Shooting the Video: Risk Assessment

What potential hazards could be encountered?

1. Glass. In our video we plan for our artist to smash a photo frame containing the picture of an ex-girlfriend. Therefore, there is a risk that shards could fly off and hurt someone or be left in the area in which we are filming.

2. Fire. We also plan to burn a photo of the girl mentioned above. This could involve the use of flammable liquids and there is a risk of burning ourselves or causing harm to others.

How can these hazards be prevented?

1. Glass. When filming these scenes, filming will be done from a distance and only the actor will be near the broken glass. The actor is someone we deem trustworthy and with enough common sense to not cut themselves. Nevertheless we will make sure that they come to no harm by advising them to throw the photo frame with a moderate ferocity, so that the shards do not fly too far.

2. Fire. Filming will be done from a distance and no one will be in contact with the flames. The ignition will be done by lighter fluid and a match meaning a distance can be kept from the flames. By doing a close up shot (using zooms) the actor does not need to be near the flames.

Which potential hazards can be encountered on location?

1. Alleyway. No real hazards.

2. Multi-story car park. Parts of our video will be filmed on top floors with low walls meaning there is a chance (however slim) of something or someone falling over the edge. Also vehicles may be constantly coming through our filming area meaning there is a chance that we could be run over if we act stupidly.

How can these hazards be prevented?

1. Alleyway. No real hazards.

2. By setting up in areas that are not disturbed by cars much (such as the furthest distance from the bottom of the car park or the corners of a story) we can prevent being harmed by moving cars. Secondly to prevent falling over the edge we have to be relatively cautious.

Casting our Video

Drake

Actor - Remi Akinkunle

Age - 17

Clothing to be worn in the video:

- White shirt, black tie, brown coat

- Bodywarmer, dark jeans, dark shoes

Description

A member of the 'FourReal' music group, Remi has musical expertise and an enthusiastic approach to acting. We believe because of his musical abilities Remi will be able to mimic Drake's movements and vocals very well. Remi falls into the Urban category, the audience we are looking to aim our video at, meaning that his clothing and persona will be acceptable and he will be aware of this music genre. All of these factors merge together to create the perfect person to be in our video.

Heartbreaker/Love Interest

Actress - Antonia Ali

Age - 18

Clothes to be worn in the video (in photos):

- Blue Summer Dress

- Blue Jumper

Description

Antonia is a friend of the group, she is a sixth form student at Bexleyheath Grammar School. We decided to use her in our video as she has been to many to many photo shoots and videos in the past and we thought it would be a great idea to use someone with experience.

Clothing - Drake and Alicia Keys

Some Narrative Ideas for our Music Video

With the lyrics implying a relationship being affected by money our main idea was that a couple (consisting of our actors for Drake and Alicia Keys) would be arguing over Drake having large amounts of money for seemingly no reason.

• This will be revealed when Drake pays for a bouquet of flowers with a large amount of £20 notes.
• During the video the audience will find that this is a flashback in a series of flashbacks which will be used to show the extent of the couple's argument.
• Ideas for flashbacks include an argument over dinner, the couple going into a car dealership (such as Lamborghini or something with the same price range) but Alicia Keys becomes distressed when she again sees the money Drake is carrying around.
• When cutting back to the present day Drake will be rapping whilst walking through some calming but slightly depressive places, thus creating the image that he is reminiscing.

Letter to Copyright Owners

Because we do not own the music, we need to write a letter to the copyright holders of the track we are going to use in order to get their permission to use it. In this case we wrote a letter to the Universal Music Group - producers of Drake's album 'Thank Me Later'. The letter can be seen below.

Dear Universal Music Group,

I am a representative of a student media project in which we wish to use the track 'Fireworks' from the album 'Thank Me Later' by Drake.

The project involves creating a music video for the track, as well as producing an album cover and magazine advertisement for the artist.

With your permission, this track would only be used in an educational context and be viewed by my media class, my teacher and the OCR exam board moderator. It will not be uploaded to any public video websites.

Of course, the artist and your company will be fully recognised and credited throughout the pre-production and the final video itself. A copyright notice, with wording supplied by you, can be included in the records of this project. If this is required please send full details.

I look forward to hearing from you

Regards,

Dan Myles

[Above is a screen-grab of the email to Universal Music Group]

Target Audience

Our Chosen Target Audience

Now that we have our song, we can concentrate on relating our video towards this type of music's audience. We believe that our song choice best relates to the Urban genre which fits into the R&B/ Hip Hop style. We believe that a compostion of a narrative and performance best relates to our audience category and we believe our ideas, our performers and the planned styling of the video fit in best with this genre.The information shown below comes from the popular website UK Tribes. This site enables the user to get all the neccessary infromation about their chosen tribe, showing all the main facts and figures about the genre.

About Urban Music
Urban music is the most pervasive and influential genre in popular music, topping the charts around the world and sound-tracking the lives of many different Tribes. Members of the Urban segment are therefore very close to one of the biggest cultural signifiers in the youth market – although in planning terms, genuine Urban segment members make up a small slice of the market.

The Urban segment follows a typical pattern, who create and dictate tastes, and consumers who buy into the tribe and endorse that creativity in the shape of Blingers, Get Paid Crew and Trackies. Urban fashion and music extends into mainstream publishing and TV, but the core Tribe members are most influenced by what they see around them in their urban environments, in clubs and on social networks. YouTube, Myspace and Facebook are the most effective conduit to these kids.

Trackies are enthusiasts who don’t produce but enjoy consuming music and film with their friends. Their hooded tops are intimidating but their conversation is friendly, open-minded and laid back.

Blingers are preoccupied with US music and icons, and spend big on label fashion. They are sometimes mocked, but everyone has a bit of Blinger in them.

Get Paid Crew are a brash version of the traditional working classes, unashamedly driven by money but proud of their urban background.

DIYers have identified the core of their lives, understanding their own culture and making music and media for themselves, with a lively local market and occasional global break-outs.

Urban - “Mix different fashion influences to create their own style”

By looking at the conventions of the Urban genre, it has enabled us to grasp certain aspects in which we can directly relate to in the music video. An example of this would be having the performer dress to match that of what someone of the Urban genre would wear. This will allow the audience to relate more to the music video.

Colour Correction - 'The Professional Look'

Moodboard

A Moodboard representing the ideas we have come up with and the themes in our video

Fireworks on Adobe After Effects - Tutorial

Lyrics of Fireworks - Drake feat Alicia Keys

[Drake - Verse 1]
Money just changed everything, I wonder how life without it would go
From the concrete who knew that a flower would grow
Lookin’ down from the top and its crowded below
My fifteen minutes started an hour ago
Truth over fame, you know I respect the blatant shit
When I hear talkin, I just dont know what to make of it
Hate is so familiar to me, I’m slowly embracing it
Doesn’t come natural, bear with me it could take a bit
Yeah, and my dreams who Im racing with
You can see Im pacin it so that Im always chasin it
Wayne put me right here, thats who I get the paper with
I hope that my success never alters our relationship
Yeah, this life is something I would die for
Octobers Own, but its lookin like July 4th
But I just wish theyd let you try it first
This time Im really goin off, fireworks

[Chorus]
Oh, today it begins
I've missed them before, but won't miss them again
I keep having the same dream
And I think that I just realized what it means

[Alicia Keys]
All I see is fireworks,
All I see is fireworks
Every night it's fireworks
Every night it's fireworks
All I see is fireworks
All I see is fireworks
Taking off like fireworks
Taking off like oh-ah-oh-oh


[Verse 2]
I got this one girl, you know, in my life
So I say in this song, I say
I’m just such a gentleman
You should give it up for me
Look at how I’m placing all my napkins and my cutlery
I can tell it wasn’t love I just thought you fuck with me
Who coulda predicted love could strike now you stuck with me
Yeh, I kept my wits about me luckilly
What happened between us that night it always seems to trouble me
Now all of a sudden these gossip brags wanna cover me
And you making it seem that it happened that way because of me
But I was curious and I’ll never forget it baby
What an experience
You coulda been the one but it wasnt that serious
Their was smoke in the air before now its me cleaing it
That felt good, all and all I learned a lesson from it though
You never see it coming you just get to see it go
Yeah I shoulda looked up in the sky at first
Now I see it in her eyes
Fireworks


[Chorus]
Oh, today it begins
I've missed them before, but won't miss them again
I keep having the same dream
And I think that I just realized what it means

[Alicia Keys]
All I see is fireworks,
All I see is fireworks
Every night it's fireworks
Every night it's fireworks
All I see is fireworks
All I see is fireworks
Taking off like fireworks
Taking off like oh-ah-oh-oh

[Verse 3]
Everything the same but it feels different
My dad called me up knowing that I still listen
And he's still got his foot out, guilt trippin'
It's been years, though, I just learn to deal with it
For real, me and my realtor we built up a better rapport
Got my mother in a place with some better decor
She searched the entire city I let her explore
Ant now she's sayin' she more lonely than every before
How many of our parents' marriages lasted?
I was only 5, I bet I barely reacted
I'm flying back home for the heritage classic
Searchin for that feeling, tell me where is the magic?
Let's stay together 'til we're ghosts
I want to witness love, I never seen it close
Yeah, but I guess I gotta find it first
That's why I'm really going off, Fireworks

[Chorus]
Oh, today it begins
I've missed them before, but won't miss them again
I keep having the same dream
And I think that I just realized what it means

[Alicia Keys]
All I see is fireworks,
All I see is fireworks
Every night it's fireworks
Every night it's fireworks
All I see is fireworks
All I see is fireworks
Taking off like fireworks
Taking off like oh-ah-oh-oh

Songs considered for our Music Video

From the start of this project as a group we decided that we were going to use music that formed a Rap/Sung collaboration, so first of all we considered these songs:

• Magic - B.o.B feat Rivers Cuomo
• Dead and Gone - T.I feat Justin Timberlake
• Cross My Heart - Skepta feat Preeya Kalidas
• Fireworks - Drake feat Alicia Keys
• Love the Way You Lie - Eminem feat Rihanna
• Airplanes - B.o.B feat Hayley Williams

After this selection had been made, we decided that a few of these songs were either too popular (meaning our video may not have been respected as much if we chose to do it), or did not fit our final idea - we wanted a male rapper and a female singer. This left us with:

• Fireworks - Drake feat Alicia Keys

This song also gave us some good ideas with a prominent theme throughout - fireworks representing a difficult relationship.

Our Team Roles

Explanation

To make our group work as efficiently as possible and to create the best work we possibly can, we need to create separate for each of the team members to do. These roles include Creating the Ancillary Tasks on Photoshop, Filming the Video, Editing the Video, Recruiting Actors and Research.

Creating the Ancillary Tasks on Photoshop

Our group was lucky enough to have two members who have extremely good photoshop skills. John and Tom both created extremely good quality AS work as you can see below, therefore as a group we decided to choose them to create the ancillary tasks of Digipak artwork and a poster.







Filming the Video

Ideally we would like to film the video with everyone present, however there will be times where it will be impossible due to other important aspects of peoples lives such as school football or revision for exams. This means that filming will be done by whoever is available at whatever time.

Editing the Video

Being the only member of our group with any experience with final cut or editing videos (our trial run towards the end of Year 12) we decided that I would be the predominant editor of the video. I also was one of the only members of the group that had minimal exams in the January period and no ties to sports teams, meaning I was available to edit most of the time - which is a very time consuming process.

Recruiting an Actor to play the Artist

Picking our artist was made easier because of Tundé's friends. His friend Remi sings in a group so we left it up to Tundé to get him involved. Thankfully Remi was enthusiastic about getting involved in the creation of a music video.

Research

Research needed to be distributed evenly so we all did the same research separately so that we all did the same amount and there would be no arguments about people doing more work than others. Research would involve rival digipak conventions, rival video conventions and mise-en-scene of Drake in his previous videos.

Video Analysis: Love The Way You Lie - Eminem Feat. Rihanna

Genre Characteristics

It is quite hard to define the genre characteristics for this song because Eminem's music is quite a bit different to normal 'Gangster Rap'. Also this song is from his new album Recovery which is quite different in content to his old albums which were extremely explicit and controversial. However this song is simply about a rough relationship between a couple - not the conventional rap content. Rap videos normally include exotic cars, expensive jewellery, designer clothes and beautiful women. However in this song only one of those factors are included (the women) but as attractive as they are their beauty is not really excelled in the video.

The Relationship Between the Visuals and the Lyrics

The last line is 'im'a tie her to the bed and set this house on fire' and throughout there are visuals of flames and at the end a house is literally burning in the background.

Eminem also expresses taking out his anger on a wall (instead of hitting his wife - the main point of the song) by saying 'next time I'm pissed I'll aim my fist at the dry wall' and in the video the male character punches into a wall.

'right now there's a steel knife in my windpipe' - Eminem brings his fist up to his neck as if he was pulling a knife out of his neck.

'Where you going?, I'm leaving you. No you ain't, come back' - the characters in the video mime these lines as they are said in the song, imitating the actual conversation.

Is there any reference to the notion of voyeurism?

There are many references to the notion of voyeurism - the video is predominantly about watching a couple is a tough (almost abusive) relationship. This voyeuristic attitude allows the audience to reflect on their situations at home and sympathise for the characters in the video. It also allows them to reflect on the lyrics - which have an extremely serious tone.

Editing & Use of the Camera

The transitions between shots throughout are cuts. This is appropriate for the pace of the song which has quite a fast beat - creating a fast paced visual. The cuts mostly take place between the narrative part of the video and the performance so that the audience can easily link the lyrics to the video. There is only one point in the video where the camera has a high angle above the lead artist Eminem - and this is only because it is appropriate to the song. The lyrics state 'its like I'm in flight' at which point it cuts to an aerial shot (shown in the top left of the picture below).

This shot also puts Eminem into the centre of the shot, suggesting his importance in the video. The other shots featured in this montage are all low angles shots, which are used throughout the video - allowing Eminem to tower over the viewer, suggesting his dominance and strength in the music. There are also many close ups of both artists throughout the video. The reasons for close ups like these in the video is an attempt to sell the artist - you know who is performing and want to purchase other songs by them. For example, Rihanna dominates in shot when she is singing the chorus, because these types of vocals are what sell many rap songs.

Mise-en-Scène

The first use of Mise-en-Scène we see in this video is how Rihanna looks in the opening chorus. Her hair is red, with connotations of heat and fire. The typical connotation of red is love, which is a major part of the song. The clothes worn throughout are typical of those worn in trailer parks or the 'trailer trash' community in America. This consists of vests/tank tops, jeans, boots and combat jackets.

Another aspect of Mise-en-Scène in the video is location. Most of the narrative takes place in a run-down part of the US and the couple's house is of poor condition with the walls mostly peeling, of a dull colour and filled with holes.

What are the forms and connotations of Music Videos?

According to Andrew Goodwin's book Dancing in the Distraction Factory there are a number of key features that most music videos adhere to.

1. There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals - with the visuals either illustrating, contradicting or amplifying the music.
2. Particular music genres have the own music style and iconography (which in turn affects Music Television with a number of channels being created for certain genres such as Kerrang, Kiss and Dance Nation.)

Conventional Rap Video

Conventional Pop Video

Conventional Rock Video

A2 Coursework Brief

1. A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

• a website homepage for the band
• a cover for its release as part of the digipak (CD/DVD package)
• a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package)