First filming session

Our first filming session we decided to shoot on Saturday 26th November was at our chosen location of the Victorian house. We chose the bedroom with the smallest chair as we thought this would reflect the idea of childhood as she is sitting in a chair that is too small and seems more fit for a child or dolls.

We also chose this one first as its a comfortable setting for the main singer of the video to get used to lip syncing and performing the song.

The outfit we chose was a bright red, edgy/military style dress that we thought would be a good contrast of colour against the pale colours of the bedroom and chair.

The make up we chose was very harsh with dark eyes, lips and defined cheekbones.

We were able to get hold of artificial lighting which we found made a big difference on the quality of the picture on the camera.
We also filmed the start of the song when the artist is revealed and comes up from the floor using the underground garage the house has. For this the lighting was dark night with artificial lighting behind the girl creating a silhouette of her.

Planned outfit for filming in first location 

Make up and prep for filming

 

FILMINGLighting and camera set up in first location

Overall, we found that the actual preparation for the scene took the most time; getting Aisha in costume and make up took longer than the actual filming itself because we had to think a great deal into how we wanted Aisha's/ Jessie J's image and persona to be seen in this music video. I think as a group, we were successful in showing the performer as an outspoken, confident person who likes to stand out in a crowd

Animatic Storyboard

As part of our planning exercises, we created a storyboard using post-it notes so that we can always move the shots around.

Once we had a final idea of the shots and order of them within our video, we put the pictures we created onto the computer and then onto final cut.

Using the skills developed from the Key Frames exercise, using effects for still images, we created a rough, animatic version of the music video in order to get a proper image of what our final video may eventually look like.

Meeting 9

Within our meeting we discussed properly what costumes we wanted to use for particular scenes and physically match them together.
For the chair scene we wanted to contrast the pale colours of the chair and room with a bright, bold colour so we chose a bright red dress with padded sholders to create an angular dress that was eye-catching. This was paired with black shoe boots with a high heel as the block colouring also makes a statement to the piece. The only accessories used with this outfit was a ring that said "LOVE".
For the opening part with the garage when she comes up from underground, we wanted to focus on the silhouette of the singer as it gives a first impression to viewers making them want more. For this we decided to dress her simply in leggings and a plain top with a leather jacket to show that she is modern as well. We gave her heels to wear as well as this will magnify her look making her legs apear longer and giving her a more seductive silhouette.
For the balcony scene we wanted to go for something different but trendy. We will dress her in snake-skin leggings with a black lace top to show elegance as well as edgyness. This will be paired with black Dr Martins to contradict the elegance and show harshness and boldness to the character.
The scene with the violinist and the mime - the mime will be dressed in simple black and white - perhaps a suit with sad mime make-up. The girl violinist will wear a maroon red dress with high heels to show she is better than the mime as he is just copying her. The dress will show a clear silhouette and the deep maroon colour will contrast nicely with the bright green of the archway behind.
When the girl is singing in the destroyed forest we decided to dress her in a white satin night dress to almost signify that she could be dreamng, also the purity and cleanliness of the white will contradict with the dirt and mud that is in her surroundings. This will be paired with the black Dr Martins also as it gives the character an edge which is the main look we are going for with the modern pop song.
The shot of the ballerina in the forest will be dressed with the ballet dancer in typical ballet uniform, again to show purity and innocence.


Pictures - outfit examples

Storyboard pictures

Group Meeting 8

We have produced an animatic story board, so we get a visual idea of how we would like our music video to look. We have created this by making drawing on posit notes and scanning them onto the computer. From this we uploaded the images onto final cut and put the track behind it. Using markers and blade we have cut and edited the images into how we would like our story board to look.
From this we are now fully prepared to shot on the saturday.

We have decide what shots we are going to take, these are:
Small chair guest bedroom
Garage
Mime Scene

The clothing we are using are:
Red Dress
Snake leggins
Floaty Dress
Heels

Props:
Make-up
Cameras
Lighting
Laptop

We have booked our location and made sure our actors can performer on the saturday.

Audience Profile

Male/Female: Female 

Name: Chloe Piper 

Age: 17

Hobbies: Shopping, Make-up, Gym, 

Favourite musical artists: Jessie J, Beyonce, Rihanna, The Saturdays

Education/Employment: College, Office the shoe shop

Favourite tv shows: Friends, The Hills

Loves: Fashion, Clothing, her friends, concerts

Hates: Spiders, Mosh Pits,

Musically hates: Enter Shikari, Slipknot 

Favourite magazine: Heat, Look, Grazia, Cosmoplitan

Favourite music video channel: MTV Hits, 4Music 

Favurite possession: Mac Make-up, blackberry and iPod



During her spare time she likes to socialise and go on social networking site such as twitter where she can follow her favourite musical artists. 


A typical day in the life of Chloe Piper...
Chloe will wake up every morning at 7am. Her alarm is KISS radio and she listens to this while she's getting ready.
On her walk to college - where she is studying A Levels in Media, English Literature and Psychology - she will be listening to music on her iPod touch. Her most played artists are Jessie J, Beyonce, The Wanted and Christina Aguilera.
When she has a free lesson she is in the common room mostly reading Look magazine, talking to her friends or tweeting on her BlackBerry. 
She gets a lift home from her mum where she turns the radio on full blast Capital and her and her mum sing along to all the words.
After doing her assignments at home, Chloe likes to unwind in front of the TV or her laptop. She will mostly watch MTV reality shows or american sitcoms on E4 or Comedy Central.
She loves to go to concerts with her friends, she recently saw Rihanna and has previously seen Girls Aloud and Lady GaGa. 
Chloe is easily influenced in terms of her fashion sense, she will wear what she sees in magazines and what is worn by her celebrity icons.

Media Trip

Media Trip

MTV TO YOUTUBE

What is a music video?

A music video is a visual to illustrate a track. It is usually the length of the song or longer, it may feature the artist itself but however does not have to. The director may chose to have professional actors instead. The music video may have a strong narrative and tell a story, however this does not have to happen. But the main feature to a music video is that it had to be memorable. Something different and new to make it have a higher viewing audience, therefore more views more money and a higher popularity for the artist.

History of Music Videos

1930:

In 1930 is when people first started to experiment with the use of images over a piece of music. Len Lye was the first to do this; he was funded by GPA to create a clip to promote cheaper posting. This was called colour box.  It used images of small dots of a variety of colours creating shapes and patterns. Words were added to this clip to help promote cheaper posting.

1940:

In the late 1940’s soundies were first in use in small diners. There were only 4,000 sold worldwide and they soon died out. Soundies are small jukeboxes that show short promo videos of the artist. A famous one used was Nat Nick Kole- Nick Nak. He used the typical male gaze shot of a lady sitting on a chair; this image shows the audience he was aiming at, men.

These sexual images were the cause of the so undies to die out; many people disagreed with provocative images being shown. Therefore making the company have to close down.

1960:

In the 1960’s is when scorpions flourished; they were most popular in France in cafes.  Scorpions were similar to so undies, they were jukeboxes that showed a visual image to a popular song, this time in colour.

Artist created short stories to their songs on a low budget; many of these stories had dancing in it and were also rather provocative.

In the late 1960’s bands started to create more and more short promo videos to their songs. These videos were mostly used for when bands were away on tour and could still be popular in areas in which they were not playing live.

A classic promo video is The Beatles, Cant buy me Love. They used clips from their feature film Hard days Night to create a video for this song.  Classic camera shots that were used were speeding up the footage and slowing it down, using a helicopter for a bird’s eye view. 

Another famous promo video, now one of the most influence ones to date, Bob Dylan, substaraiana home sick blues. They used the simple ides of using cards with the lyrics on being shown when Dylan sings the song, It is a very simple yet affective visual, which is still well known today. It has been used on YouTube; thousands of re-makes as well as a Simpsons spin off.

1970:

1970 is when one of the most famous music video was created, Queens Bohiemenrapsidy. It is iconic.

1981:

In 1981 is when people started to realise that money could be made from music videos. This was when MTV was born. At first it was just all-British artists with the majority of the acts being male. A classic music video was Madness- Our house; it was a very commercial video that people were always excited to watch. Madness then became well known for their wacky and boundary pushing videos.

All of the music videos that were shown on MTV for several years were all white British males, however Madonna changed this.  She was the first female from the USA to create such a popular music video.

She used well-known movie directors on a big budget to create a high concept theatrical music video. From this change it really highlighted the impact a music video can have to an artist and their career. She was won awards being named break through female as well as the directors she worked with winning awards for their work on her videos.

Not only this but Madonna saw even more money to be made, and created compilation videotape, which had all of her music videos on. This was sold in high demand and created a large sum of money.
At this period of time there were no black artist, however Michael Jackson was the first black male to hit MTV's screen. His first music video to hit MTV was Thriller, now one of the most iconic music videos to date. It is also one of the most expensive videos made, having spent several millions on it.

From black artist slowly making there way on to MTV, the producers realised there was a certain audience that viewed these videos, called the Black Market. This is where MTV BASE was made, it played artists such as Jay Z, 50 Cent and other well known black artists.
These artists music videos are very recognisable and in some ways stereotypical, using the female gaze, showing off their wealth via cars, money, 'bling'.  However one very unusual and different music video was Jay Z's 99 Problems, the style is one that would be most recognisable in a rock video. Quick cuts, fast paced editing, black and white, raw images. It is one of the most controversial black music videos, the controversy of it was one of the many reason it became so popular and from this word of mouth spread.

YouTube

MASH UP

This is where people create a mash up song of artist, one famous one is Jay Z and The Beatles, called Grey Album.  Its a way for everyday people to be able to create their own music video using some of their favourite artists and mixing them into one unique song. 

RE-MADE

This when music videos are re-made into a different version, such as using Lady Gaga, Telephone, and making it as a Sims 2 version.

RICHMIX

As we are making music videos for our coursework, we went to a music video talk at Rich Mix in brick lane called From MTV to YouTube. The day was split into two with the first session including a talk by Pete Fraser who spoke about the history of music videos, codes and conventions as well as top tips for us when making our music videos. The afternoon session was a talk with Producer Liz Kessler who told us about working in the industry and all about producing videos. There was also a Q&A with music video director, Corin Hardy, who told us his experience in the industry.


Pete Fraser first spoke about the history of music videos. He began with 'What is a music video?' and explained to us that they tell a story and are ways of promoting the artist and their song.
He spoke about how music videos began long before MTV was created. He showed us a video from the 1930s which is a piece of music that an artist has put against different paintings and would follow the rhythm of the music, these "music videos" would generally include text that would advertise products.
He then spoke about the 1940s and 'Soundies'
Soundies were like jukeboxes that included black and white picture videos with music, he showed us a Nat King Cole example. However, these videos were soon banned for containing too much sexual images that were considered inappropriate at the time.
He then explained how the music video developed in the 60s with colour film. In France, Scriptones came about which were the coloured, better quality version of Soundies. The music videos shown in the scriptones included many of the characteristics that we would find in today's music videos.




Also in the 1960s, before proper music videos, artists such as Elvis and The Beatles would have done promo films in which would include songs of the artist and a montage to go with it. As an example he showed us a Beatles example for Money Can't Buy Me Love from the film A Hard Days Night.



In the 70s it became more popular to accompany a song with a music video in order to entertain viewers in live shows when the artists weren't able to perform. The example Pete Fraser gave us was Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.
Finally MTV came about in 1981, the channel began showing mostly British acts. Soon enough it became almost an unwritten rule in order to obtain a chart hit you must have an accompanying music video. The videos on this new channel ranged from low to high budget, bands like Madness would have conventionally low budgeted videos such as the 'Our House' video whereas bands sucha as Duran Duran would spend much more on their videos. When the American artists began to spread on the channel, budgets began rising.
MTV would be dominantly male singers until Madonna became popular and brought the women to the channel.
The black market for music was rarely shown on TV until the likes of Michael Jackson with the music video to Thriller became a massive hit and changed the music television industry for life.
From then on, black artists have begun to dominate music industry with there even now being whole music channels dedicated to showing typically music of black origin including rap, hip hop and R&B music.


Videos including  50 Cent's Candy Shop show the typical conventions of a rap artist's music video with the flash cars and clothes, a big mansion and the representation of woman in minimal clothing performing and dancing in a heavily sexual way. 

However, not all black music artists follow these typical conventions of a hip hop video, Jay Z teamed up with director Mark Romamek to produce a music video to his rap song "99 Problems" that looked more like a rock music video. Boundaries are pushed greatly in music videos these days and there are so many of them that all differ in many ways.


Pete Fraser then went on to talk about developments in technology over the years and spoke mostly about YouTube and how easy it is now to view music videos and to create your own video on any budget at all. He spoke about trends and how people can make fun of or play around with in order to make their own version of a music video that already exists.




Lastly, he gave us lots of tips to use when making our music videos.

• limber up - practice with all your equipment. Learn to lip sync well etc.
• Choose an appropriate track and keep it short.
• create a pitch for your music video and get feedback on your ideas
• have a clear concept
• PLAN EVERYTHING
• keep every idea and new thing on a blog
• shoot more than necessary
• prepare to write an analysis of your music video using Goodwin's Analysis as well as variant theories.

At the end of this session we were all played a song. We were told to go off at lunch in our groups and come up with a basic idea for a music video for that song. It was a song none of us had heard before, nor were we familiar with the video which was good in order to let us start from scratch. At the beginning of the second section we each pitched our ideas to Liz and Corin in order to get the opinion of a producer and a director in terms of the idea itself but also budgeting and so on.

The trip was very useful as it helped us get an understanding of video making in the real world. I also really enjoyed finding out about the history of something that is so popular in today' s society.

Shot List

Main Shot Ideas

• Main view of the house - full view, low angle.
• mid-shot of main girl in anger tearing out the book case.
• Long shot of main girl running after a car in tears, driven by the friend she wronged.
• long shot of 2 characters. girl in odd clothing playing the violin and a mime who is copying her actions.
• close up of a girl at the tea party wearing a butterfly mask.
• close up of main girl on chair, looking angry and confused while the camera jerks and shakes and hands are all around her.
• Mid-shot of main girl on the balcony, reaching out. the camera pans to the left.
• long shot/low angle of main girl on the hair sat in an awkward position.
• long shot of the main girl at the tea party with 3/4 other characters. lots of movement while she is still and upset.
• long shot of main girl singing in the destroyed forest, dull lighting (natural).
• close up of teddy bear - stop motion - as he walks towards the main girl.
• close up of face/feet/waist of ballerina in the forest
• mid shot of top/bottom half of ballerina in the forest
• long shot, low angle of ballerina in the forest
• extreme close up of main girl's decorated lips as she lip-syncs
• close up of main girl's face, black tape crossed over her mouth, black tears down her face.
• long shot of girl on the balcony. laying across it and singing.
• zoom in from a long shot to a close up of the girl on a small chair placed awkwardly as she sings
• straight angle, long shot of girl as she comes up from the garage.
• close up of the back of the main girl's head as she slowly turns around to reveal the tape crossed over her mouth.
• over shoulder shot from the main girl with a tear down her cheek as she watches the car leave the gates and drive away.
• close up of main girl still as another girl sings her song in her face.
• mid shot of girl awkwardly crawling out of the small door like its a place for toys to live.
• extreme close up of girl's eyes crying with lots of black eye make-up running down her face.
• a zoom out from an extreme close up of girls eye to reveal her in a different location.
• mid shot of girl miming song and then someone's hand comes and puts it over her mouth to stop her speaking.
• girl dancing on the stair case in extravagant clothing, long shot.
• long shot of girl miming against the archway to reveal the archway and building next to it. 

Meeting 7

During this meeting we arranged to film at our location on saturday the 26th November with the home owner. Looking at the weather forecast, we decided that it would be more practical to film scenes that are inside the house. This was our first meeting in which we had to make sure we all agreed on what costume design we wanted for each scene so that we knew what to bring to the location.
The pictures below show our make-up and costume designs:

Key Frames

Key Frames

I have created a small clip of key frames, I have used a selection of pictures. From these I have put skills that I have learnt in lesson into practice. I have zoomed in on pictures, zoomed out and added text. The skills that I have leant from this exercise will be applied to our animatic storyboard.    

BARB

KISS TV

Average Daily Reach - 182 0.3%

Average Weekly Reach - 986 1.7%

Average Weekly Viewing (hrs:min per person) - 0.01

We thought that Kiss TV would be suitable to play our music video as they play all modern pop videos and this is the typical genre our video falls in to.

MTV HITS

Average Daily Reach - 222 0.4%

Average Weekly Reach - 1,201 2.1%

Average Weekly Viewing (hrs:min per person) - 0.01

MTV Hits is a one of the MTV family that specifies in pop music. Hits shows that the channel shows only the most popular songs around at that time.

4 MUSIC

Average Daily Reach -  1,057 1.8%

Average Weekly Reach - 4,455 7.7%

Average Weekly Viewing (hrs:min per person) - 0.05

4 Music is one of the most popular music channels to play pop music, this is due to the fact that it can reach a broad audience as its available on digital. It generally plays popular music of the time among tv shows so therefore the station would play our music video.

VIVA

Average Daily Reach -  1,097 1.9%

Average Weekly Reach - 4,702 8.2% 

Average Weekly Viewing (hrs:min per person) - 0.05

Viva is a very popular music channel as it reaches are large audience this is because it is accessible on free view so, as it shows the most popular music of variant genres (mainly focusing on pop) we feel that our video would be shown and viewed by many on this channel.


Some channels would be chosen to not air our video such as  KERRANG, MTV Rocks, Vintage TV and more. This is mostly due to the fact that the genres of music played on thee channels do not include that of the pop music genre.


We believe that the channels we have chosen to air our video are ones that will draw in our target audience and these will then be the people that would hopefully buy the track then the prospective album.

Hype Williams

Hype Williams is a very well known music video director in the R&B and Hip Hop genres of music and has done lots of work with many famous artists including; Kanye West, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj, Jay Z, Beyonce and Drake to name a few. Hype tends to show a continuous style across all his videos in order to show a signature look and to portray the specific genre as well as keep to the demands of the artist and record label.

 

Hype's name on the videos

I will compare Hype Williams’ music videos but focus mainly on Beyoncé’s ‘Check on it’, Nelly and Janet Jackosn’s ‘Call on me’ and Kanye West’s ‘Gold Digger’. Analysis and comparison of the music videos will be done using Andrew Goodwin’s Music Video Analysis from ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ (Routledge 1992).

The main similarity across most of Hype William’s videos is the appearance of his name at some point within the video.

Within his video for Kanye West’s song ‘Gold Digger’ featuring the vocals of Jamie Foxx, it is clear to see Hype’s portrayal of the Hip Hop genre with his use and placement of women within the video. The women are placed in provocative outfits and in sexual situations in order to help sell the track. This is supported by Laura Mulvey’s theory as she states the ‘Male Gaze’ is used to show sexual objectification of women, she believes that in film; audiences have to view the female characters from the perspective of a heterosexual male.

This idea of female objectification used to sell a track is also evident within other videos directed by Hype Williams such as Beyoncé’s ‘Check on it’ video. The sexual image of Beyoncé herself is the main focus of the video as she is dressed in revealing clothing most of the time and the dance routine tend to include some suggestive moves. The dance routine included within the video gives the clear idea that the song holds the genre of pop/R&B. the running pink colour theme throughout the video also shows the pop side of the video as well as the idea that the video is to advertise the film ‘Pink Panther’.

The videos all seem to show similarities in terms of the way in which they’re framed. Each video seems to show emphasis on the main artist(s) from the torso upwards with a key focus on the face. For example; in Gold Digger the background consists of a main colour that fades into the middle to highlight the centre of the screen which is generally where one of the artists are is placed in order to draw audience’s eyes to where the director intended. Similarly, in Nelly and Janet Jackson’s ‘Call on me’ video the artists are placed centrally with still, colourful backgrounds. The artists are able to stand out as they are constantly moving which immediately draws the eye away from the colourful backgrounds and towards the artists themselves.

The fact that Hype tends to focus mainly on the performing artists themselves shows that Richard Dyer’s ‘star theory’ is evident as it is clear to see a realtionship between the star and the audience as well as the stars’ artificial images.

It is clear to see that throughout each of Hype Williams’ videos that they tend to be mainly performance and conceptual as they seem to include artistic situations and ideas along side performing in terms of lip syncing and dancing.

Director Essay - Michel Gondry

Michel Gondry

Although he won an academy award for his filmmaking, Michel Gondry is a talented music video director who is noted for his mise-en-scene manipulation and his inventive visual style. The Auteur Theory suggests that a director creates films that relate to their own personal vision, as if it was their project. Gondry shows to be no exception to this; his variation of music videos show his love for the effect given off by stop motion, and his love for surreal and comical devises are also included in his music videos.

On of these inventive visual styles is his love of stop motion; the video “hardest button to button” by the White Stripes. Having already directed music videos for The White Stripes such as “Fell in Love with a Girl” and “Dead Leaves the Dirty Ground”, the artists were well aware and also fans of his creative vision and style. The music video simply consisted of the two band members in a typical New York urban setting. However, Gondry used 32 identical Ludwig drum kits, 32 identical amplifiers and 16 identical microphone stands during the shoot. The editing style creates a natural but exciting pace to the song; every time meg would beat the drum, a new kit would appear and she would appear that she is moving along. Although being a very time, consuming yet effective visual, the editing matched to the strong rhythm of the song amplifying the beat of the drum making the video seem even more catchy and exciting. 

However, Michel Gondry is not only famous for his editing technique of stop motion, he is also well known for his surreal concept ideas. One of his most famous music videos that demonstrates this is the one for the Foo Fighters. In the music video “Everlong” Gondry created a surreal and satyrical conceptual video with a small narrative style. The video was made up of a number of dream sequences from each band member.

The idea of having a music video made up of dreams meant that Gondry was free to make this video as surreal and extravagant as he wanted when it came to mise-en-scene; in one scene, a band member’s hand swelled up to an enormous size so that he could hit someone and although this hand was obviously not real, it still created a strange and almost comical effect. 

This music video also demonstrates Gondry’s experimental style when it came to visual manipulation; in the music video, Gondry uses only black and white colour in the scenes that are the reality and the scenes in colour that are the dreams. Although the audience know that the dream scenes look more realistic when in colour, they understand that this is Gondry playing around with his visuals.

Another music video that plays around with visuals is his music video for “Let Forever Be” by The Chemical Brothers. Like the White Stripes video, the music has a strong beat which reveals his preferred music genre. This video, however, has a very similar conceptual idea to that of the Foo Fighters video; the woman in the video is dreaming. Here Gondry used inspiration from Ray Davis’ 1975 Granada TV production of “Starmaker”. With the heavy use of props, Gondry allows the mise-en-scene to give the vibe of a performance on a stage, allowing the video to seem exciting but still with a strong dream-like sense. 

Michel Gondry’s directing style is easily recognised in his music videos and is a prime example of the Auteur Theory in which he fills the music videos with the use of personal inspiration, editing and visual preferences.

Auteur Theory

Director: Mark Romanek

Artist: Jay Z

Song: 99 Problems

Mark Romanek is known for his foundry pushing, visually disturbing and thought provoking images. These are seen in some of this most famous music videos Nine Inch Nails- Closer 1994, as well as ‘The perfect Drug’. Both music videos being something disturbing and causing controversy, this being one of the main reasons his videos have been so popular to the audience.

Mark Romanek is well known for his excellent cinematic work, this is shown in Jay Z music video, 99 Problems. It highlights the directors talents as well as his known traits. The director has mostly created music videos for the rock genre so he has used this aspect of rock and roll to create a new and original rap music video, which has never been done before.

Instead of the typical male heterosexual viewer, on looking women as a sexual object (Laura Mulvely ‘Visual pleasure and narrative cinema’ 1975), the male gaze is not the main concept in Jay Z’s music video, it has little to do with the way men view women or their relationship.

Instead the concept for this music video was created from something Jay Z had requested and the director worked from this. All he asked for was to portray the areas he grew up in New York, Brooklyn, in a beautiful way. He wanted to portray the area he grew up in, in a different way than one would normally look at it. The idea of making the graffiti on the wall look like a piece of art. The way they decided to show this was by using still images, making these looks like vintage images in black and white. Giving them a crisp and raw look, with a clear artist and beautiful edge.

I will be using Andrew Goodwins ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ to analyse Jay Z, 99 Problems music video.

The pace throughout this music video is extremely fast, showing around 60 different shots in under the first 40 seconds. These quick shots link in well with the rhythm and beat of the song. Having lyrics being said at a very fast pace matches with the quick shot changes.

Each shots is located in an area in which has a meaning behind it, for example the shot of Jay Z sitting on the sofa in a flat. This is the flat that he used to live in when he was growing up, each location has a personal meaning to Jay Z. Which therefore makes this music video have even more depth to it, and a hidden meaning. The dog fighting scene is a real footage of live dog fights, this creates a realistic feel to what living in that area was truly like. Making the music video feel more like documenting moments than putting together a normal music video.

There are some lyrical and visual links throughout the video, such as when the police man come up to Jay Z in the car and he says ‘ I know you’ll gonna need warrant for that’. As the police man wants to search his car. A quick scene shows the car boot being see through allowing the view to see that in the car are what looks like illegal substance. This therefore makes the audience understand the lyrics and the visual. For if the police officer opened up the car boot, he would have found illegal substances and would have therefore changed the whole course of Jay Z’s life, as this was said by him to have been a real life experience. Like many rap songs, expressing moments that have happened throughout their life.

There are not many shots where women are under minded, however there are a few scenes of women wearing very little clothing and washing a car. However I don’t feel this scene is used to improver Jay Z, more for him to express the real life situations that occurred in the area he lived in.

The inspiration for this whole music video concept came from the work of old vintage photos, and making something that to the naked eye may not look very ‘ attractive’, looking beautiful and very artistic.

The director really becomes in charge when he requested to Jay Z getting shot in the music video, the artist firstly did not want this to happen t all but after a while came round and allowed the director to take full control and trust his view. This shot really capture the life in which many people lead in New York, it highlights most issues. Of illegal weapon, gang violence, drug wars etc. It also shows a lifestyle in which Jay Z may have lived in if he carried on doing the illegal things he was doing before his music became his driving force out.

For Jay Z as an artist this type of music video is very boundary pushing and original. Something that you won’t see any other typical rap artist use, its very fresh and raw. It doesn’t use women in a negative way to make the artist seem powerful, it just uses normal clips of people in New York city doing normal things.