History of music videos

The development of media broadcasting for music has really benefited my genre of music as it makes it a lot more simple to release music to the audience as most rappers/ hip-hop artists come from really harsh background and may not be able to afford professional music video and a broadcasting station to put it on. Also through the development of music videos, new genres were created and new ideas were challenged. YouTube makes it simple for an up and coming rapper with a low budget to upload their video on a platform in which it can be viewed by anyone. Throughout music video history, i.e. when MTV was still coming up only one type of genre dominated the broadcasting stations, however now with the internet it gives people more freedom and it is simple to upload and share your videos and opinions.

Broadcasting my music video on Youtube will work really well with my target audience as it is popular among the youth and also people in my target audience who are also within the youth category. The internet will be what I will mainly broadcast it on because it is free and easy to access as nearly everyone has internet.

History of French Montana

French Montana started of as an underground street rapper, involved in gang culture and with a life of crime due to him growing up in south Bronx (also known as the concrete jungle). The Young Moroccan born rapper moved to the Bronx at 13 and found himself fitting in to the culture of New York. At first coming up French Montana developed his own record label called ‘Cocaine city’.

In 2009 French Montana signed to Akon’s record label Konvict musick. This is important because this made French Montana a little more serious about his music, which made him develop a little more from just a street rapper.

After release a couple of successful mixtapes French Montana signed a joined deal with Badboy records and Interscope. After this deal French Montana became a little more famous than the average street rapper and become really famous especially after his single ‘Pop That’.

French Montana now is released his debut album is still signed to the same record label and still making music and also improving.

Shooting Schedule

Youth and Subculture

Culture is a group of people who are united through a common value system and tastes (clothes, music, politics etc). Subculture is a group of people who differentiate themselves from mainstream cultures in which they come from, a group who are also positioned outside of the mainstream (go against what is popular). Society and mainstream culture is forever changing which leads to the emergence of new subcultures whereas the old disappear or change. Therefore, it is difficult to always know which subcultures are current.  

The subculture that I am creating my music video for is hip-hop mixed with street rap. The subculture we are creating the music video for will also fit in with the same people who listen to French Montana, which means it the subculture will link with my target audience.

Hebdige had a different view on things and he thinks that although some people think subcultures only appear to be different but deep they are the same. Also he says if you look deeper, there is enough richness to warrant renaming 'subcultures' as 'little cultures'.  

McCracken said "teens will often belong to more than one culture, that they will move from culture to culture in time and over time, and that they will even 'mix and match' these styles from time to time". According to McCracken there was a time when we could categorise the world according to class, psychological types, generations and lifestyles however increasingly the world seems to be resisting our classificatory schemes. 

Crew list

Throughout the production of our music video, me and Jack both contributed equally towards a successful music video and have helped each other come to decisions which we needed to make throughout the creative process. The jobs included research and planning, filming and editing.

Director (filming): I took lead in this section of creating our music video as I am creative and knew how to use the equipment better than me, although Jack did help with some of the creative process as he would give ideas for some of the plot twists which were used in the music video. The director involves filming the video and telling actors where to go and placing the props in the correct positions. It also involved choosing the correct camera angles and shot to replicate the codes and conventions of our genres music video.

Editing: This section of our music Jack had the most control over, as he was more efficient in using the software needed to create a successful music video. This role needs the person to be organised and patient as you have to deal with a lot of footage and very small clips, this can be very frustrating. However I did help contribute as I was the director and he had to edit the footage to best replicate my vision for the music video.

Research and Planning

Throughout this section me and Jack both contributed equally. This involved us researching into current music video and digipaks of our genre and analysing them, however we analysed different music videos and digipaks within our genre to gain a wider range of knowledge for our genre. It also involved us creating a questionnaire to better understand out target audience. This section gave us a better understanding of our audience and allowed us to create a music video with all the codes and conventions suited to our target audience.

Planning for our music video

Within our music video we will use a various range of camera movements/shots, editing techniques and soundtrack effects such as synchronous sounds. This will include the song in the music video being lowered in volume whilst we hear the artist speak. This will allow the audience to gain a better understanding of the narrative our music video 'Water' by French Montana; it will possibly allow the audience to relate to the artist more.

me and Jack both equally decided on this song due to the fact that we both enjoy listening to the artist and watching his videos, it is also representative of our target audience compared to the other songs we explored.

As you can see in the image to the right, French Montana is an artist within his late 20’s. This allows the audience to connect with him as he is a figure that the younger generations can look up to, however he isn’t a very good role model as he raps about violence and drugs but he does has a lot of money and material good which most teenagers want in life. Various camera shots, editing techniques and camera movements will allow us to show the material goods French Montana has, which will interest our target audience.

The song ‘Water’ by French Montana is about the betrayal of a close friend. We are going to try and show that blood is thicker than water and you shouldn’t be persuaded by material goods to turn your back on a friend. Our target audience of 16-24 year old males can relate to this as our generation is all material based and many teenagers loose friends due to the greed of other people.

This fits in well with the Hip-Hop/Rap genre as majority of the artist rap about what material goods they have and always show them off within their music videos. A prime example of this is Rick Ross as in many of his music videos such as, ‘Oil money gang’, ‘100 million’ and ‘Stack on my belt’ he talks about how much money he has. I feel that these songs influence the youth and make them think that they need these material goods and that money comes over everything, however we are going to contradict that idea by trying to show that friends and family are more important.

Mise en scene

Mise-en-scene has a vital role to play within our music video as it is used to portray the status of actors through clothing, show locations and take advantage of the lighting to create a more processional look. Props are also use to provide a more realistic effect and to show the audience what is happening within the music video. These variable have to suit out target audience of 16-24 year old males and somewhat attract the female audience.

Throughout our music video we have used various piece of clothing to show that status of an actor or show what is happening within the music video. For example while French Montana (Aaron) is walking down the road with the secondary main character (Yehya), the clothes they wear suggest that they are quite wealthy as French Montana (Aaron) is wearing a Rolex watch which can exceed prices of £50,000.  Also Yehya is wearing Balenciaga trainers that can cost up to £400, whilst they walk down the street we see them get robbed, the audience know this is a robbery due to the gun and the ski masks the robber as wearing. They also are ‘blacked out’ to hide there identity and to make it easier for them to get away.  This is quite common in a Hip-Hop/Rap music video that features a robbery, for example Lil Bibbys ‘Change’.

The lighting and locations that we have used are generic within our chosen genre and the representations of our artist also correspond to our genre. We have chosen to film the majority of our music video outside, as we believe the natural light works better with our music video better. We have chosen the locations of CrickleWood and Kilburn as the music video follows the plot of a robbery and we needed ‘dark’ and ‘sinister’ looking area.

Make up

Within our music video we will not be putting make up on our artist or actors due to primary research we have carried out, we have analysed videos such as French Montana – Hurt somebody and Lil Bibby – for the low. These music videos feature the artist looking rough and scruffy, this is due to the fact that we are seeing the artist in the ‘struggle’, which they are trying to work there way out of.  We also created a questionnaire that we had our target audience fill out, asking if they wanted to see our artist with make-up or ‘fixed-up’, the results showed that the majority of the artists did not want the artist with make-up.

However within some of the Hip-Hop/Rap music videos the artists do have make-up on, this is to appeal to the female audience members. We will not be doing this as our main target audience is 16-24 year old males.