to edit the final piece, being unfamiliar with the shots etc. This makes working as individuals at a later date a little less daunting, as we will all have the opportunity to experiment.

I think that the final edit is very accurate and effective! The precision of the editing and lip syncing is a difficult task but our version looks very similar to the real thing!

Filming- The Performance Scene.

We decided to limit the amount of people directing and filming this scene to avoid the trouble we had whilst filming the school scene. Three people directed and filmed the performance scenes whilst four performed as the band.


We decided to film this scene in the school's drama studio which resulted in a very similar look of location to the original video. The whole room is painted black, just like the set in the Paramore video, and conveniently has stage lighting which was put to good use! 


Again we put thought into the mise-en-scene and tried to closely match the costumes, instruments and backgrounds to the original video (e.g. Alice G and Leah made signs on black sugar paper to re-create a similar look to the walls in the video).


Crucial shots were filmed separately to make our version as close to the original as possible. The rest of the shots were filmed several times in order to capture various different angles etc. which would be useful when it came to editing!