A2 MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION

MICK JENKINS -WATERS

HOW DO YOUR PRODUCTS USE OR CHALLENGE CONVENTIONS AND HOW DO THEY REPRESENT SOCIAL GROUPS AND

ISSUES?MANY HIP HOP MUSIC VIDEOS TODAY USE DRUGS, GANG RELATED AFFLIATIONS AND WOMEN TO CREATE THEIR VIDEOS AS THEY REPRESENT THE HIP HOP WORLD HOWEVER MICK JENKINS AS AN ARTIST SEES THIS AS A DEMEANING ROUTE FOR HIP HOP MUSIC AND FOLLOWS A DIFFERENT ROUTE WITH HIS LYRICS, THAT’S WHY I TOOK HIM AS THE ARTIST I WAS DOING AS I CAN CREATE A DIFFERENT VIDEO FROM THE NORMAL…THESE ARE EXAMPLES OF NORMAL HIP HOP VIDEOS BELOW

My music video does not use any of these parameters except a short clip with a cigarette being lit which will be explained

• A CONVENTION FOLLOWED IS THE INTRODUCTION AT THE BEGINNING OF THE VIDEO AS IT HELPS THE AUDIENCE KNOW WHAT THEY ARE WATCHING AND LISTENING TO, MOST HIP HOP VIDEOS FOLLOW THIS NORM

MINE AN EXAMPLE

THE RELATION BETWEEN LYRICS AND THE VIDEO AS A WAY OF USING CONVENTIONS

• MOST HIP HOP VIDEOS WILL RAP ABOUT THE AFFLUENT LIFE AND THE VISUALS WILL RELATE WITH THE LYRICS AS THE AUDIENCE RELATE AND ARE ENTERTAINED AT THE SAME TIME

T.I’S ‘GO GET IT’ REFERRING TO THE AFFLUENT LIFESTYLE

• THE WATERS SONG IS ABOUT THANKING GOD FOR WHATEVER YOU HAVE AS THE SOCIETY HAS DECIDED WHAT IS GOOD ENOUGH WHEN IN REALITY NOT EVERYBODY CAN LIFE LIKE THAT

A fire burning which represents hell and those who sin without repent as in the music video the fire scene ends with the shot at the clouds this is to represent that there is a God to be thankful to for everything we have little or much

• ANOTHER CONVENTION INCORPORATED INTO THE MUSIC VIDEO IS DANCING WHICH HIP HOP IS KNOWN TO REPRESENT AS A GENRE WITH DANCING MOVES CREATED FROM SONGS

HOWEVER UNLIKE MOST MUSIC VIDEOS I USED 1ST PERSON. THIS WAS TO SHOW THE LIFE I LIVE AND HOW ITS GOODS TO HELP THOSE WITHOUT MUSC AS THE SONG STATES, ON THE NEXT SLIDE

Biting Elbows - 'Bad Motherfucker' Official Music Video where first person was used the whole video it was easy for them because of the genre Biting Elbows perform, however in my case only a few scenes were used to help explain the lyrics of the song. Walking in 1st person this challenges most hip hop music video convention but is a way of accommodating the audience as they relate at a personal level.

HAVING FOLLOWED ANOTHER CONVENTION WITH THIS GENRE WITH THE USE OF DRUGS HOWEVER MINE IS A CIGARETTE EDITING HIDES THAT, THOUGH THROUGH USING A

CONNECTION WITH THE LYRICS AND VISUALS THE LYRICS AT THIS PART..MINE LIL REESE

MICK JENKINS’ LYRICS MEANING Got a little light bout as bright as my BicAnd y'all got way too much on the shine

He means that he’s in a dark place right now as Bic lighters don’t provide that much flame and that other rappers have way too much popularity for pretending.

LIL REESE LYRICS MEANINGThere’s no point as though I enjoy Lil Reese’s music the song’s lyrics ‘So Fast’ are repetitive which is what mainstream Hip Hop has become to sell.

HOW DO ELEMENTS OF YOUR PRODUCT WORK TOGETHER TO CREATE A SENSE OF

‘BRANDING’• THIS MUSIC VIDEO IS DIFFERENT FROM MANY RAP VIDEOS THAT ARE

STEREOTYPICAL OF SCANTILTY CLAD WOMEN AND OTHER VICES

The video I created has only me shirtless as a convention of usual Hip Hop dancing towards the end of the video however there is at no point misrepresentation of women undermining them Mick Jenkins music itself never having discriminating lyrics towards women. This itself is a way to get educated women(who usually feel that Hip Hop is against them) as an audience for Mick Jenkins.

• INSTEAD OF REVEALING THE ARTIST THE AUDIENCE ALL THE TIME I WANT TO CREATE A ‘SUSPENSE EFFECT’ SUCH THAT DAFT PUNK AND SIA HAVE CREATED HAVING RARELY BEING IN THEIR MUSIC VIDEOS, AS FANS WILL FLOCK TO YOUR CONCERT LOOKING TO SEE THE ARTIST. AS MUSIC VIDEO OF WATERS SELDOM SHOWS THE ARTIST WITH ONLY VERY FEW SHOTS NOT SHOWING ME ONLY MY LIPS MOVING WITH THE

LYRICS.

Daft Punk’s hit ‘One more time’ which was an animations shows it can be a success for the ‘shy’ artist to still be successive though rarely show themselves in their videos.

DIGIPACK

Having searched online on digipacks I found that mostly acoustic rock artist go with it as they are intertwined with their music too deeply compared with Hip Hop artists who produce music weekly to sell, though having special editions where a digipack is offered sometimes for their albums, such as Eminem though most mixtapes just have the cover and back. An example of Eminem’s digipack.

As a way of branding, this project for Mick Jenkins was a album however it was be sold really cheaply as a way to help the artist instead of being sold for $9.99 it could go for $12.99 because of the ‘extra’ design such as the CD cover design, As it was most sold online.

• CREATING A VIDEO WITH NO STEREOTYPICAL AFFLUENCE COULD START A TREND AND THE ARTIST COULD BE ASSOCIATED WITH MAKING AESTHETIC PLEASING MUSIC VIDEOS RATHER THAN ALWAYS TRY TO SHOW THEY ARE RICH SUCH ARTISTS ARE J.COLE ‘G.O.M.D’

HOW DOES YOUR PRODUCT ENGAGE WITH THE AUDIENCE AN HOW WOULD THEY BE

DISTRIBUTED AS REAL MEDIA• SO FAR FEEDBACK FOR MY VIDEO HAS BEEN POSITIVE WITH OUT OF TEN

VIEWS ON YOUTUBE THROUGH THE SMALL SCREEN 3 LIKES BUT ALSO PERSONAL FEEDBACK FROM FRIENDS HAS BEEN GOOD ON SOCIAL PLATFORM WHATSAPP THOUGH THEY COMPLAINED ABOUT THE LENGTH AND WIDTH OF THE VIDEO.

• JUST BECAUSE THERE LIKES DOESN’T MEAN THE VIDEO IS ANY GOOD AS THERE HAS BEEN ONLY TEN VIEWS SO FAR.

• ANOTHER WAY THE MEDIA COULD BE DISTRIBUTED IS THROUGH THE SITE ‘HTTP://MICHAELMAGOHASTUDE.WIX.COM/ACHI#!CONTACTS/C9A0’ BUT INDIRECTLY IS THE ARTIST’S MAIN SITE IT IS A WAY FOR THE FANS TO GET HIS LATEST MUSIC, LYRICS, CONTACTS SUCH AS FOR TWITTER OR FACEBOOK.

• NB: ONE NEEDS TO LOG IN TO GOOGLE TO ACCESS THE SITE BECAUSE IT WAS CREATED BY AN ONLINE TOOL.

THIS IS THE HOMEPAGE OF THE WEBSITE AND SERVES AS A CONTENTS PAGE FOR THE AUDIENCE WHO WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT MICK JENKINS.

KNOWN FOR HIS LYRICS THAT BARELY ANYONE CAN MIMICK THIS LYRICS PAGE HELPS THE AUDIENCE RELATE WITH THE ARTIST AS KNOWN THEY HAVE THE PERSONAL LYRICS FROM THE ARTISTS SONGS.

THIS IS A WAY TO SHARE THE MUSIC ONLINE TO THE FANS AS THEY ARE ABLE TO FREELY ACCESS IT, NOW IT REACHES A WIDER AUDIENCE AS THE INTERNET IS ACCESSIBLE TO ANYBODY WITH INTERNET CONNCETION.

THE AUDIENCE ARE ABLE PERSONALLY GET IN TOUCH WITH THE ARTIST WHICH COULD BE DONE THROUGH SOCIAL PLATFORMS. THIS WAY THEY SEE THE DAY TO DAY LIFE WITH THE ARTIST REAL TIME.

HOW DID YOU INTERGRATE TECHNOLOGIESSOFTWARE

• BEFORE THE START OF THE PROJECT I ONLY HAD EXPERIENCE WITH ADOBE PHOTOSHOP, WHICH I HAD USED EXTENSIVELY ON MY AS WORK, SO MAKING MY DIGIPACK WAS NO PROBLEM AND THE EDITING PROCESS WAS SHORT, EXAMPLE BACK OF MY PACKAGING.BEFORE AFTER

USING TOOL SUCH AS DARKENING THE IMAGE AND TEXT TOOL TO WRITE THE TRACKS ON THE BACK WERE SOME OF THE FEATURES I USED IN MAKING THE DIGIPACK.

• HOWEVER WITH THE MAKING OF THE VIDEO I HAD TO LEARN HOW TO USE ADOBE PREMIERE PRO FROM SCRATCH, LEARNING HOW TO CUT SCENES TO GET THE SCENES THAT I WANTED IN PARTICULAR

THOUGH I HAD THIS MUCH FOOTAGE MUCH OF IT WAS RUINED BY PEDESTRIANS WHO WALKED STRAIGHT INTO US FILMING OR EVEN AT THE SAME TIME MY OWN FRIENDS UNKNOWINGLY WALKED INTO ME FILMING AS MOST FOOTAGE WAS WASTED BEFORE IT COULD BE USED IN ADOBE PREMIERE PRO.

AFTER FINISHING TO INSTALL ADOBE PREMIERE PRO. CHOOSING THE DREAM VIDEO EFFECT

AND CHOOSING ITS SPECIFIC SETTINGS.

FINALLY AFTER FINISHING THE CUTTING,EDITING AND PUTTING WHATEVER EFFECTS I HAD TO ENCODE THE VIDEO AND MESH EVERYTHING TOGETHER THIS IS WHERE MY LAPTOP REFUSED TO INCREASE THE VIDEOS LENGTH AND WIDTH HOWEVER ALOWED FOR THE INCREASE OF RESOLUTION.

HOW DID YOU INTERGRATE TECHNOLOGIES ONLINE

• BLOGGER

THIS ONLINE BLOG TOOL WAS USED TO KEEP ALL MY INFORMATION DEALING WITH WHATEVER HAD TO DO WITH MY VIDEO AND WAS MY DIARY REMINDING ME OF WHERE I AM IN MY PROJECT.

• YOUTUBE

PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT ONLINE TOOL AS I LEARNT HOW TO USE SOFTWARES OR HOW TO TAKE DIFFERENT SHOTS DURING FILMING FROM MUSIC VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE

• WIX

THIS WAS AN ONLINE TOOL THAT ALLOWED ME TO MAKE A WEBSITE ONLINE AND SAVE ONLINE JUST AS LONG AS I HAD A GOOGLE ACCOUNT IT WAS A SHORT WAY TO MAKE A WEBSITE BY ALLOWING ME TO CHOOSE A TEMPLATE AND CHANGE EVERYTHING.

HOW DID YOU INTERGRATE TECHNOLOGIES ONLINE

• HARWARE

THIS WAS ONE OF MY BIGGEST PROBLEMS BY FAR, HAVING ALL THE EQUIPMENT AT FIRST I THOUGHT THAT I HAD MY CAMERA AND LAPTOP BUT IT TURNED OUT THAT I DID NOT HAVE MY SONY CAMERA USB CABLE, AND WAS UNABLE TO MOVE ANY VIDEOS I HAD TAKEN THROUGH THE CAMERA TO BE MOVED TO THE LAPTOP, WASTING PRECIOUS TIME THAT COULD HAVE BEEN USED MAING THE VIDEO.

USING A SMALL CAMERA TO SHOOT A MUSIC VIDEO WAS NOT EASY AS THERE IS NO TRIPOD TO HOLD IT AND KEEPING IT STEADY WAS A CHALLENGE WELL TAKEN.

THOUGH I ONLY USED A CAMERA AND A LAPTOP FOR MAKING MY VIDEO, FOR MY DIGIPACK I USED A GOPRO CAMERA TO HAVE THE ZOOMED IN EFFECT THAT EVEN PHOTO EFFECTS CANNOT FULLY CREATE AS THE GOPRO CAMERA IS DESIGNED TO VIEW IN 1ST PERSON