Documentaries and News Reports - Audience Research

To get a better understanding of my audience and the reason why there needs to be a Black Lives Matter movement, I recorded a lot of documentaries and news reports on the situation.  These gave me a true understanding of how shocking everything is and showed me that I need to convey a great deal of emotion in my music video to truly capture the devastating effects of it.




Above is the trailer for 'Hip Hop World News'  I have watched the full documentary which has helped me to understand my target audience more and also to understand where this hate for the police has come from in the black community and how music has helped so much as an outlet of this anger.

The documentary included various songs about police brutality such as Sound of da Police by KRS-ONE and F*ck The Police by N.W.A

The documentary also showed the moments before Eric Garner died from asphyxiation and the moments after Philando Castile was shot.  Although these videos are incredibly distressing, it's imperative that people get an insight into what racism can result in and why it must stop.

 Videos from a Black Lives Matter Rally have helped me to understand my audience better and see their responses to the matter.  This will help me to give a sense of simulacra of the rally in my music video

Audience Research

In order to make a great music video I need to fully understand the people I'm targetting to be able to create a music video they'd enjoy watching.  As I myself am in the target audience I'm able to understand the general thing I'd like to see, but I can't make it perfectly suited to me, it needs to suit a wide range of people.

Instead of doing a generic questionnaire where I could get answers from people who weren't interested in Contemporary R&B Music, I wanted to talk to the specific range of people i'm targeting my music video at to understand why they watch music videos and what appeals to them so that I can get a real understanding of my target audience and what they'd like to see in my music video.

Faith is in my target audience because she is an 18 year old black woman who listens to music regularly and enjoys watching music videos.  She has experienced some racism and would enjoy watching a relatable music video with positive representation of black culture.

Below is our conversation

Below are some people I've contacted through social media who are clearly big advocates of the Black Lives Matter movement to ask what they'd like to see in my music video, why they watch music videos and if they like my initial idea.  I'll also be asking for their feedback on my music video drafts at a later date

My Final Song Choice

I have decided on a song called 'PohLease' by KAMAU.  It's a very emotive song about police brutality in America

Below is the official music video for the song, and below that is a live performance in which I think the true emotion in the song is fully captured.

Asking Artists Permission

I contacted KAMAU on both Facebook and Instagram to ask for his permission to use his song for my music video to avoid copyright and just out of courtesy to which he agreed.

Possible Song Choices

Growing up as a mixed race girl, music has been an incredibly important part of my life.  My dad knows first hand how hard it is to deal with racism and wanted to make sure from a young age that I knew my worth and didn't take much notice of people who thought otherwise.  He did this through music with positive representations of black people and black culture.  I want to connect with my black side with this music video and also show other people their worth with my music video by doing a music video based around racism and black people.

I have looked at various songs after doing some research

http://www.ocweekly.com/music/10-best-black-empowerment-songs-6605281



This song is all about being proud to be yourself with the lyrics "I'm black and i'm proud"

This song has no copyright that I'm aware of (it has been uploaded by someone other than the official Jaheim account and has been up on YouTube for 7 years so I can assume it's okay, but if I pick this song I'll run my own tests to make sure it doesn't get taken down)  It's all about being fabulous as you are with lyrics such as

"Was just us and mom, single family home, She did the best she could, did it all alone, Met a man but he won't raise a child thats not his own, Oh, no, oh, no, no"  

Prepaid CELLIES for local calls                                                                  
little dons and divas up at the mall
rockin cornrow twists, thats how we BALL                        

But don't hate on us, were fabulous                                                                  

We're all that we've got
and no matter whatever together we'll weather the storm

IT AIN'T A LOT, we all we got, it might get rough, but
it's alright

Cause U-N-I-T-Y is all we need
To get our R-E-S-P-E-C-T
And never G-I-V-E U-P
And keep your H-E-A-D U-P
And never G-I-V-E U-P
And keep your H-E-A-D U-P
And never G-I-V-E U-P
And keep your H-E-A-D U-P
And never G-I-V-E U-P
And keep your H-E-A-D U-P
And never G-I-V-E U-P
And keep your H-E-A-D U-P
And never G-I-V-E U-P
And keep your H-E-A-D U-P

This song talks about black women usually ending up as single parents raising a family on her own and how incredible they are for doing that.
Cornrow twists are a type of hairstyle black girls tend to wear but this song is saying "don't hate on us, we're fabulous" "we're all we've got but we'll get through this all together"  This is the first song I remember thinking "yes, I am fabulous being me"

Another possible song choice is PohLease by KAMAU, this music video is completely about police brutality and focusses more on those events than empowering black people, but the way KAMAU words things such as "Killing cubs just because, Colour is a credible cause To make that bird caw, Incredible cost to a mother to To get that cursed call" shows the struggle people are going through just because of the colour of their skin, so if I pick this song I will record an empowering music video.

This song is a tribute from 2Pac to his mum who raised her on his own



This is another song about strong black single women raising children on their own.

Music Video Analyses - Contemporary R&B

The sub-genre of my music video is racism which includes the Black Lives Matter movement and police brutality.  I have researched music videos based on this matter to create an even better understanding.

Alright - Kendrick Lamar

Genre - Hip-Hop/ Rap/ R&B

'Alright' is in my opinion an incredible music video and is one of my favourites.  The whole concept of the music video is that there are a lot of bad things happening all over the world, but Kendrick and his music can help to heal and make things better or at least easier to cope with.
This is shown by Kendrick, the protagonist who is seen flying through the sky like superman, acting as a superhero to anyone affected by what's going on in the world, showing people that it's going to be 'Alright' where there is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals (Goodwin)
The whole music video is shot in black and white which I think is very effective in creating a powerful, emotive short story.

This is a 6:55 music video which includes a prelude.  At the beginning of the video, before the music starts, there are clips setting the scene, showing the neighbourhood with skid marks on the road - suggesting there have been car races in the neighbourhood.  There are also clips of buildings, graffiti, a black male lying on the floor, helicopters, police, a car up in flames, and things being smashes which all foreshadow a music video about violence and gangs and all the bad things happening in the neighbourhood which are things stereotypically seen in an R&B/ Hip-Hop music video (Goodwin)
We see a gun being fired and then a close up of Kendrick Lamar in a car with his friends listening to music, the camera zooms out and we see that they are actually being carried by four white police officers, this is ironic because white police officers have killed a lot of black people and haven't 'carried them' at all.

We then see Kendrick flying through the sky acting like super hero along with lots of different shots of different locations, suggesting that he's flying in all of these locations.  The clips of Kendrick flying have obviously been filmed in a green screen room and then edited into the clips in post-production.  The music video is a bit of a special effects extravaganza with Kendrick Lamar flying through the sky (Gow) and is also a performance narrative which helps us to understand that the song is about racism and police brutality. (Lynch)

We also see people in these different locations looking up at Kendrick Lamar smiling to show that him and his music have influenced people.

The overall music video and the lyrics "and we hate po-po, wanna kill us down in the streets for sure" clearly address racism in a unique and expressive way, whilst also being positive about the situation showing that if we all unite and come together, we're going to be alright.



Blue Lights - Jorja Smith
Genre - Contemporary R&B

The first thing we see in this music video is young children drawing a chalk outline of a body which is a very striking first image.  It sets the scene for the music video and shows us that the music video is about police brutality and racism. We also see extreme close ups of Jorja Smith singing, and of her mixed race features which combine her white and black roots.  This music video is clearly a performance/ narrative piece.

 There is a direct relationship between the lyrics and the visuals (Goodwin).  When we hear the lyrics "Don't you run when you hear the sirens coming" we see someone running and we also see strobe lights throughout the music video which links to the lyrics "I wanna turn those blue lights into strobe lights"
All of the clips are quite short and blend into eachother very well, something that would have been edited in post-production.  These short snappy clips contrast strongly with the mellow music and highlight how quickly it can all change and your life can be taken by the police with a single gunshot.

This music video breaks some codes and conventions of Contemporary R&B because it's all shot in such a dark light, with strobe lights which are traditionally seen in rave music videos. 

Music Video Analyses

Contemporary R&B is a music genre that combines elements of rhythm and blues, soul, funk, hip-hop and dance


Downtown - Macklemore
Genre - Contemporary R&B
Downtown is a modern day tribute to early hip-hop following the codes and conventions of the genre (Goodwin) whilst also following Macklemore's iconography of a humorous music video with an early 80's vibe too.
Typical conventions featured in this video are: shots of buildings, performance/narrative style (Lynch), graffiti, a big 'crew' or following, rapping whilst walking and or dancing with the camera tracking, cars etc (Gow song and dance number).
The video was shot in Spokane, Washington which was perfect as the downtown business district is packed full of buildings which are so commonly seen in hip-hop/ rap music videos.  The location perfectly represents the hip-hop culture.
The dancing in the music video has elements of soul and funk but works with the style of music.
The video features topless men and skinny women (Goodwin - voyeurism) provocatively licking lollipops which coincides with the hegemonic heterosexual ideologies and also the male gaze (Laura Mulvey) which is true to hip-hop and rap music videos

The camera tracks Macklemore as he rides his moped throughout downtown Washington and also while he's walking with his crew, something that occurs in a lot of hip-hop videos because hip-hop and rap is all about a big community and crew, so having the main singer surrounded by lots of people shows this off perfectly.


There's a lot of intertextuality in this music video (Goodwin) from West Side Story, tributes to old school hip-hop and Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars' Uptown Funk feature in this music video, there's even cameos from famous old school rappers Melle Mel, Grandmaster Caz and Kool Moe Dee.
Something to make note of is the fact that there is a massive contrast in hip-hop music videos in terms of money and flashing cash.  Like this video, a lot of hip-hop/ rap music videos are of rappers who have made it, who have the means and money to make big music videos about how well they're doing, but in America, 'downtown' often refers to urban areas with gun-crime, gangs and poor families who can only dream of buying 'mopeds' for the hell of it as Macklemore does to easily in his video.  I think there are definitely some big similarities between Downtown's music video and other hip-hop music videos but I think this one misses the point of in my opinion, 'real' hip hop which raps about problems with raw emotion, rappers who have actually lived and experienced the true 'downtown' - flaws and all.

Transition Music Video Project

Transition Music Video 

During transition at college we created a music video.  This helped us to understand the three basic video structures (Lynch 1984): Performance, Narrative and Concept in which we chose performance.  This task also helped us to get to grips with the equipment and software, to develop our time management and teamwork skills and it also gave us an insight into the things we'd need to consider for our final music video and helped us to learn from our mistakes.

Aspects that I will carry forward and use in the final music video:

• As someone who is quite shy, this task brought my confidence up in front of the camera which will help when i'm directing others in my music video as i'll be able to show instead of  tell them what I want doing
• This task also helped me to learn the software which I picked up quite quickly after practising with it at home.  I learnt how to overlay clips and how to change the transparency of each layer 

Aspects that I have learnt from and have adapted for the final music video:

• Time management was a major issue for us.  There were four of us in the group, and due to illness and other factors, some people were absent on the days of filming so instead of having plenty of time to film, watch, and then re-film any parts that weren't up to scratch, we had to film it all in one sitting which meant lots of different takes and last minute organisation to ensure we actually had a finished article.  This also meant we had less time to edit in lesson time which means I needed to put in lots of extra time at home to get it completed.
  All things considered i'm proud of what we achieved, but this task highlighted how important time management and organisation is, and also how much a director relies on the people involved in the making of their video and that I need to carefully consider who I involve, making sure I can rely on them to turn up on time and follow my directions