Monday, 10 October 2011

Locating A Location

We have come up with a location idea for our music video. Mise-En Scene is a very important consideration when making any type of video. However, for our music video we feel that it would be really effective to film around London Waterloo/ Southbank area.

Waterloo is a popular place in London its where most people commute to and from various destinations. However, we also want to film at night. Now that its winter time and the sun goes down quicker than usual it would give us more time to film.



Waterloo is a great place to film because it reminds people of the city and how hectic life can be. However our song is going to be calm which will hopefully have a juxtaposition. We have taken a different aproach and we are no longer using the beat we intended to. We are now using an instrumental entitled 'Forgive Me'. Forgive Me is a calm R'n'B beat that I created in Fruity Loops studio. You can hear it here:

Ayo has the lyrics to the 'Forgive Me' instrumental and we can't wait to put the song together. We are seriously motivated to work hard and achieve outstanding results this year. We are aiming high and definitely putting our all in.

I have also discussed with my team that the video should be black and white. But at the same time has a filter that allows red and white to be shown. Red means love and passion and white portrays cleanliness, purity and serenity. Both are considered as romantic colours and we are making the video depicts scenes of romance, caring and attraction. Which is a very important part of our song, so it is only right to do a narrative music video to match the song.

However, red and white are also very common colours that you will see around London. Red buses and white lights. Red buses flow through London as if it were a vessel - once again, we wanted to show busy lives but also keep it calm at the same time. The black and white effect will release a mellow feeling to the video viewers although anything red or white, whether it be buses, tail lights or even clothes will show up in colour.




Moreover, the colours red and white can both be found on the England flag and also the Union Jack. Britain, England, London. London is the location!

Saturday, 24 September 2011

Hip Hop Should Stop?

Q: Hip hop music promotes materialism, misogyny and criminal activity. It is responsible for perpetuating negative stereotypes of young men and women. Do you agree?

Hip Hop is a genre where rappers and emcees like to express themselves on beats that usually consist of hard-hitting kicks and snares or claps.

It has been said that Hip Hop music promotes materialism, misogyny and criminal activity. It also portrays a bad image of young black women because Hip Hop is a genre of black origin which started to take a trend in New York in the 1970s. Here are two music videos that agree with the statement:

Moment For Life - Meek Mill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=806tX9ZN9GI

Cake - Lloyd Banks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q47FP731RUQ

In both music videos we can observe materialism is focused on, especially in 'Moment For Life' where criminal activity occurs. A gang of black males approach Meek Mill for some materials, his jewellery and beloved chains.

I agree with this statement as the Hip Hop scene is flooded with artists who swear and fill songs with nasty, negative or violent lyrics. For example, I have recently come across two artists, they are in the same gang: 'Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All' (OFWGKTA). The two artisrts go by the name of Earl Sweatshirt and Tyler, The Creator. I must say they do stand out because they use diverse beats that they produce themselves and their lyrical content is also different opposed to other artists.

Instead of rapping about guns and money like most other Hip Hop artists they look at Hip Hop from a different standpoint and usually mention killing, rape and religion.

Earl - Earl Sweatshirt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78_loMbmKJ8 (Music video)
http://www.rapgenius.com/Earl-sweatshirt-earl-lyrics (Lyrics meanings)

Yonkers - Tyler, The Creator
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSbZidsgMfw (Music video)
http://www.rapgenius.com/Tyler-the-creator-yonkers-lyrics (Lyrics meanings)

The lyrical content in both songs is absolutely ear-opening and controversial. On the other hand there are positive Hip Hop artists out there like Lupe Fiasco and Nas. They withdraw from the usual talk about money, girls and cars and instead try to spread a positive influence through their music.

Nas has a track called 'I Can' and in that song he is encouraging the younger audience to aim high and motivate others to work hard and be what they want to be. To be big men and women with an actual future that is worth caring about. In the music video he is trying to break the stereotype of young black people. We can see that in the music video there are many black children so Nas is directly speaking to them through the power of music.

I Can - Nas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvVfgvHucRY&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL (Music Video)
http://rapgenius.com/Nas-i-can-lyrics (Lyrics Meanings)

Lupe Fiasco's track is entitled 'Words I Never Said' in this song he releases what is in his mind, gets things off his chest and speaks about politics and the way the world is run by people who don't deserve the authority. Again, with the power of music he even targets President Obama and says what he did wrong. Lupe Fiasco speaks positive in this song because he wants top open peoples eyes about what should be changed and reveal the secrets that some may not know about.

Words I Never Said ft. Skylar Grey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvVfgvHucRY&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL (Music Video)
http://rapgenius.com/Lupe-fiasco-words-i-never-said-lyrics (Lyrics Meanings)

Here are a few more songs that avoid the stereotypical Hip Hop music video and song.

Live Your Life ft. Rihanna - T.I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koVHN6eO4Xg (Music Video)
http://rapgenius.com/Ti-live-your-life-lyrics (Lyrics Meanings)

Airplanes ft. Hayley Williams - B.o.B
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn6-c223DUU (Music Video)
http://rapgenius.com/Bob-airplanes-lyrics (Lyrics Meanings)

How To Love - Lil Wayne
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Gf4-eT3w0&ob=av3e (Music Video)
http://rapgenius.com/Lil-wayne-how-to-love-lyrics (Lyrics Meanings)

I hereby draw to the conclusion that even though Hip Hop is crowded with negative lyrics and music videos with bad influence - there are also Hip Hop artists that counter the statement and use Hip Hop to portray positive, motivational and caring songs.

Artists nowadays are using music to send or even preach messages across to young listeners and fans. Music especially conjoint with a powerful narrative video can encourage people to aim higher and do the best they can.

Thursday, 28 July 2011

On The Beat

Our A2 media project will consist of a music track and an advert, website or album art cover for the relevant track. Therefore we have to start of with the music track. But to make a track we will need a beat and lyrics to go with it.

For me and my team, finding a beat is easy - as I have music production software and often produce work in my free time. In fact I also upload them to YouTube just to share my work and gather opinions. Because my work is already on the internet - the team insist that they have already found the track they would like to use.

The track is entitled 'Hadouken'. And the lyrics will be related to themes of anger and violence.
Here you can preview the beat but it is not exactly in final stages yet: 

Saturday, 16 July 2011

Serving A Survey

We know quite a lot about music genres and the possible music scenes we are about to enter. However we felt it would be best to still hold a brief but detailed enough survey. Too many questions and the public may refrain from answering them all. Too little and it would be pointless. I feel that Daniel (in charge of research and scheduling) has put together a great questionnaire http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7RHWDX9

Monday, 4 July 2011

Music Video Conventions

Today we learnt about three types of music videos. Perfomance, Conceptual - Narrative and Conceptual - Non Narrative.

+ Performance music videos show musical instruments actually being played in real time, the artist rapping/ singing or the artist dancing with other dancers. e.g. I Wanna Rock - Snoop Dogg


+ Narrative shows images relating to the song topic. The images and scenes enhance and reinforce the messages in the song. e.g. Yo (Excuse Me Miss) - Chris Brown


+ Non Narrative is reffered to as completely random. The images or scenes do not relate to the song. I Go - Wave Machines