Music video shots & camera angles - Lethal Bizzle ft JME, Wiley, P Money, Face, Ghetts, Kano - Pow 2011

 

This is the shots and camera angles analysis for Pow 2011 music video:

0:01 - Wide shot - Artist walking on screen.

0:03 - Medium shot - Close up on Lethal B looking through binoculars.

0:04 - Long shot - JME stood against a wall.

0:05 - Close-up - Close-up of undercover police officer monitoring somebody.

0:10 - 0:21 - Quick shots - Video has quick shots of all the different artists and settings, goes with the beat and rhythm of the song.

0:22 - Close-up - Close-up shot of Lethal B

0:25 - Wide shot - Wide shot of roof and the artists on the roof.

0:33 - Over the shoulder shot - Focus blur - Close up of JME and focus blur into background to show police officer chasing him.

0:35 - Same as above - Focus blur - JME starts to run from the undercover police officer.

0:47 - Medium close up - Lethal B sees JME being caught by the undercover police officers.

1:04 - Close-up - Close-up of police officer after he's caught JME.

1:07 - Close-up - Shows a close-up picture of Wiley held in the police officers hands which he's showing to JME.

1:30 - Wide shot - Wide shot of Chipmunk, Face and shows a tied up security guard.

1:34 - Wide shot to a medium close-up - Shows a wide shot of Chipmunk outside the vault then changes to a medium shot inside the vault then the camera angles alternates between the two.

1:59 - Medium close-up - Tilt - Face brings the money and leaves it for P Money to loading the money into the van.

2:34 - Close-up - Shows close-up of Ghetts in the van driving it.

2:42 - Medium close-up - Reflection of Kano in a mirror.

3:00 - Two shot - Kano and Ghetts in the same shot.

Music genre research - Pop

Pop music is a mainstream genre of music that has commerical worldwide commercial success and is widely listened to. Typically the Pop genre is aimed at all people but it finds a mass audience with youth in particular. The typical sound conventions of Pop utilises different sounds to create a consistent beat and often uses a sub-genre to create a whole new style and sound. As oppose to other genres Pop aims to appeal to a general audience rather than a ideology or culture with the aim of getting the most singles sales and top the music singles and album charts.

Another convention of Pop music is that it tends to reflect current trends within the industry rather than innovating and making something new and nice to listen to. The main conventions of Pop is that the song usually runs for 3-5 minutes with a structure and a consistent rhythm. Also the song typically takes form of a verse-chorus structure and uses hook lines to which stick in the audiences head. Pop also uses simple themes to convey the song, examples are themes such a love, hate, dancing etc. Pop music gets a lot of promotion via radio stations. In the UK Pop songs are guaranteed to play on the popular radio stations everyday.

Other promotion for pop is via online and iTunes where a particular album or single gets a main page advertisement when the customer goes on the store homepage. Pop music video also have typical conventions and have themes too, many successful Pop music videos tend to have simple setting and story. Music videos such as "Just Dance" by Lady GaGa follow these conventions.

Music video analysis - Pop

This music video is "California Gurls" by Katy Perry from her album "Teenage Dream". This music video uses the typical conventions when it comes to a pop music video. The usual conventions of a pop video include different aspects such as dancing and sometimes parody or and event taking place. In "Teenage Dream" the video utilises these conventions to great effect. Also a popular theme within pop music videos especially amongst the female artists is the use of sexuality to promote the video. Katy Perry does this in her music video by wearing various different outfits and uses intimate scenes. The use of sexual innuendo is also present within this music video by adding a comical twist to it. It does this when Katy Perry and the dancers are in the background and cream starts launching out of her feminine areas the added comical twist is that she guides where the cream is being shot.

Music Genre research - Grime

Grime is a genre of music that oringated within the UK and has seen much success over recent years as the number of people listening to the genre has risen. Grime can be considered a sub-genre of UK Garage and hip-hop but has its own distinctive style which sets it apart from other similar genres. Generally grime has a similar style within each song in which it maintains a consistent beat and the artists says his lines to go with the beat. Unlike other genres grime allows many different artists to collaborate in one song with each artist doing an 8-bar or sometimes depending on the song length a 16-bar.

Recent examples of this would include "Game over" by Tinchy Stryder which features Giggs, Example, Prof. Green, Tinie Tempah and Chipmunk. The commerical success of grime has been dependant on the promotion of the track via the artists or radio stations. Grime has had a recent push for promotion on radio stations such as 1xtra and Logan Sama where usually an artists comes into the studio and speaks with the host i.e. JME on 1xtra with Tim Westwood. Another outlet of  promotion for the grime scene has been on TV with music channels such as Channel AKA(formally Channel U) which often plays grime music videos to those who don't have record deals and trying to break into the scene.

Grime is seen as a creative innovative music style where the artist has creative freedom, with top songs from top grime scene artists such as Skepta, P Money, Kano etc. Often with grime it has a negative tag within the media and publications as some of the lyrics some artists say threaten or promote the actions of violence. These lyrics stopped the growth of grime in its early years but since then more and more artists have dropped the violence tag for more subtle words and phases in their songs.

Within grime the growth of music videos has become prominent with more artists making music videos for their songs. Usually grime videos have certain conventions which most videos tend to adhere to. Examples of this would include Tempa T "Next Hype", the video has an urban backdrop as well as some scenes within a gym and within a building. However some grime videos don't stick to these conventions and  do something completely different and do a different style within the video which often works well. Examples of this include "Game over" in which the video does a 360 degree pan around the artists and some cuts, close-ups, mid shots, and some long shots.

Designing CD cover analysis - Grime

This is our first try at making a CD cover. For the grime genre we attempted to make a CD cover for Skepta's single "So Alive ft N-dubz". When creating it we decided that it would be very effective to use a shot from the music video itself and it goes well with the CD test and title. For the text Skepta's album and CD covers usually have bold text that looks basic but is really effective when looked upon so we designed a black rectangular shape and and put Skepta's name in a basic font and complements the shot very well in the background.

Music video analysis - Grime

This music video is "CD is Dead" performed by JME ft. Tempa T, the song is also featured on JME's album "BLAM". The music video for the song represents something completely different to what a grime music video is. The typical conventions of a grime music video usually include an urban or city landscape/environment and has the singer of the song going through the different area which usually equate to where the artist is from. This music video however does it completely different in using a green screen background to portray themes that are similar to the song. For example at the start of the video you see the two artists (JME and Tempa T) in  different shots which in turn look like CD covers. This goes with the theme of the song which is saying that other artists music is poor and they should do something better with their time. Whilst the song portrays this message they are also promoting themselves hence why they used shots to portray them on a CD cover.



This music video is "Slang like this" performed by P Money ft. True Tiger. This music video uses the typical conventions when it comes to making a grime music video. The obvious conventions are that the video takes place in an urban area where there are estates etc. The lyrics of the song portray what you'd expect from the music video. The lyrics consist of urban slang which is represented within the music video, the chorus goes " we speak in slang like this, you get me, bredrin, cuz, yo, bruddah, safe, we speak in slang like this" the video represents the slang culture by showing many different and diverse people saying these words. The clothing style of P Money is also a typical convention of the grime genre. He is wearing a hoodie and a new era hat which is synonymous dress style for various grime artists and also most of the extras in video wear similar clothes.

Album Cover Analysis (U.S.)

Styles p’s album is a hardcore rap album which consists tracks from various artists such as D Block’s Jadakiss and Sheek Louch. Since the album is of the hardcore rap genre the cover resembles some of the conventions we would expect to hear the artist talk about in his lyrics. The album symbolises a lot of the rap culture for example if we look closely at the album cover we could see a police car with the sirens flashing, this can symbolise the position the police hold in the rap genre (negative position). The album cover also has an establishing shot of New York which represents where the artist is located as many artists use this technique to represent where they are from. The font, styles and size used is very bold with an ‘in your face’ type of look; this is so that the artist can attract the audiences attention as much as possible so that the artist can gain potential sales, to make it more eye-catching the colours in the cover is in contrast with one another, one colour is dark whilst the other is bright. Also the album background looks somewhat distorted and scruffy which could have been done to show the roughness of New York as well as showing a police car with the sirens on to show that New York is heavily involved with crime that the sirens are always on.

Katy Perry is a pop artist which means the genre of her music is pop with sub genres in her album for e.g. pop-rock, Electropop etc. Katy Perry’s album colour shows juxtaposition between genders, this is shown by the title of her album and the way the images show the opposite. The title of her album is ‘one of he boys’ but when you look at the album cover it is very feminine for e.g. the album image shows a bright pink blanket as well as flowers which is not very ‘macho’. The album cover also shows Katy Perry in a seductive position, this could have been to do with the intentions of to seduce the male audience as a majority of Katy Perry’s audience is females which means she may want to expand her audience with a roundabout technique. Although it may look natural the sky in the cover looks like storm clouds as well as their being gates/fence behind her as if to say that she’s trapped in something, this could represent her being stuck/trapped in a hard relationship (stormy clouds) as most of her tracks talk about relationships she’s been through or problems that may be found in a relationship for e.g. one of her tracks ‘hot n cold’ talks about how her male partner gets cold feet during their wedding. 

Eminem Recovery album is a comeback album by Marshall Mather’s A.K.A ‘Eminem’. The album cover has many representations in it such as Eminem in a glass-like structure almost making it look as if he is locked up in a glass cage with buildings in the background looking as if the people inside are looking over him and watching what he is doing, this could be a reference to his personal life as Eminem is an artist which likes to correlate his album cover with his personal life. To further prove that this can reflect his personal life is by listening to one of his tracks named ’25 to life’ where Eminem talks about his life in the rap industry where he finds it hard to come out from which can explain the glass cage. Also the clouds in the sky of the album cover looks as if it is storm clouds which can reflect the hard ships in Eminem’s life. It could also be represented as, the people which is observing Eminem, is protecting Eminem from the storm (his hardships) as long as he stays in the glass cage (under observation/control).