Usher- OMG
Nicki Minaj- Super Bass
Beyonce- Love On Top
In contrast, some videos are simple in just using a girl/boy and boy/girl scenario, these are generally videos of a romantic nature. A typical setting in this type of music video involves the male artist catching the eyes of a female, and then chasing after them in a game of predator and prey in an attempt to get to know and sweet talk them. Often, the female does catch the eyes of the artist but tends to look away and pretend not to care, but secretly enjoys the attention that she is receiving. Towards the end of the music video, the artist and female get together and tend to get touchy feely, an example of this is Chris Brown’s song ‘Excuse Me Miss’; although one can note that this scenario can work in reverse as well. Moreover, when it comes to a female artist catching an eye of a male, the majority of the time, the male still sees the female first and she decides whether or not to respond to his actions, an example of this would be a scene shown in Ciara’s ‘1,2 Step’.
Chris Brown- Excuse Me Miss
Ciara- 1,2 Step
Sex appears to be a major theme in Hip Hop and R&B videos. In the majority of these videos the lyrics and the visual imagery is sexually explicit and sex orientated; with the women in particular being objectified regardless of which side they are on. The music video tends to be quite extreme in terms of what they are depicting, from French kissing, to stripping, to imitating acts of a sexual nature; an example of this would be Justin Timberlake’s ‘Sexy Back’. At the other end of the scale, we have videos which tend to depict scenarios of a more romantic nature; usually expressed in the boy/girl, girl/boy dynamic. The lyrics are more subtle in terms of how they express sex and focus more on the emotions, although the lyrics has a tendency of being on the cheesy side and to be overused, for instance the fact that they cannot live without each other or how their presence affects their heart rhythms for example Mary J. Blige’s song: ‘Be Without You’.
Justin Timberlake- Sexy back
Materialism is another stereotype associated with the Hip Hop and R&B genre. The artists surround themselves with wealth such as: cars, mansions, designer clothing, flashy jewellery and an entourage in an obvious display of wealth and the power that comes with it. We are used to seeing in these videos artists singing against a backdrop of a very expensive mansion, exotic location or exclusive club enjoying the high life, however, the lack of wealth is also rather prominently displayed as well. This is best exemplified in videos where the ghetto or rundown estates are the backdrop; typically gang culture and masculine aggression is glorified within these videos. On the other hand, music videos such as Warren G’s ‘Regulate’ and 2pac’s ‘Ghetto Gospel’ highlights the difficulties and the problems faced in these run down neighbourhoods which is a more positive use of videos in the Hip hop and R&B genre. Furthermore, in an ironic twist despite being in a dilapidated environment, there are examples of artists displaying their wealth i.e. riding a sports car through the neighbourhood whilst wearing designer clothing and oversized ‘bling’.
Warren G- Regulate
2pac- Ghetto Gospel
In our music, we simply have two performers, one boy (the artist) and his girlfriend. The music video is a typical love story despite the fact that the song is of a Hip hop genre. This means that our group challenged the stereotypes of what you would usually see in Hip hop music videos, for example, male artists endorsing themselves with women, consumer items, violence, gang culture and drugs. However, whilst we challenged the conventions of a Hip hop video, our production still resembled a traditional romantic video from the R&B genre. The focus of our music video was the relationship between the two protagonists, the artist is having a conversation with his girlfriend whilst rapping saying how wonderful she is, and how much he wants to be with her.
ST- Somehow Someway
The way the two protagonists were dressed also defied the stereotypes found in the Hip hop genre. Usually one would expect the artist to be dressed in oversized, designer, concealing attire accessorized with bling, a style that is usually indicative of the gangster or the ghetto. The way that the artist was dressed was not at all like a gangster with an overload of bling. He was dressed in a simple yet casual t-shirt and jeans with sunglasses; which still represented street style but on a more subtle level; thus keeping him cool without the stereotypical dress sense. In terms of the female protagonist, we chose an average female with pretty and natural looks as opposed to the over-done and exceptionally beautiful females paraded around in these genres. The way she was dressed was simple but still appealing, in casual fitted clothing. In contrast with many stereotypical R&B and Hip hop music videos, in which women tend to be dressed minimally and for the artist’s benefit with over-stylised hair and makeup.
In terms of lyrics we subverted the fact about what the song was about from the Hip hop perspective. Typically one would expect to see lyrics from a Hip hop video to be about casual drug taking, the sexualisation and objectification of women and what brands they own. Although, the musical style such as the beat, was similar to some Hip hop songs such as The Game: ‘I don’t need your love’. However, in terms of subverting the lyrics typically found in the R&B genre, we did not succeed. The theme in our lyrics was that of the artist (male) expressing his desire to be and continue being with his girlfriend no matter what; a similar sentiment is expressed by Usher in ‘Something special’.
Several Hip hop and R&B videos tend to have multiple locations within their music video. A handful would keep to one location however this is usually performance based videos such Beyonce’s ‘single ladies’. With our music production, we kept it to one location because we wanted to highlight the consistency of the couple’s relationship. Throughout the music video the couple do sit down a lot, this is because the artist was a small stature and we disguised this fact, this is also why we did low angle shots to make him look bigger than he really is. We did this in order to fit in with audience expectations or stereotype that the male should be taller than female. For example, where this would have benefitted would be Bow Wow featuring Ciara: ‘Like you’, where they lost what the videos message was because the audience was more focussed on the height difference between the artists.
Beyonce- Single Ladies
ST- Somehow Someway
Ciara featuring Bow Wow- Like You
Special effects were used minimally in our music video. However, we did use visual effects such as the text appearing next to the artist, as he was singing; some music videos do employ the use of many special effects. We wanted to avoid the overuse of effects because it would distract the audience from watching and appreciating what the song is really about. We wanted to limit our use of special effects in order to keep the video simple and also to show that the relationship between the couple is real and simple and true. It matches the conventions found in R&B music videos in terms of those with a romantic narrative.
The way the video ended was like many romantic music videos where the couple would walk out in the distance. This was inspiration from B.O.B featuring Bruno Mars’ ‘Nothing on you’. We did this to show that throughout the music video the couple will remain happy. Although if we had used a typical ending found in a Hip hop music video we could have had the artist walking away by himself or him posing until the camera fades out but we wanted the artist to have a positive ending.
ST- Somehow Someway
B.O.B featuring Mruno Mars- Nothing On You
No comments:
Post a Comment