This Hip-Hop/Rap industry is continuously rapidly growing so to compete in the genre it is not just all about the music. Fashion is a very big part of this genre, if you compare it to rock and indie music it is the complete opposite when it comes to fashion and style.
To gain influence we took a look different artists in the same genre to C.DOT. A$AP Rocky, he is a big character in the hip-hop industry with a unique style. He is linked with other artists from the A$AP mob which also have there own clothing range which is online, this is an example how artists use there music to promote clothing and be their own style.
As most of the music hip-hop artists write is to do with money in most videos there will be a shot of them wearing very expensive clothes this is how the hip-hop artists like to represent the music they produce and celebrate there lifestyle through clothing
Especially with our chosen song being "Nikes on my Feet" the actual song itself it all to do with fashion. With this being the song title it was vital for us that we included many shots of different nike trainers to go with the music video.
Website
Digipak
Editing Styles
The genre we chose often chooses to focus the camera mid shot. This may be seen as unprofessional in other genres but works well with rap music. Especially as the first shot as it adds enigma to the character.
To make our video more authentic we added features to make it look as if its on MTV, this included a channel snippet in the start and I logo seen throughout which can be seen below. This is a example of how we have challenged current media products in the industry.
One of our most popular effects within the group was taken from Justin Biebers "Where R U Now" video. This was a very time consuming effect to create but we was very happy with it in the end. Rap music video's tend to not include many effects of this kind this is how as a group using the ideas from the video to input into ours. It challenges the real rap world in using these type of effects and is something that we are proud to put in our music video and challenge the real rap world.
This is the practice of the "Where R U Now" it was imported in to premier and adding a trippy background. Once Connor had exported the video, Connor opened it up in Photoshop. This allowed Connor to access individual frames. He then continued to use the 'brush tool' to draw on each frame. This was time consuming but if he was to implement onion skinning, Connor would be able to make a fluid effect. A looped version of about 30 frames is available to view below. This took around an hour to do which was time consuming but it was worth it. Below is the first use of when we first started to create the effect.
I was looking for effects for the music video and I came across replication effect. Instead of making the videos separate when they are replicated, it sews them together meaning I can zoom and rotate the video as a whole, rather than the reduplicated videos individually. This will be a running theme throughout the video. This was also an effect that is not seen a lot in the rap industry which challenges current media products.
Genre Characteristics
The genre for our chosen song "Nikes on my Feet" was Hip-Hop/Rap, to portray the character of C.DOT to our audience we would have to include the characteristics from that genre into his appearance, performance and style. For example this shot below shows C.DOT with a bottle of Bombay Sapphire which we got feedback from that they did not understand the use of Bombay Sapphire however.....
Here is an example showing Wiz Khalifa and others drinking Bombay Sapphire who is a very popular artist in our genre, this is a very popular drink therefore we will be keeping it in the video defending the different shots of C.DOT drinking it.
With particular rap artists who are extremely talented it is only about the music, using Mac Miller as an example he does not show off his lifestyle and money he is simply about the music. This is also what we want to portray with C.DOT. You can also see this in our final music video that it is all about the performance and fashion. Looking at other similar videos in rap also many of the music videos tend to go back to their original roots in parts. We also aimed to do this filming parts of sub urban area's getting many scenic shots to show represent C.DOT. We also took reference from other artists such as Mac Miller our main inspiration, Chris Webby, Asther Roth and YelaWolf. These are the 4 main white rap artists who C.DOT fits in to. With the Rap industry being dominated by black males due to their culture and brand it is very hard for a white male to break into the rap industry. Eminem was the main break through in the 90's which encouraged many white males to do so but only a small few have succeeded. Therefore placing C.DOT in the rap industry highly challenges current media products who are booming in the rap industry and highly pushes the boundaries to if C.DOT would be a success in the real world or not.
Visual References
We gained our inspiration from this location from the Shutdown video by Skepta. I like this video mostly due to the setting and outfits which are used in the video. Barbican is a very busy area which is also the home of media so we thought this could be a very good landmark to film at which also has many great locations to film. My favourite shots are taken in the Barbican where we also shot from many high angles to get the best effects. I very much enjoyed filming in the Barbican due to the very chilled out atmosphere with hardly any noise which was perfect for Connor to perform. Also there was many other people filming around so Connor felt more comfortable filming in this location. This challenges usual conventions of rap music as when the artist visits their original roots it is usually a very rough are when the artist has come from nothing and become very successful. However in this case the Barbican is a very expensive high class area, this reflects the recent changes in Rap and Hip-Hop where the artist is more keen to show off his money than anything else. However C.DOT would struggle to do this due to him being a up and coming artist.
Here is some images of the Barbican below in the actual part we filmed our video which you will be able to see in our final video .
Interview
With SBTV a very popular fast growing channel on YouTube created by Jamal Edwards OBE, this is where many people are interviewed and grow as an artist on this channel. Therefor after contemplating this we thought it was very important to get C.DOT onto SBTV to promote himself and get him infront of million of viewers. Many popular artists are always interviewed so it was vital that we included a interview so we could relate to a real media product. The questions were wrote by ourselves but C.DOT was un aware what questions we would ask before so it would come across as a very natural interview and not prepared.
Performance Based Video
For our music video we chose to do the majority of our video all performance with some natural shots of C.DOT in public and of scenery. We chose to go with the performance style due to the genre of our chosen genre. In the rap industry the majority of the videos are all performance this is due to the artist wanting to express himself and show the audience that he is a complete talent. Especially of the low budget rap videos tend to me performance based. Below is "Say So" by Wiz Khalifa he is predominantly on his own throughout the video just performing on his own which we were highly criticized about as the comments were he shouldn't be on his own for most of the video, but here below is a great example of how it is normal for an artist in our genre to be on his own throughout although it is not as common this is how we challenge the real media products that are currently in the industry