Task C - Mood Board

Task 7 - J. Cole - Power Trip - Music Video Analysis

"Power Trip" is a song by the American Rapper, J. Cole. The song features on Cole's Second Studio Album "Born Sinner" which was released June 18th 2013. Power Trip was released as a single first, and was released February 14th 2013. The music video for this song was released on 9th April 2013. On the 8th September 2015 the video has 35,372,744 views.


 

The video is a visual illustration of the lyrics, and it paints a perfect picture of the story. The story behind it follows on from J. Cole's earlier song "Dreams" which made an appearance on his second mixtape "The Warm Up" in 2009, in which the story is that, he obsesses over a girl and devises a plan to kill her boyfriend. The follow up in the "Power Trip" video is that he carries that plan out and by the end of the video has killed the girl's boyfriend.

This has given me many ideas about doing a music video to a song with a narrative, as if I am telling the story through a visual experience.

Camerawork - 
During this music video, there are many different shots, all used to try and develop the story of the song a little more. The first shot is of the house in which the girl lives, it is a pan of the entire front side of the house. The second shot is of a mid shot of the girl inside the house, which makes it look as if someone is watching her. Then this is followed by a lot of close ups of J. Cole in a strip club, looking depressed, or guilty. It is clear to see that throughout the video the shots are trying to show many obvious things through different types of shots. For example; The shots of the girl, are usually from a distance, and from behind some sort of cover, trying to show that J. Cole is obsessing over this girl. The other shots are showing J. Cole and his companion taking the body to bury, and the rest are showing J. Cole feeling guilty, and depressed. 

As for inspiration from the video, I really like the shots of J. Cole, close up. I think that I want to add in some shots like that, as I want the actor to be singing the chorus to the camera. As for the other shots, I most likely won't be adding many of them as I am aiming to shoot, in a bedroom or a hotel room. I don't think I will have any shots outside, as I think the inside setting would be perfect for the song that I have chosen. 

Editing - 
The editing in this music video is simple, its just full of short cuts, from shot to shot. Nothing major, the cuts are slow paced, nothing flashes or cuts rapidly as the song is slow. Other than some slow paced cuts, there isn't much editing, other than some flashing lights to indicate the police car, and a video effect to show J. Cole is in the club. I want to use a similar edit for my video, for when there will be a long shot of the actor and the room they are in, I want it to look frosted or slightly distorted.

Mise en Scéne - 
The Mise en Scéne is very essential in this music video, the lighting for the outside shots is authentic as it is shot mid-day, and the shots of the house are well lit, with artificial lighting. As for the costume, the girl is wearing lazy clothes; some shorts/underwear and a tank top. J. Cole and his friend are wearing normal everyday clothing, which is typically seen on the younger generation (beanies, hoodies, and jeans) and that of a american gangster type, rapper. As for Miguel, he is dressing up in a suit, indicating he is going off to work, showing he has an important job. As for inspiration I think that I will take the costume and lighting into account, and definitely use them for ideas in my own music video, especially the outfits, as they would be perfect for my music video.

Task 11 - Inspirations / Directions

For inspiration, I looked at videos for artists and genres that I really like. For example I looked at artists such as; J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd and Jay Rock.

Jay Rock - Vice City ft. Black Hippy

The video above is the music video to Jay Rock - Vice City ft. Black Hippy. I take inspiration from this video, mainly for clothing. The clothing is very Hip Hop/ Rap and is generally something the artists in the song would wear on a day to day basis. I think that the style they possess is definitely an american gangster style. For example, Jay Rock is wearing baggy jeans, with black and white trainers and an open thin coat with a plain white t-shirt underneath.

Earlier in the video Kendrick Lamar is shown wearing a sweatshirt with a white t-shirt hanging out the bottom, with some baggy, ripped jeans and some white trainers. This is the outfit I had imagined in my head for my actor, maybe mixed with some of Jay Rock's outfit.

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The Weeknd - Often (NSFW) 

The video for this song is really what I take my inspiration from, the song is Hip Hop style and has a slow tempo, so the video fits very well. The outfit that The Weeknd is wearing is also striking, the american football style jacket, with his own brand fits very well, and looks very fitting for the setting and song itself. The slow pans and close ups of The Weeknd himself are what give this video a sense of originality, the fact the camera pans upside down, around his head, really gives the video its distinct look.

Task L - Risk Assessment

Risk	Danger Level	What can happen	How to avoid
Dropping the camera.	4/5	If you drop the camera, you will have to pay the school the cost of the camera.	Be careful at all times, and wear the camera around your neck using the strap.
Tripping over equipment.	3/5	You could drop the camera, or most likely hurt yourself from falling.	Move anything that isn’t needed out of the way, and be careful of the tripod, what your steps.
Props causing harm.	4/5	If using any sharp objects during filming, it can bring harm to those in the vicinity.	Handle props carefully, and act responsibly, making sure you don’t harm someone or yourself with the prop.

Task 9 - Digipak Analysis 1

Task 2 - Analysis of Another Student's Work

For this task I had to analyse a past Media Studies student's blog, and for this task I chose to analyse Jake Maud's work.

Research:
Positives:

•  Jake's work is very concise, and is laid out in a very simple but sophisticated way. All sections to his blog are very easy to find and navigate within.
• I found that his research tasks contained a lot of information into Music Video Directors and that he related them to his own ideas and work, he created sections to comment on their work and how he could take inspiration from them in order to plan and film his own music video.
• For his research into the music videos, he asked 20 people; 11 female and 9 male. This allows him to record data from a wide range of people and not just being biased towards one gender. 

Negatives: 

• I found that Jake could maybe have used more pictures to illustrate his research, this would have brightened his research blog up a bit.
• As for Jake's questionnaire on music videos, he could have added more questions to the questionnaire itself, and also he could have asked more people and maybe added age onto it so that when analysing his own questionnaire he could have seen if age was a factor with the genre of music. 
• Jake could have also analysed more music videos for his research to benefit himself when planning his music video, by getting inspiration from different genres of music and their videos.

Planning:
Positives:

• Jake's planning is very good in that he extracts ideas from different types of music videos and has brainstormed them, and analysed why they would work for him.
• When Jake was planning his locations, I can see that he put in a lot of effort, he scouted out many possible locations and took at least 5 images of each, so that he could fully take in the scenery and compare to what he had pictured in his head. 
• He added a lot of images and videos of places that he had visited, making the blog a visual experience for those who viewed it. This allowed people to understand what Jake was trying to create with these locations.

Negatives:

• Jake's storyboard is a video of all locations, with the picture of the actors placed over the videos. Although this is a very good and original idea, it could easily cause people to become confused with his ideas, and unaware that the actors will eventually be filmed there etc.

Music Video: 

Positives: 

• Jake's music video is shot incredibly well, all shots have been well thought out and don't look pointless or as if they have just been placed in randomly.
• The video fits perfectly with the song that Jake has chosen, and the video gives off the same vibes as the song. 
• The video contains some stereotypes as to what type of people listen to that sort of song, and they fit very well.
• Jake's video has a very clear and in-depth story to it.

Negatives:

• Some of the shots during the video, don't match the pace of the song.

Digipak:

Positives: 

• Jake's digipak highlights the amount of effort that he went to, in order to create his music video, including the final raw images. 
• The mock up of the digipak that Jake did showed that each element of the end product was thought out carefully.

Negatives:

• There are some parts of the process that haven't been recorded in Jake's digipak, such as; how he made the images,  for example what software he used and how he edited them. 

Magazine Advert:

Positives:

• Jake's magazine advert for his music video is very good, as it includes a date of release.
• It is also good because he has put a lot of effort into editing the original image into the cover of the music video.
• It shows where you can buy the music video (iTunes)

Negatives:

• The only negative I could find is that it doesn't show a price. 

Evaluation: 

Positives: 

• Jake has used many different presentational formats in order to deliver his evaluation to us. 
• Jake has answered every question in detail, and used pictures when needed to illustrate his point.
• The rang of presentational formats help the evaluation not seem linear and boring, especially with the video answers.

Negatives:

• Jake could maybe have used some pictures in the questions that he has used a vlog to answer the question, just to help his points that he has written out. 
• Jake could have also used a different format to present his last question such as; Slideshare.