Analysis: Ne Yo- One A Million

With the start of this video , there are white credits going acroos the screen including; entertainment company, picture company and the name of the actual song. You also realise that the beggining of the song, Ne Yo is actually speaking to the two other girls, while they are sitting on the backup dancers lap. This song is in particular related to other music videos, that all follow up on a story and him starting with speaking to the two girls, this doesnt make sense without watching the other videos that all create a full story.
Ne-Yo starts with a devious image, wearing a smart black and white outfit; with black trousers, and a white shirt, with a matching black tie and black hat, something that people relate to him with as it is a stuck to his image and helps for him to get related to.  The white in his outfit connotes innocence and purity but this is highly contrased with his black trousers that dennote darkness and devious intentions. These two are both a weird good and abd mic, something that is protrayed throughout the video, wiht him liking and flirting with the main girl but than moving his focus form the main girl to other girls and flirting with them.

There are female actors are overly galmorised in this genre, but in this case the main girl is in casula clothing not too much makeup and normal hair, keeping it real and to the level of normal people, not like other females in videos in this genre. although this is relaistic approach is taken, there is still a big attraction for the male gaze, as the natural real women factor is used and so she still does stand out, this is linked ot the lyrics with Ne-Yo saying 'makes your soul stand out from all the rest'. The main female actor is playin hard to get, with Ne-Yo having to constantly going after her. This story can be realted to real life., as throughtout there are female with a gaze on Ne-Yo, but the girl he is after pays no attention to him, tryin to act unintersted.

The set of this video, is mostly on a city street in either LA or NY. We find out very easily that it is set in the uSA as we go in the video, the cab, busy streets and the shops.
There are a few areas where some special effects ahve been added, suhc as when he gives her the flower, or when he stops in fornt of the cab, other movements include his hand movements whilst dancing.
Towards the end there is a fade to black, and ther there is the line of 'TO BE CONTINUED', this idea that is done by Ne-Yo, fro a subtle move from music video to just movie, as tehre are different sequences shwon in as music videos. This is a clever diea ot keep bringing back viewers, keeping them ready adn hooked onto the story so they will definately go onto the next video to watch it finihs on forward form the cliff hanger.

Promotion- Above the line + Below the line

There are many ways for promotion of a product or service, i will be talking about two in particular; above the line promotion and below the line promotion, i elaborate on the two below.

Starting with above the line promotion, this type of promotion focuses on using methods for mass media and aiming at a large/mass audience. Type of above the line promotion include; print, online media, television and even cinema advertising. An example is for the music industry, it is key for them as they need to let people know when the artists will release a new album or song. This is represented in many forms in terms of above the line. Recently the boost has been towards using Youtube and to have an advertisement on Youtube is effective, due to the website being a common place to listen to music from, channel such as VEVO, it allows advertisements before the actual video plays, banners, website promotions and even the creation of Youtube pages for the artist or band. All of the listed are forms of 'above the line promotion'. It is difficult to tailor a promotion to a specific group of people through above the line and this is because it is viewed by a mass audience will all different needs and demands making above the line very expensive as well.

Another form of promotion is 'Below the line', this is a more specific type of promotion and are memorable focused activities targeted to consumers, in  a way under the control of an organisation. Group which are defined group such as specific genre consumers e.g: rap, pop and rock. These are specified and clearly defined group, that are targeted specifically rather then mass targets These are consumers/people who have promotion towards them using above the line activity. Using these the purpose is to develop the brand by creating awareness and building a brand profile. Other below the line methods include; Sponsorship, telesales, direct marketing, public relations, sale promotions and personal selling.  An example of some sort could be towards the sales promotion which links in with direct selling. This is below the line and could be done by smaller artists who have less to spend on marketing, promotion. Using direct selling and promotion outside venues where music is related maybe a show is happening for a larger artist and their maybe a queue of some sort, the smaller artist could be going around to the people in the approaching them about their music or albums. This usually happens and occurs when the music genre of the artist with the concert is similar or the same to the artist that is smaller doing direct sales/promotion. E.g: rap artist is having a concert and there is a queue, smaller rap artist goes around trying to sell his albums or promote himself but usually both.

Shooting Day 3-19/12/12 Location-Highstreet

Today we went out planned to shoot a lot of the storyboard with numerous clips, this is what we achieved. We set out to Kingston and knew about a very good car park, again with roof being in use, although this car park had something different about it, it had one straight piller which figures out the main artist Angle(Harris) from the rest of the scenery and this was very effective, we used this in contrast to some locations which big name artist use in their videos, sometimes we could not entirely do but, achieved it in a similar but not the same manner and it was very effective. In addition for this shoot we used the tri-pod an effective accessory to the camera. At the roof a few different shots, we tried a panning shot, handheld and just keeping the artist center and tracking him around.

 We also went to the highstreet and tried a few differnet shots, we tried a panning shot, tracking shot and stills. Below is a shot where we wanted Angle to connect with the audeince, looking directly at them in a sense by him not looking any where else and he was very close up to the camera. These shots that i just spoke were those shot in the higstreet as you see below.

Lastly our final location was the Kingsoton, Bentalls shopping centre. We only got two shots here, something we could use as a cutaway as the shots were diffeicult to procede with, they were difficult due to the busy christmas shopping period and so a large amount of people were there, this meant taht even ahving a tripod in a space was hard to execute, so many people coming in the way and the tripod being in the way for some, so we had to resort to handheld shots. We got a POV-(point of view) shot that we could use, where we have a person walking past Angle whilst he is listnening.

Shooting Day 2

Shooting day 2 another few shots added, that can be used for the cut aways also performance shots. We did not have that much time, but got some good shots. We based the shots around Angle and we did get one or tow shots that may be unnecessary such as with him searching the actual song.

Shoot Day 1-05/12-Location: Rooftop

We had one of our important locations tested and shooted some of this footage, which possibly be used for the final video. This location was the rooftop of a car park, on New Malden high street. We have thought of some very good ideas for the final video, in addition we had previously learnt the importance of cut-away and so saw a major opportunity to shoot some today at the rooftop, we had learnt this from our research, where we could see a lot of cut-aways used which allowed and let the viewer piece by piece create the location of the particular shot.
We had also learnt something very important to look out for whilst doing this shoot, which was about the lighting, which could show your shadow, in addition is the, camera angle and which way the camera is facing.

You may just be able to see the shadow on the bottom left, this was one of the problems we realised instantly, the cameraman needs to be placed in accordance with the artist but somewhere that the artist is not deeply effected by the natural light in their eyes or the camera and the cameraman are not effected either, as the if the sunlight went into the shot, it destroys the surroundings in the shot, scenery and usually that frame or shot would go bright white and the camera struggles to focus, finding the right positions and angles was difficult but, in the end we were able to get good shots.We were able to find angles where neither factor would be effected, examples of this are shown below.

Analysis: K Koke- Turn back ft. Maverick Sabre

This video is by K Koke featuring Maverick Sabre and is called Turn Back, K Koke is a new artist in the main stream market, part of the USG group. This video is to do with the change that happens from being on the streets, acting out as a gangster carrying out wrong stuff, to now being quite successful and being well known and making money, it is there to show him leaving or trying to leave his old lifestyle.

The location used throughout is the broken down, typical mass estate in London, we can see his clothing being casual wear nothing to much, such as other people  living in the flats wearing; hoodies and tracksuits.
Throughout this video there is a story being told, where there is hardship, how he feels, what he went through and hat his mum went through, how he had to live his life when he was younger and how he lives it now.

K Koke uses an actor fro the role of a teenager, facing issues with drugs, gangsters, single parent, poverty and general struggles of life, this is a story being told, where metaphorically he is talking about his own lifestyle as a younger kid. In the video you can see the stereotype of estates, with hoodies, thieves, drugs, gangs, weapons and a tough life.

Test shots with Angle(Harris) + Wretch 23(Shaq)

Our lead singer and the main artist on this song, Angle(Harris) and featuring Wretch 23, i thought of testing their lip syncing/singing and with that to record some test shots. Due to these test shots, i have learnt many things to look out for whilst, producing and recording shots, overall it has been very successful with me gaining knowledge on how to gain the best possible result on the final music video.

In many music videos they have informal endings or leave at the point of something gone wrong in a video or even some bloopers, this kind of footage engages the audience making them feel closer to artist, such as getting some back stage access to the star. In this clip it is performed by Wretch 23, just a simple dance and then a point to the camera. Even something this simple could be used in the ending to the final music video.

 

This shot is something that could represent the lyrics, whilst previously going through troubles and issues- represented within parts of the lyrics. Now the star/artist is successful, living the dream and people/fans looking up to him and so as a possible transition shot, this could be the camera representing the people/fans who look up to him and the artist just walking down the street. Simple but yet again, very effective in its purpose. Issues faced were the lighting, looking up to the artist could means that the sky and other areas where there was light colours they turn white, really effecting the camera shot. In addition was the shaky camera, recorded by me, i understand what that this can be conquered with either additional accessories to the camera such as the tripod or the method of me holding the camera; i tried afterwards using this technique of elbows tucked in and camera has two arms and the body to stabilise on, i found this to be very helpful and effective.
This clip is with Ashad, a member of the group who is a backup to Angle and so thought to test him as well as testing the shots. In this clip the movement of the camera, personally i think is very good with the flow of the lyrics and the action of Ashad. This is something i hope to achieve in the recording for the final video, it will really add as the artist needs to perform and that this is shown but the camera also needs to add for an improvement to the overall video, bringing up the excitement expressed by the artist, this is achieved with clever movements of the camera, keeping with the rhythm, lyrics actions of the artist and overall keeping it in good pace. I feel this clip was a good example of what sort of camera movements could be added to the final video.

Another shot performed by Harris(Angle), this time in the park for some additional practise with lipsyncing and in terms of location this is probably not something we will be using in the final video, this is down to the genre the artist's and the song represent, with grime and rap as the main themes, this is not the ideal place, although it could possibly be used for a shot in the storyline part of the video. The only issue again, would have to be the lighting, as you can see it is not great and wouldn't look good in the final video and definitely does not look professional.


In this clip you can see the level of performance is very high, done by Shaq-Wretch 23, this is something we definitely aim to do in our final video, with him being the feature in the video, we will expect this level if not better and aim to do this throughout our final video. The lighting is much better then the other clips, understandable of why this is. In addition the location of this clip could be a location used in the final music video. Lastly the movement of the camera, is in line with the lyrics, rhythm and actions of the artist. As mentioned before something we will definitely doing and performing in our final music video.

Infuential Videos: Wiz Khalifa- Work Hard Play Hard

This song is by the artist 'Wiz Khalifa' and is called- 'Work Hard Play Hard'. This video does really relate to our song in the way that it motivated a person, as we go on we are focusing more on the kid becoming popular, will known and in conclusion being a successful artist. This song is definitely something that is in a similar genre, maybe not the visual or the actual story exactly in the video but, this definitely relates to the main principal being Go In Go Hard, our song. They both mean and show that you need to work hard and go in whilst you are doing it, for you to be able to achieve something good. In this Wiz Khalifa video its all about, people working doing there own jobs, all motivated and doing there own thing not lazy or inefficiently, but actually working hard, the result of working hard than leads to playing hard, which is seen at the end of the video, where Wiz gets all the workers acting in the video into one club/room, they mess about and have  party. Wiz Khalifa could be relating to him self for this song, that now he is playing and living life how he wants, due to him putting in focus and attaining the factor of playing hard.


In this video it is not the conventional music video about achieving in life, as other rappers have done this, but is not on this sort of focused level, as other rappers tend to show their wealth and are on a bit more towards the serious level, in comparison to this, keeping it in a celebration mode and showing that something has been achieved in our case it would be the actor to become a real famous artist. In the way we are to portray this is by having him struggle, having to work really hard, keep on going and stay motivated until he reaches the top level of his abilities, he will have a bully, someone who will be deterring him and demotivating him and a girl who pushing him forward, this means tow forces battling it out and as all good videos/stories end the good guy wins beating, with even the bully coming onto his side congratulating him. In comparison to Wiz Khalifa's video they people are there working really hard, they are working to the best of their abilities, Although instead of our take where the main character would become famous, in this video all the people party and have fun, play hard. There is a clear link between the lyrics and the visuals, this works very effectively to get the point across and we will be doing basically the same sort of method, although we will have performance and narrative on continuous strip, some not related and most of it connected to the lyrics.
In terms of the camera angle, the shots throughout are mid shots, this could be represent full focus on the artist, as well as the surroundings, in a sense the people who are behind him, the location is set, letting people know the whole story, another reason could be that the song is not just about him, having the mid shot, gives the chance for other people in the video to be seen, as it is about those who work hard an play hard, there is no full focus on the artist as it is not just about him an he is targeting to all people, although even with this we still having the artist giving attention, by maintaining the eye contact directly towards the audience.

A comment left by a fan/viewer of the song by Wiz Khalifa