Analyses of similar products

For this analysis i am going to analyse three different R&B videos in relation to our music video song 'Black eyed Peas - where is the love' as this in the the R&B genre of music.

The first R&B song i am going to analyse is 'I gotta feeling' by Black Eyed Peas, i have chosen this video as i feel it would be useful to compare a black eyed peas song to another.

Firstly in this video there are many long takes used during the start of the video and as the video progresses the takes become shorter. This emphasises a slow and calm atmosphere before the party begins and as the party carries on it becomes a much faster paced atmosphere and a lot that is happening. The long takes are also mainly focused on the artists performing, this shows the audience how they would get ready for a party and emphasises that these characters shown are the artists.

Also there has been many zooms used in the start of the video which foreshadows the characters going to the party, the transport they are taking and what they are doing to get ready. A relatively low key lighting has been used which contrasts with the high key lighting when the party is shown which creates a calm atmosphere at first which then contrasts to a very fast paced and busy atmosphere.
Some aspects of slow motion has been used throughout the music video which allows the artists and some vital scenes in the narrative to gain the extra attention.

During the start of the video there are many close ups used of the artists which are used to enhance the looks of the artists and to show there effort to look good for a party.



The next R&B video I am going to analyse is Eminem - No Love ft. Lil Wayne, this is a fairly new song and is well established.I have chosen this song as it is  very different to the song we have chosen which will be very good to compare to one another and to analyse the differences and similarities which can help with our decisions in our music video. The video contains both performance based and narrative based elements within it, regarding the performance  it features the two artists throughout most of the video. The video contains footage telling a story of a young boy  constantly being bullied at school until he has the courage to stand up to the bullies and fight back, and also the story links in with the lyrics of the song.

The opening shot is a close up of a young boy that has a black eye, this emphasises he is the main actor and the one that has to deal with the bullying, it also foreshadows this which creates a dramatic atmosphere and anticipation for the audience to see what happens. The shot may also create sympathy to the character from the audience which therefore gets them hooked to the story.

At 0:46 in the video a low angle shot has been used which emphasises the power of this character to the audience and perhaps his has something big to contribute to the video.
Throughout the video there is a numerous amount of slow motion effects which shows to the audience a slow paced atmosphere and how the days drag on for the young boy that is being bullied and also the slow motion effect allows the artists and the narrative to have extra attention to it from the audience.

A relatively low key lighting has been used throughout the music video which emphasises an unhappy atmosphere in relation to the theme of the song which is bullying and shows that this is quite a upsetting matter.
The black and white that has been used throughout the video at every point the young boy is being bullied which emphasises that it has happened in the past and that it is a flashback to a dull and hard time in the young boys life. At 1:30, the artist clearly shows that it is a Hip Hop song from the clothing he is wearing, such as sunglasses, a hoodie which you wouldn't expect to see in a video of a Metal genre. The use of smoke emphasises a quite tense and dramatic atmosphere in the music video.








For my final analyse of similar products I will be analysing Akon - Smack That Ft. Eminem. Firstly there are various close ups of the artist Akon which emphasises he is the main artist and makes him stand out from the rest of the characters in the video.
There is a use of low key lighting which suggests a quite mysterious and gloomy atmosphere which relates to the use of characters as prisoners as fairly suspicious and mysterious, and this is emphasised through the whole video, and also creates a stereo type of prisoners as being the bad guys.

The use of a new artist being promoted, Eminem at 2:14 keeps the audience interested, the tempo increases along with the editing used such as shorter shots. This foreshadows a more upbeat part of the song where Eminem raps and lets the song and artist being 'one' and together throughout the whole video. It also promotes the artist and maintains the interest of the audience.

There are various slow motions throughout the music video which allows the artists to gain more attention and represents the importance they have.
The close ups of the female character at 1:50 enhances the females beauty and emphasises her effort to look good for the other males in the room. The use of fades emphasise the time passed that the prisoners have withdrawn while being in prison and foreshadows that they will soon be let out.

The narrative used at the start of the song is used to build up the relationship of the characters and the story behind the video to the audience. The start of the narrative shows the artist Akon in prison and gives the audience a outline of what will happen and why he has been let out of prison.

The costumes used are very dull using colours of black on their clothing, this emphasises a very mysterious and inauspiciousness to the video. It also suggests that they are trying to stay hidden and perhaps that they are not meant to be there but instead doing something else. Akon's costume is very dull and mysterious as he is out of prison and suggests that he is not meant to be doing what he is doing in the video which contrasts with the next artist Eminem. His costume is very bright which emphasises that he can do what he wants and may not have to worry about being caught as he has not been in prison in the video.

The male artists are all shown to be wealthy from the clothing they are wearing which suggests their power and wealth from the other characters and emphasises that they are the main artists in the video. The male artists are all wearing rich jewellery and rich clothing for example Akon is wearing a suit, which suggests the stereotype of males being more wealthy and their status as being much higher compared with the other artists.

The impact these videos have had on making decisions for our music video are to create a great impact on the audience by thinking about the costumes used and promoting the main artists and to emphasise their power over other characters in our video. These videos have given ideas such as varied shots such as close ups promoting the artist and slow motion/fast motion shots to focus more on the artists themselves.

I feel our music video will relate to these as these promote the stereotype of R&B songs as being wealthy and promoting the artists to a big extent to show their power towards the audience.

Conventions of R&B

There are many conventions of R&B which I have found while analysing these videos and these are as follows:

Cars - We are not thinking of using cars for our music video as it would create a more fast paced atmosphere to the audience which we are not trying to do, we are trying to create a more sympathetic slow pace to our video which may have more of a impact on the audience.

Jewellery - We are not considering using jewellery in our music video as that would promote the artists as being wealthy which is the opposite of what we are trying to do. We want our video to promote the lack of wealth the characters have which will be shown by the location of the shots in a urban run down area.

Black males - Although the original members of the band of our chosen music video does contain black artists  we are not going to use them to make the video varied from the original and perhaps stand out more.

Urban Setting - We will be using a varied amount of urban settings and this is a major importance to us as it will relate to our narrative of the song as being fairly sympathetic and will introduce to the audience the artists as being poor.

Girls - We will not be using any girls that emphasise their beauty as we will it will reduce the impact of our narrative of the environment being fairly run down and will not have a big impact.

Filming - 24th of September

Today we filmed the shoplifting scene of our music video, we needed three of our performers. Damilola, and myself and Ash. Ash and myself wore our costumes that we had earlier decided on, these costumes would be worn by them in the majority of the music video. The costumes consisted of fairly poor and scruffy clothing such as a plain t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms and also plain black trousers and a jumper to connote the poverty the young generation go through. Damilola wore smart casual clothes, as she was only in this one scene of the music video and just needed to look like a shop assistant. I began filming the scene inside the local petrol station, this is where the shoplifting was going to take place.



I then started filming the beginning of the chase sequence which involved Damilolo directing Ash to go and stop the criminal which was me.



This was followed by a short section of the chase scene, which we could not complete because it started raining and this would have affected the continuity of the scene.

Overall I felt that today's filming went well and the continuity of the shots was on target and also the types of shots we got worked well. We got many handheld shots of the chase scene which connoted a imbalance of equality and we also got many close ups and mid shots to keep focus on the scene.

Filming - 22nd of September

Today we only needed to film a short scene, from a variety of angles. We used the school music studio to film our performer George singing his verse of the song. We had him dress in a casual black t-shirt and had him wear headphones to make George appear like a real recording artist. We also positioned a microphone in front of him to make it look like a real recording studio. I filmed this shot whilst the section of music that George needed to sing in time with was played.

I felt that the shots we filmed worked well and looked realistic and professional and would be a good addition to our music video.

This image shows the type of shot we were looking for when filming, a fairly low angle shot to connote power and passion that this artist has. The headphones and the location added to the authenticity of the video.

This image was taken from a shot we used in our video that we had filmed on this day, I felt it worked well and emphasised the artists passion and created emotion for the audience to consume.

The filming process

For the filming of our music video we used a Panasonic N-GS500 video camera along with a SONY tripod.





I am going to post regular updates onto my blog of the filming that we do over the next few months.

Research into artists

The Black Eyed Peas is an American hip hop group, formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1995. The group includes rapperswill.i.am, apl.de.ap, Taboo and singer Fergie. Since the release of their third album Elephunk in 2003, the group has sold an estimated 56 million records worldwide. Their first worldwide song was "Where Is the Love?" in 2003, which topped over ten charts worldwide. Another single was the European hit "Shut Up". Their next album Monkey Business, was a worldwide success, certified 4× Platinum in the U.S., and spawning two singles, "My Humps" and "Don't Phunk with My Heart".


In 2009, the group became one of only 11 artists to have simultaneously held the No. 1 and No. 2 spots on the Billboard Hot 100, with their singles "Boom Boom Pow" and "I Gotta Feeling", with the next single "Meet Me Halfway" achieving similar success, from the album The E.N.D.. These three singles topped the chart for an unprecedented 30 consecutive weeks in 2009.

The Black Eyed Peas date back to 1988, when eighth-graders William Adams (will.i.am) and Allan Pineda (apl.de.ap) met and began rapping and performing together around Los Angeles. The pair signed to Ruthless Records (run by Eazy-E) in 1992, catching the attention of Eazy-E manager, Jerry Heller's, nephew.