Consent Forms-Year 10/11

We formed a letter of consent for parent to give us permission to allow them on our blogs/the internet.

Challenging stereotypes

Before we came up with an initial idea, as a group we decided we wanted to challenge stereotypes and conventions to make the music video unique to appeal to the audience. Therefore we have included a male protagonist in our initial idea that is chasing a female because in new R&B is using women being portrayed as the sexual object, where as in our music video we want to portray them as being beauty. This will make our music video unique to new music videos and create a differ with the music video that already exists from the song.

Here are some stereotypes that typically portrayed within music videos:

The first stereotype is the empowerment of women, Here Beyonce is shown to be the dominant character of the music video of "Bow Down" and all the male characters obey her, this has recently become a popular front that women put on in their music videos as feminism has become more and more popular,they often create this appearance to target the younger and older audience to see them as role models. Beyonce has used her popular title as "Queen Bee" to target this audience and can taken this to her advantage by create a look that many people will remember.

Here,Chris Brown is sticking the typical stereotype which is where men flaunt their money and wealth and see them selves as the dominant. They see them selves as higher than women and often portray them as sexual objects and nothing more. this means that male artists often create their music videos to attract a dominant male audience of teens-30 year olds who like explicit views of women. This is something that never appeals to women, however with Chris brown often being seen as an attractive artist, women audiences are still attracted to see him.

Within Beyonce's "Why don't you love me" music video she is portrayed as being a domestic housewife who obeys her husband and is crying as she is appreciated enough. At the start of the video she is seen doing chores and blowing up a car engine which shows women in a light of being unable to do male tasks. Whilst she is doing this, she is wearing very revealing clothing/lingerie which shows her sexual appeal. This music video attracts both men and women with both  the sexual reference as well as the empowerment of the lyrics.

Here Rihanna has portrayed her self as the sexual character rather than a male doing it. It is clear she wanted to attract a male audience which is what she did. 

Research Roles

Eboni

• Editing
• costume

Beth

• Location
• Lighting

Adam

• Camera Shots
• props

Costume Ideas

I've looked on Tavonga's Instagram with his permission to seek out what kind of fashion that he is into, this will help my group and I decide on a specific outfit that he can wear during the filming process, I want to use an outfit that suits his style but also follows conventions and popular fashion trends so that he is seen as a typical artist. I have researched what Chris brown and Ne-yo wear on their music videos to see if I could match their styles to Tavonga's style. After looking upon his Instagram, I noticed his style followed certain fashion trends of teenagers and he is often seen wearing the fashionable tracksuit bottoms and often known for his nice shoe sense.

In two of Chris Browns music videos, he is seen wearing a white shirt with a chequered shirt wrapped around his waist, wearing Timberland shoes. This has become one of Chris Brown's statement looks and we aim to do the same with Tavonga's characters.

In Neyo's music videos his outfits are often more gentleman like and seen as classy as he is usually wearing a suit and his statement hats. Where as in some as shown in the second picture he's seen wearing the typical R&B clothing and revealing his wealth and higher class.

Symbolic Link

For the digipak and music video to link, each product needs a symbolic link so that the audience know that that two relate and the understand that the digipak is for a specific artist.I will need consider different ways in for this to happen, I will consider using colour themes, a specific stance that the artist uses or a setting that is from the music video so that when it comes to purchasing the cd, the audience automatically know what artist is it. However, instead of basing the whole digipak on the one music video, I have to consider changing the digipak so that it links to all the songs with in the album.

 This is Neyo's digipak for his ' Years Of The Gentleman' he has stuck to one specific colour theme which is black and white, which also links to the name of the album as it shows class which a gentlemen does. He ha stuck to his appearance being in suits and being on the streets which can relate to all his songs without images being used from one of songs.

 This is part of the F.A.M.E digipak that Chris Brown, i found this to be a successful digipak as he has stuck to a specific 'graffiti' typed digipak that runs through each page so that it can have images from different places but still link to  one album.

Song Choice

After watching over our focus group, we decided to finally choose our song for our music video. After asking the focus group questions based on what artist they would like to see Tavonga to sing, they chose Justin Timberlake, however, after showing them song choices of multiple other artists including Neyo, Trey Songz, Usher,Drake and Chris brown, they said they liked the song Miss Independent by Neyo and found that this song would suit Tavonga style of appearance.

After discussing with my group, we decided to focus on Neyo and Chris Brown and choose between 'Miss Independent' and 'So Sick' by Neyo and 'With You' by Chris Brown. We feel that with these two songs based on love, we'd be able to create a original and inventive narrative due to them being so many narratives and although we will discuss these options with Tavonga to check he's comfortable with this song choice, we feel that these songs will be successful to use.
I feel that with this music video based on special effects in the snow etc. and with us not being able to use that sort of equipment, we would be able to create a music video that would be a unique/original creation of this song. We would analyse the lyrics to produce a narrative that linked in with the song. This would ensure that the audience shared some relation to the music video and because we want to use the uses and gratifications theory,we want to create a music video that an ending that is decided by the audience so that they can create their own opinion. As well as this, because we are basing our music videos on the old R&B, we will be able to create a music video that is like a new R&B video to challenge their conventions.   I feel that this music video is a very successful music video because the producers have used the lyrics of the music video to create a matching music video with some narrative, however, to change this music, we would create a narrative based video with different settings and not creating an image of men being all about woman and sex. With this video having a mixture of choreography and narrative, we'd change this so that it isn't to similar to the original video.

With this music video, the producers have used special effects to create a music video that back in 2009 would have been unique.With the music video being on the chasing of a woman, this challenges conventions with modern day R&B as they see women more as beauty rather than a sexual object, which is what we aim to do as we found in our focus group that women watching a music video with women portrayed as sexual objects feel like a music video is based more on a male audience rather than a mixed audience.

Audience Theories

As a group, we will be concentrating on trying to achieve the Uses and Gratifications Theory in our music video. Uses and Gratifications theory is the theory that places more focus on the consumer, or audiences, instead of the actual message itself by asking “what people do with media” rather than “what media does to people”. It assumes that members of the audience are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives. The theory also holds that audiences are responsible for choosing media to meet their needs. Our music video will fulfil my audiences needs by creating a music video that links in to the artists meaning, we will create a video that conforms to R&B conventions however, stick to the old forms of R&B music videos to give a different feel to modernised music. We aim to create a music video that appeals to all audiences so will ensure that no women are as objectified to fit a dominant male audience as much as they would be, neither will we perceive men to be particularly strong or powerful, this will ensure each side of our audience is satisfied.

By concentrating on this audience theory, we have plans to create more of a narrative based music video so that the audience can decide the story an feeling for themselves.

By using iconography of an R&B music video, we can draw the audience to their expectations yet create new and inventive ways to tell the same story; we can position the audience and create a certain amount of what the texts codes actually mean. The text will be encoded by my group and the audience will decode the information. For our audience to take the preferred reading, and enjoy the music video, we must ensure the iconography is accurate whilst challenging the conventions as much as we can without taking the meaning away from the song.

1. Identity-being able to recognise the product or person in front of you ,role models that reflect similar values to yours, aspiration to be someone else.
2. Educate- being able to acquire information, knowledge and understanding.
3. Entertain- What you are consuming should give you enjoyment and also some form of ‘escapism’ enabling us to forget our worries temporarily.
4. Social interaction- the ability for media products to produce a topic of convocation between other people, sparks debates.

Consent Forms year 13

In order for us to put the focus group of year 13 onto Youtube and our blogs, we had to create a consent form for them to sign which stated where on the internet that the consent would be place and state who would see it, this is to ensure that noone had any problems with being placed on the internet. This consent form was made just for the sixth form pupils as they
are old enough to sign them selves.

Initial Ideas

Focus Group/Question Change

After talking to Miss, Adam and I discussed and went over our questions to ensure that they would create reliable answers and gain answers that would help us with our final product.

We found that many of our questions weren't specific enough to our chosen genre and we found that we needed to base all of our questions on the genre of R&B. In order to achieve these answers, Adam and I have decided to change the questions so that they are more specific. We have devised a plan to create a powerpoint that will have snippets of music videos in and pictures of artists so that the questions and answers are more focused on certain aspects of the R&B genre.

Character Profile

Even before deciding our genre, we knew that we wanted to use Tavonga as our main character with in our music, however, after discussing with my group and I, we decided to do R&B which perfectly fits in with Tavonga's image and his own personal interests. We chose Tavonga as he is a good friend to both Adam and Beth as well as me which benefits us as we will be able to feel comfortable in doing the filming as well as speding quality time with him. I found Tavonga a good person to use due to the fact he is a music student at Xaverian college, he has good knowledge of how the industry works and what people like and dislike, which will give us an advantage. As well as this he also does media and is currently producing his own music video at the same time as us, with this in mind, we have discussed with Tavonga and will meet up to produce a production schedule that will fit his own needs as well as ours so that he doest fall behind on his own work.

With Tavonga already having a keen interest in music and wanting to pursue to a career within the music industry,he has a Youtube account set up revealing his music skills and help him gain interest, I have used these two videos to help me express his talent and help realise why he is a good friend/person to use in our video.

Female Character Profile

Name: Eboni Birchall

Age:17
Class: Middle
Gender:Female
Ethnicity: White/black Caribbean
Education: Last year of sixth form
Likes:R&B music, creative subjects such as art and textiles, partying

Dislikes: Rap music, sports, rude people, mushrooms.
Current job: Waitress at a cafe

Relationship status: Single

Currently studying at Wellington school sixth form, studying art textiles and media and is aspiring to be a interior designer with her own business. She aspires to be successful in America as well as the UK and to be well known to other successful celebrities. As her hobby she often likes drawing and spending time with friends on the weekend, which is often going out into town or having "girly nights in". She has a large expanding family who she also loves seeing and loves spending time with her baby cousins. 

Audience Profile

My group and I finally decided our genre,we have changed our audience to fit the genre. usually with R&B there is a lot of sexual content and usually portrays both genders to see them selves as dominant sexual characters.With personal interest in R&B music, I understand that many of their music is based of the narrative of sex, drugs and love, I feel that this type of music wouldn't appeal to the younger audience of 12+ that we originally wanted to aim our music video at. From knowing this, we have decided as a group to focus our music video on the ages of 15+, I feel that despite the fact many sexual content cannot be seen under 16, I feel many 15 year olds are interested in this type of music and with some ideas in mind, we aren't planning on including many sexual references within the video anyway.We have mainly based out audience on 15-25 year olds.

From looking at music videos, I have noticed that they are predominantly Mixed race or Black males and females that have a career in R&B music, I have produced some audience profiles that cover our whole target audience and I have focused on people that I would think would listen to R&B music.

Name: Tyrell
Age:18
Class: Middle
Gender:Male
Ethnicity: White and black Carribean

Education: starting 1st year of university
His likes: Currently in a basketball team and hoping for a career as a professional basketball player. Going out into town with friends, parties, Often records music with his music student friends.
Current job: Currently working at a waiter in Nandos
His favourite type of music is mainly house music, which is the usual type of music a typical teenager listens to, however, he also preferably likes the old type of R&B music, with songs such a kiss kiss by Chris Brown and Gold Digger by Kanye West.



Name:Tara
Age: 21
Gender: Female
Class; Working
Ethnicity: Black and white Jamaican

Likes: old R&B music, artists such a bow wow and Omarian, spending times with her girls, her job as a fashion stylist, working with high end celebrities. Enjoys running and drawing as hobbies as well as revising for the end of year exams for university, partying on weekends and meeting new people.

Dislikes: Chart music-often finds music tastes on sound cloud, rude/lazy people. unnatural looking people.

She is a student at the university of Ravensbourne in London studying to e a fashion stylist, she is currently doing some work experience abroad in America as it is her aspiration to live the American dream and spends alot of her time practising her skills and meeting people in the industry. However, when she has free time, she enjoys going out with her friends and going to parties. When she wants time to her self, she often goes on runs to clear her mind or draws designs for her work. She has a large family on both sides of the family, however is closest to the Jamaican side of her family and has gained her opinionated side of her personality from them.

Genre Decision

After a lot of consideration and thinking between the group and I, we have decided on doing the genre of R&B, we found this is a genre that would fit us best as a group because we all have some interest in the music, we found that all the artist that are involved within this genre all have songs that are memorable and recognised which would benefit us as we know what the original music looks like, this would mean that we would be able to create a video that doesn't portray the same things that they do in theirs-creating an original,unique version.

As well as this, we already knew we wanted to use our friend Tavonga as our main character and we feel that he fits the brief of our representation of a typical R&B artist.

Focus Group Questions/ Ideas

In today's lesson, Beth and I planned the focus group questions and ideas of who to put in the focus group. We discussion what type of question would be asked, which involved whether they would be multiple question or leading questions as well as where the focus group would be placed to make it easier for everyone.

We have decided on choosing 6 student from specific years to get a range of ages and answers.
6 x year 8 - ages 12-13
6 x year 10 - ages 14-15
6 x year 12 - ages 16-17
6 x year 13- ages 17-18

1.  What is your favourite genre?
2. Who is your favourite artist?
3. What do you like about them?
4. What is your favourite music video and why?
5. What do you like in a music video?
6. Do you like special effects? why?
7. What's the best/most memorable video you've seen?
8. Do you prefer performance or performance based music videos( explain concepts)
9. Has your taste of music changed as you've grown up?
10. Would your opinion of a song change once you've seen the music video?
11. have you ever seen anyone live and did that changed your opinion on them and why?

Digi pack Research

Reasons Behind My Analysis

Pop Music Analysis

R&B Music Video Analysis

Beyoncé's pretty hurts video recreates a beauty pageant, in which we see female characters changing their appearance to win the completion. The video reflects the preparation girls have to go through before entering pageants. The first scene shows a series of shots of a group of female characters getting ready in a dress room. We can see the characters physically changing their look, putting themselves through pain and suffering through the way their physique and facial expressions are shown. An example of this would be when a female is shown in a backless dress, pinching the skin of her body, despite already being slim. This is an emphasis on stereotypes of girls in beauty pageants losing weight and willing to change their look to win.

The appearance of the women in the video contrasts in the beginning and towards the end. At the start we see the female characters getting ready, applying makeup and dresses. However towards the end these same characters are shown with their makeup on and dresses in elegant dresses. This conforms  to stereotypes of women becoming obsessed with their image, always wanting to impress male figures. As the only male character in the video is the judge, therefore the girls are trying to impress the man. The girls in the video all appear un-happy. This again is emphasising  the girls are putting on a show to impress the male character, using the false smiles, hair and make to do so.

 The music video shows the storyline of girls entering a beauty pageant, competing to become the winner. The narrative is shown clearly  as the story carries on in each shot. However cross cuts are used showing \Beyoncé standing in front of  a shelves of trophies. This reminds the audience they are watching a music video, switching  back to Beyoncé singing the song. When Beyoncé says “My aspiration is life. Is.. To be happy” The camera then cuts to Beyoncé destroying her trophies. This shows she is not happy in the pageants as she has to pretend to be something she's not. The narrative is shown clearly through out the video and is in chronological order apart from the use of cross cuts and cut away to Beyoncé singing the song. However Beyoncé sings the song during th narrative which doesn't conform to any typical conventions of a music video and allows the story line to take lead.

By analysing an R&B music video, it gives us an idea of specific ideas that can be included within our music video, if we were to choose this genre, with me analysing beyonce- a popular R&B artist, it can give me an insight into why her music videos are so popular, this will help me know what to inlcude to make our music video popular.

Music Video Theories

I have researched into music video theories to help me understand what is consisted into a music video, it will help my group and I to establish what will need to be included into a music video to be successful. With many genres portraying a variety of images within their videos, this research has helped me understand that are genres follow the same type of sequence when creating a video. Due to our group not deciding what kind of genre we want to base our video on yet, it will help us start to make an idea of what characters and mise en scene we would like to include in our video.