Chipmunk ft Trey Songz

take off

This music video is a mix of both performance and narrative. The narrative is illustrative and doesn’t really involve any disjuncture. I believe this is typical in many modern RnB videos.

To begin with The performance side of the video is shot by the sea in Miami. High-rise, modern buildings are clearly visible in the background. This could refer to how new and modern the two artists are as well as the song itself. It especially highlights the success of Chipmunk who grew up on the streets in north London, which is juxtaposed to the high-rise jet-set lifestyle of Miami. It shows how far his career has come and could also symbolize his desire to keep moving up and reach the top.

The narrative relates to the song and lyrics by showing the two artists with different girls who have been in their lives but have been unable to handle the pressure of fame and fortune and therefore have been left behind. This relates to the main line of the chorus “You didn’t want me to take off.”

Star Image is used in the video from the very beginning; Chipmunk is stood alone with Miami buildings in the background. He is dressed all in white, which shows he is special and the star of the video. A close up is also used to highlight his importance. In relation to this, the weather is also important. It is very sunny and bright at that e start of the video when the mood is positive and upbeat. However by the end of the song it has become night that suggests the mood has changed. This is underlined by the artists’ facial expressions, which seem disappointed and sad.

Influential Features

This is a post to show the different video's for ideas towards our own finished product. We won't copy any of the videos exactly but each has influenced our own video in different specific elements. The first is 'All of the lights' by Kanye West. After passing through the lengthy introduction (first minute), the illustrative element we found is incredibly effective. It emphasises the lyrics from the song and builds up the hype of the music up to the chorus.
The way the illustrations differ from each other and and include many different motions and colours which are exciting for the audience and keep them focused on the song, I post this because I believe it will be a great asset in our own video if we need it. This is the best illustrative piece I've seen when researching.

Inspiration For CD Cover

CD Cover Analysis and search results

When looking for ideas and designs for our CD covers we came across many different interpretations of what a CD cover should look like and do, Some with famous monuments on them, some with real abstract qualities, and some with pictures of the performer in a pose. When deciding which route to go down we consider that as Ethan is the performer in this song, he will be the artist representation. With this in mind, we went down the route of having the artist on the front cover.

Next I researched what writing needed to be on the cover such as the company label, website address, franchise and funding labels etc. We have added our own to the cover to create authenticity to our product.

P-money – Ho riddim

LIGHTING.

The lighting behind this video is dimly light and in black and white. The music genre is an underground genre called grime, which has a dark vibe to it. The lighting works well as the music genre its self is quite dark.

EDITING.

The cut rate is to the beat of the track and fades consistently through the song. This is typical of underground genres e.g. grime as the videos due to little income funds videos to this genre need to impress an audience.

Although a simple effect having the camera angle changing to the beat takes an impressive level of editing skills and compliments the editor. The editing used in this particular video is simple but effective and focuses on the little adjustments to make the big differences. A big minor detail which is used through out is the start vehicle.

CAMERA.

The angles are mainly mid to long shit and focuses highly on the lead vocalist (P-Money). The camera uses him as a star vehicle to familiarize the audience with him. The focus on P-money using lip sync promotes his importance in the video this shows he is strong character to the genre he is promoting.

NARRITIVE.

There is no narrative to the music video. This affects the video very little. As the focus of this genre is focused on not needing help, being an independent genre.

THE GENRE.

The genre is called grime and in link with our main song end credits grime was the originating origin of plan B who P-money has been heavily influenced by. Drum ‘n’ Bass is the genre of our main track. Grime is where most Drum ‘n’ bass rappers originated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYBn7canZWg

Original Video Shortlist For Chosen Piece:

End Credits (B.O. Harry Brown) - Chase & Status... by 6ne_Web

OR

Athlete Wires by adi84

Minutes:
Group members present: Ethan, Martin, Matt

Original song ideas:

P Money “Ho Riddim”

-Standard rap/grime video with performance and narrative

-Urban locations

D double E “Streetfighter Riddim”

-Sticking to grime genre

-Performance

-Amplification of street fighting theme

-No location, all done in front of green screen (black background)

-Lots of special effects mimicking retro streetfighting games

Tempz “Next Hype”

-Modern grime/rap genre again

-Long narrative intro

-Amplification of lyrics

-Urban Locations

-Use of performance and narrative

-Performance is set to black background reiterating the feel of the video and lyrics

Ed Sheeran ft Ghetts “Drown Me Out”

-No official video

-Moving away from grime genre to more mainstream music

Chase & Status “End Credits”

-In between the first choices and Ed Sheeran

-Performance and Narrative

-Amplification of Plan B’s lyrics

-Urban Locations and clips from “Harry Brown” used

-Good mix of guitar and drum and bass

Initial Ideas:

-Locations: hospital, Manchester town, Northern quarter

-Amplification of lyrics and meanings

-Performance filmed on location and in studio

Production Treatment

The Music Video

The song we are performing is 'End Credits' by Chase & Status.

Duration

The piece lasts 3 minutes and 31 seconds.

Audience

This piece is aimed towards the drum and bass genre of audience as the heavy bass behind the lyrics, and also the different points in the music where it 'drops' and the beats and bass take a hold of the song. You are likely to hear this song not only in the charts, but also at raves, parties, gigs because it is renowned as a crowd pleaser as the tempo gets everyone into 'party mode'. This song would definitely not appeal to an age range over 30 as the link to this music is still fresh/ up and coming. It's mainly aimed towards 17-25 males because of the intensity it brings and the places it would be played.

Resume

The narrative element of the song is about the protagonist dying, it talks about when he is dying he is convincing himself that he's on his 'way to heavens door', the reality of his life though if what we are showing also which is the ironic part as he is destructive and abusive, everything he needs to be sent to hell instead in theory. In different parts of the song there are what are called 'drops' where the lyrical/narrative sense leaves the song and the bass kicks in. This will be incorporated into our music video by the use of cuts and motions by the characters/performers. Overall the audience should expect to see a narrative piece with performance running throughout it, it will have many fast paced elements such as cuts to reflect the tempo and shall be exciting/interesting to watch.

Suggested Elements

• Performance - Ethan will play the performance role throughout by having the guitar playing the main rift of the song whilst the narrative parts take place.

• Costumes - We are using representation techniques of good being white clothed and bad being black clothed. The dress is casual, examlple: hoodies, jeans/chinos, t-shirt. For more detail see costume designs.
  

• Key Locations - The African Centre Theatre/ Warwick Street/Loreto Studio.
  

Recording Days

Day 1 - Warwick Street

• Creating the beginning shots for the video.
• Created guitar parts and performance.
• Beginnigng the narritive.

Day 2 - The African Centre Theatre

• Created the main body of the narritive element of the video.
  
• Combined the narrative with performance by merging the story with shots going past the performer.
  

Video Analysis

Fatboy Slim – Weapon of choice

In this video there are just narrative elements involved. The piece uses a film-like quality for example including Christopher Walken to be the centre point. It’s a disjuncture piece because Walken basically roams a mansion including dance and CGI effects to interest the viewer, and has no obvious link with the music or lyrics. The piece is a fairly simple one, though has a lot of small tricky elements to keep the viewer interested, such as the clear body doubles in the routines, and the ‘Matrix-like’ high flying manoeuvres.

However, the piece does use star image taking many close up/extreme close ups of Walkens face. The camera often focuses on the star when there is either a short gap in the music, where the star makes a gesture with either his face or his hands to invoke comedic aspects to the performance. It’s clear to see that Fatboy Slim’s idea of using a Hollywood A-lister is clearly to increase profits and interest towards their music.

The camera shots in this piece range from the beginning establishing shot and the many long shots of Walken and the house features, to some extreme close ups/close ups of him to make the star image. The use of tracking shots when the star is on the move are effective as they are mainly body level and gives you the feel his dancing is somehow aimed towards you. There is also a great low angled medium long tracking shot, of him dancing down a hallway which uses the mirrors on either side of the walls very cleverly to give a shot of his figure turned into unlimited versions of his routine through the mirror image of his mirror image.

The video mainly has medium ranged shot showing around half of his body at one time as to show the details of the gesture filled, odd dance routine.

The editing in this is narrative as in the order of the shots to show his journey throughout the house, the cutting is varied though as they speed up on the basis of the music being played, for instance there is pretty much just a tracking shot for the verses, however when the chorus comes the cuts increase and the shots vary from further to closer towards Walken. The use of a cycle edit where the story ends where it began is also used in this piece as Walken begins in his seat and ends there two, this is also then turned into a fade shot to black which symbols the end of the video.