Survey analysis

From looking at our results we now have a lot more ideas for our music video due to our feedback. The majority of our feedback was from 16-18 year old girls which is good as this is our main targeted audience. Many of the people who took part in our survey selected Pop and R&B as being their favourite genre's, this is great for us as a group in what we want to do. This is because Rihanna's main genre of music is both Pop and R&B which was the most popular.

The majority of our audience watch their music videos on Television and secondly on their computer.

More people preferred a narrative story music video when it is telling the story rather than performance based which is from the artist. This suits with what we wanted to do as we wanted to tell a story in our video and we was going to make all of it narrative as we felt this was best. After carrying out the questionnaire we can see that this is in fact the case as it is more popular towards our targeted audience.

Many of our audience listened to pop music rather than not with 75% saying they do listen to it and only 25% saying they do not. Rihanna's main genre of music is pop so this is effective for our work as they should more than likely enjoy Rihanna's music.

Our question 7 was an open ended question so I write what feedback we received, with half of our audience saying they liked it. Only 2 people said they didn't enjoy the music and one person saying it was generic. We have analysed this comment of someone saying it was generic and even though they are talking about the music and we can't physically change the song we are going to make our video unique. Four people said it was good and three people said it was good but they prefer the old stuff for example, what pop music was like in the 80's. I agree with this statement as I also prefer the pop music from the 80's so I will be looking at 80's pop music videos and seeing if we can incorporate this into our video somehow.

A lot of people found question 8 hard to answer which was asking them what their favourite music video out at the moment was. They found it hard to think of one but once they thought about it they had one to write down. Six people said Miley Cyrus - Cannonball was their favourite, I think this is really good for our ideas for our music video because as Miley's song is a sad love song so is Rihanna's. Miley's video is sad and she is crying a lot in it, this is what we want our actress to do in the video as well as we want a close up of her looking in the camera crying. We can look at the video Cannonball and see what effects and shots they used to make the audience feel her pain as it is done in a really good way.

The majority of our audience said they listened to Rihanna with 16 of them saying yes and only 4 of them saying they didn’t. This shows that a wide variety of people listen to Rihanna’s music and this video should appeal to a lot of people.

Our last question asked our audience what is their favourite Rihanna video and we left it as an open ended question so that they could pick any song of hers that they wanted. Unfaithful came up as the most liked video with Take A Bow as second and We Found Love third. We as a group our going to look at each of these videos and see what they are like and analyse them thoroughly. This will hopefully give us more ideas for our video as we haven’t actually fully decided on a beginning, middle and end in our story as we only have little ideas and nothing is our main idea.

Survey

3. My group and I decided to ask this question as we feel that it is important to know what genre the people doing the survey are interested in as it may influence how they answer question 8, 9 and 10 for example they may answer negatively due to them not being interested in pop and alternatively being interested in something like rock or indie in which Rihanna does not specialise in.

6. It is important to know whether our sample like pop, this is due to us knowing what the majority of people whom are local are interested in. With this information we can then draw a correlation into the results and compare the answer therefore understanding why people answered in a certain way compared to others. This is a good question for our sample because Rihanna's music is mainly based on pop.

7. I wanted to find out my samples opinion on pop music, this can therefore give them a chance to explain their reasons for not listening/listening to pop which can also give us a chance to understand why(in question
6) if their answer was no, the reason for it.

10. My group and I asked this question as we think it is important for us to know our samples favourite video as it would explain why they answered question 7 in the way they did. For example if someone in our sample said their favourite Rihanna video is a slow song like 'stay' then there favourite video obviously won't be 'PS i'm still not over you' as it is more of a pop song.

our pop questionnaire

This is an example of our Survey, we asked 10 varied questions for our 20 people to fill out

Mood board

This is a picture of the mood board we created for our chosen artist/song. As a group we were stuck on whether to choose Rihanna – PS I’m Still Not Over You or Adele – He Won’t Go. We got various pictures of the different ideas we had for each of the videos and we presented them to the class. We then felt that Rihanna was the better choice as we were more familiar with her music and although we may have had more ideas for the Adele song we felt our ideas for the Rihanna song were a lot more effective and would appeal more to our target audience. Our target audience is teenagers and we felt Rihanna is an artist that teenagers are attracted to more over Adele’s music.

Analysing music videos from different genre's

Jessie J - It's My Party (pop)

This song is a lot more upbeat and it is about her not caring what people think about her and she'll do her own thing. Jessie J has said this song is about how she feels about her life currently. By looking at the lyrics I feel it is about how she feels about peoples criticisms towards not just her but also her music too.This music video has a lot more vibrant colours used in it and Jessie J does not look anywhere near as serious as she does in Who You Are. She is joking around in the video with her lyrics and having a laugh with them. Even the surroundings of the video is a lot more electric and has a party vibe to the song.

Ed Sheeran The A Team music video analysis (slow song)

I will be analysing a music video by Ed Sheeran, my reason for choosing this video is the video uses a narrative structure which I feel is very different and will be portrayed in a emotional way. The video is told from another persons perspective, the person is watching another girls life.

Throughout the video there are many close ups which portray emotion from the girl in the video which creates feelings of sympathy from the audience as the lyrics are made in a way which is linked the what we are seeing in the video. This video is about how young people get caught up in doing drugs therefore I feel that this video will connect with the teenage audience(between the ages of 15-21)

Although there is a female in this video it will also connect to males as well because some males get caught up in drugs too.

This music video starts when it have been discovered that the girl lying down has been killed because of drugs which is a long shot. It can also suggest that she is unfortunate and doesn't have a place to sleep

or live. This makes the audience what to know more about her life. There is then a close up of her wiping her face and pulling the sleeping bag in around her which shows the audience she is cold, creating the audience to feel more sympathy for her.

The mise en scene also suggests that the girl is unfortunate not to have a home as she is in a park, also the bit where she is looking  that the girl is unfortunate because the costume she is wearing. She is wearing ripped tights and also a mans coat which is too big for her. Along with this she has thick make up on which suggests she has been trying anything for money. 

This video attracts it's target audience because they are people who could be involved and trapped and it shows that it isn't a way out. The circular structure intrigues the target audience causing them to be attracted to the video.

 J Cole Lost Ones (RNB)

This music video begins with a close up shot of a side view of a female, where it  is visible that she has been crying due to the tears and running down mascara, this immediately conveys that this song will be very emotional and deep.

 An extreme close shot is done which only focuses on the female’s eyes so that the audience can feel her hurt; this leaves the audience with questions from the beginning as to why this female is upset

The fact that the male (J Cole) is placing his hand on the window ceiling and not comforting the upset female conveys that there is an awkward situation going on in between them that is unresolved, it also shows that the female is rather strong as she is not looking to him for comfort, however this could also mean that he has upset her and is not remorseful about it.

However, J Cole then attempts to comfort the female and speak to her about their situation, the opening lyric of this song is “Baby girl, I can’t imagine what is like for you, I got you pregnant now inside there is a life in you”

This screen shot shows her turning away from him whilst he is attempting to talk to her, from this I can gather that they’re disagreeing on their decisions about the child he impregnated. 

 He then attempts again to hug and comfort her again whilst rapping “I know you going to think if this going to make me think about “wifeying” (marriage) you, like if you had my first child would I spend my whole life with you? The audience can gather that the male is not too keen on keeping this child or becoming ultimately serious with this female; from this they can finally understand why she is upset.

 She then forcefully/aggressively pushes him away, this conveys that his views on this situation differ from hers; she probably wants to start a family and move further on to a serious level with him whilst he doesn't want to.        

After, a mid shot is conducted whilst he raps “I aint trying to spend the night with you, I’m kind of lost”, this highlights the fact that he needs some space away from her as she is not in the frame shot with him.

Both of their hand gestures suggest that they’re in a very heated argument that has escalated the female’s mood from hurt into anger and she is continuously speaking with hand movements, portraying she has a lot to say.

However, J Cole then places his finger on the females mouth and raps “Hold on now, let me finish” which backs up my earlier point that the female is angry and has got a lot to say, yet he would like to be given the chance to give an explanation for his thoughts, and you can infer that he desperately wants her to understand his point.

The screen then splits into two whilst he is explaining his point, the effect of this split screen conveys that they both need to understand each other’s point of views, to make things equal for the both of them.

In this point of view shot you can infer that there are feelings between the couple as they’re holding hands and at this point the female isn't fighting it as she was in the previous scenes. Conveying that she is giving into him, which highlights how strong her feelings for him are.

99 problems essay.

In what ways are the traditional aspects of the hip-hop genre are broken or re-made in the music video for ‘99 problems’?

 

Jay Z’s ’99 problems’ music video was produced and released by Mark Romanek in 2004 which was a very controversial video at the time as it broke many of typical conventions or a rap/hip-hop genre video which is most probably what made the video and single such a success and remain significant to viewers, in particular to an audience who would have never listened to hip-hop music. The music video aimed to illustrate the struggles that Jay Z went through growing up in Brooklyn, New York whilst trying to pursue his career and elevate his position in the industry.

To begin with, the abstract representations of people, cultural elements and social problems deviate from the original representations of the hip-hop genre. For example when a rapper aims to show off their wealth, they use many expensive cars, flashy jewellery, name-brand clothing and alcohol in many close up shots such as in the ‘I Get Money’ video by 50 Cent which is a direct way of displaying their wealth. In the ‘’99 problems’’ video, one of his aims is to represent how disproportionately wealth is distributed in New York and the poverty in his neighbourhood. The close up of the black teenage boy wearing (what looks like) a black beanie is used to show that he is a victim of poverty, but a few seconds later he pulls down the balaclava to cover his face, inferring that he is about to commit a crime. This challenges the representation of the poor because it implies that what the rest of society may see as the consequences of being poor, those who live in poverty have other means of obtaining money through committing crimes and being involved in illegal activity and so the problem of ‘poverty’ is a social construct from outsiders and the richer, middle class people made to exploit the white race for their prejudice and discrimination.

Also, another way in which some of the traditional aspects are broken is through his lyrical content, the famous line ‘‘I got 99 problems but a bitch ain’t one’’ clearly suggest that Jay Z has a low opinion of women, as he labels them demeaning words such as ‘b*tch’ signifying that he has more power over them as they gave no ability to affect him. Yet through the use of voyeurism Jay Z attracts more male attention to the female, instead of completely disregarding them through the shots of women in bikini’s ‘booty-shaking’ and dancing in front of a car which flick through the clip at fast rates to capture male attention suggesting that they cannot get enough of women. He is able to portray the message effectively through synaesthesia as his lyrics collaborate well with the visual images to connect with the audience in a way that they can relate.

In terms of keeping with the traditional aspects of the hip-hop genre, the black and white theme of the video is similar to hip hop music videos from the late 1980’ and early 90’s by groups such as ‘Jazz’ by A Tribe called quest and ‘Rock box’ by RUN DMC, which is in a sense goes back to the traditional roots of hip hop where the lyrics were the most important part of the music video and there were lines dropped in about life and social issues instead of just displaying wealth, drug referencing and explicit lyrics. By going back to the roots of the hip hop genre the message of the song is displayed clearly and the ‘abstract’ aspects of the video have made the message of the video easier to understand. To sum up, the music video did divert away from many of the traditional aspects associated with the hip hop genre including the way the message was portrayed, through the technical elements such as camera shots and movements but in terms of rap the lyrics relate to and are similar to other artist’s music.

Analysing music videos from one particular artist