I produced some questionnaires, to find out some vital information that would help me with the production of my music video. I then created some tables and charts in order for them to be easier to read and display, with the information making some insightful reading.
Gender?
Favourite Genre:
What do you look for in a music video?
Are you keen on black and white in music videos?
Are you a fan of Kanye West's music?
What style of music do you prefer?
Do you like the style of the music video for Ed Sheeran - 'The A Team'?
Do you become more fond of a song if you like the music video?
I am very impressed by the new music video for Rihanna's latest song 'We Found Love'. Rihanna is a extremely successful artist, who has become a worldwide star and one of the biggest female artists of the last ten years. Her music videos are usually very successful, propelling the song to even greater heights, such as the 'Umbrella' video which made the song a phenomenon and one of the songs of the decade. However, her videos never contain much of a message or an interesting narrative, instead focussing on her the performance of the song itself (Umbrella, Rude Boy) or using an obvious narrative that is linked to the song lyrics (Unfaithful, Hate That I Love You). However, I feel this has changed recently, with the release of firstly the 'Man Down' video and secondly the 'We Found Love' video. Both have not been without controversy, with some critics saying that Rihanna is glorifying domestic abuse, violence and drug taking. I disagree with this though, I feel that both video's are shining the light on a difficult, dark subject matter and forming it as 'art', which is showcasing how important and insightful the format of a music video is.
'We Found Love' is a captivating and cinematic video. Straight away, the narration of Agyness Deyn draws you in with her rough, northern accent, something you wouldn't expect from a R'n'B superstar. The quote used at the start is a wonderful way to start the video, building up the narrative and fascinating the audience with the polemics of good and evil in a relationship. The video then goes on, with the editing picking up speed as the song does, showcasing some beautiful cinematic imagery, filmed in Northern Ireland. The song has a very intruiging narrative, showing how love can be like a drug, with their being many dangers to it along with the good feeling that it gives. As familiar in all Rihanna video's, the essence of voyerism is still there, with the singer flaunting her beautiful looks in revealing and iconic outfits. However, at no time did I feel this was a sexually driven video, which Rihanna has perviously done in the past (S&M), and I was just overly impressed by the variety of shots, range of editing and the engaging narrative which shows many different ideas and representations. I am very impressed by the video, mainly because it isn't just a normal conventional pop video to visualise a 'electro-pop' song, instead Rihanna, and the creative team behind it, produce a video with a message and real backbone. I have to agree with Rihanna, that this is her best and deepest video to date.
During Year 12, whilst we began working on the art of music video's, we made a music video to show off the skills that we had learnt. We used the element of performance in the video, using a female lead singer and backing dancers and singers to represent the feel good element to the song. The song was called 'Why Does Love Do This To Me' by The Exponents, a feel good and extremely catch song, and we hoped to portray that element, in a positively structured video. We unfortunately didn't have time to finish the song due to a lack of time whilst we were creating it, however we still managed to show off some skills we had learnt, such as the concept of performance and using the lead singer to mime the words, over a backing track.
I am initially brainstorming many ideas and I am interested in the idea of a simplistic video, which has proved successful for many artists over the generations. I am thinking of doing a black and white video, reflecting the emotion in the song that I will potentially use. The song I am thinking of using is 'Welcome to Heartbreak' by Kanye West from his '808s and Heartbreak' album, a song that provokes a lot of different emotions, therefore creating an interesting song to partner my visual. I am inspired by Ed Sheeran's video for 'The A Team', as I feel that is another good example of a song that provokes emotion, vulnerability and a character's lifestyle, something that I hope to portray in my own video.
