Music Video Treatment

This is the treatment Bruno and I have come up with:

Breakdown:

Music video is structured A-B-A-B-A.

A: This is a section when the camera is generally following our main character through a specific area, where things occur to him where he passes through. But there will still be brief cuts and different types of shots slotted in at different moments during the section.

B: This will be during the chorus, and is not a following shot. It presents our main character and his gang in a run-down urban spot.

A1: Belsize Park/Hampstead Garden Suburbs – The song begins with him leaving a house in Belsize Park, and then walking through the area while rapping. During this shot, he is about to light a cigarette until someone takes it out of his mouth, he turns around to chase him, trips over (falling out of the shot), then stands back up in a different outfit. He also gets in a random car – pulling the front seat passenger out of the car, then the car drives off.

B1: Golders Green – When the verse finisher, the following shot cuts, and shots of the main character and his gang in a rundown alley begin. These brief shots will involve the gang doing gestures, jamming with & without the decks.

A2: St Johns Wood – This shot follows our main character through the area of St Pauls. Again several things happen to him while he raps this verse. For example, he passes a couple, and snatches the woman from the man’s arms, kisses her and returns her.

B2: (same as B1)

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Edit (Feb 2018): Although this was our original plan, when we were out filming we came up with plenty of ideas on the spot, and through editing we channeled even more new ideas, leading to a video that is in fact almost completely different to the original treatment.

Research for Music Video Treatment

Now having decided on a song, Bruno and I need to develop a treatment putting our ideas in writing for the video. We both have had many ideas in mind, with a lot of inspiration from past examples.

Inspiration:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7p-ihYOG5s














Music videos like Ain't Goin' out Like That by Cypress Hill have a very upbeat, tense feel which is what I want to present in the video, to get the viewer locked to the screen. The camera angles focus at the main character(s) face to face almost, which very much adds to the intensity of the video.

We aim our video to go against certain conventions of typical hip-hop videos, and by integrating different scenes and scenarios in the music video, there is a larger dynamic in terms of the overall feel of the video. Hence we were inspired by Tupac especially for this other theme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqJAnQTwmJs


The more warm colours of music videos such as I Get Around by Tupac are part of what represents a different side to rap, one of relaxing, partying and enjoying riches. To have this incorporated in our video, in contrast to the dark tense atmosphere, would be something different to the usual vibe of hip-hop videos, which is what we tend to achieve.

Problems with Audacity

With the application Audacity, Ollie (my friend who worked with me to make the Old-School mix) and I underwent some technical difficulties. Audacity is a great program for recording and editing audio tracks. Its free, convenient, and powerful, plus it lets you create multi-track recordings and incorporate various special effects. But errors can sometimes overshadow the potential of this application, as with us, there was a recurring glitch where a loss of quality in the vocals track would keep happening, along with a reset in the pace of the track. The error was inexplicable, and was at times extremely bothering, but with a lot of persistence and drive to get the job done, we just about managed to avoid the glitch and finish the job. In conclusion all though the app has been a great help, I will reconsider using it in the future, as it seemed a degree unprofessional.

Music Video Treatment Planning

Our ideas for our music video have developed to the point where we are capable of moving to the next step. So today I began writing up a treatment for the video with Bruno.

Final Song Choice

After getting feedback from our peers and teacher about the song choice, we gathered this:

Crazy Trips - Although a good tune, we decided to not use this song as there was just simply too much profanity... It is quite vulgar, and the idea of the song is not one we would particularly want to promote.

Where You Find Me - This song is really good, and not vulgar at all, but the only reason we didn't use it, is because it misses that 'umph!' that Bruno and I believe will rocket us to a better grade.

Old School Mix - We came to the conclusion that this song would be the best to make a video out of.  The song has energy and a fast tempo, which really grabs the listeners ears by force, and hence would be the most interesting to make a video out of.

Mixing Music

Over the weekend, for my first choice song for the music video, as mentioned before, I mixed the music of 'Ain't Goin out Like That' by Cypress Hill, and the vocals of 'Flamboyant' by Big L. Originally we would have wanted to use the vocals 'Danger Zone' (also by Big L), but due to technical issues, we had to change the song to 'No Endz no Skinz' - but once we analysed the lyrics, we decided it would be inappropriate as a result of the misogynistic phrases and words in the song.
As a result of this, we moved to our final choice of vocals, 'Flamboyant', We used applications Virtual DJ, and Audacity to mix the music.

Potential Song Choices

As our number one choice is to do a hip-hop video, Bruno and I have selected three songs which we could potentially use in our video:

1) Old-school mix: Flamboyant - Big L (Vocals), Aint Goin out like That - Cypress Hill (Music)

2) Crazy Trips - BVA feat. Leaf Dog (High Focus)


3) Where You Find Me - Verb T (High Focus)




Depending on feedback from peers and our teachers, will decide on one of these 3 songs.

Groups for Music Videos

Today we were assigned to the groups which we would be making our music videos in. I am now partners in a 2 man group with Bruno. Luckily, he is also looking to make a hip-hop video, which will allow us to focus on this genre, exchanging ideas.

90's Hip-Hop 

Rap has always been my favourite genre from a young age, 90's rap. This is when hip-hop began to boom in America (especially on the west and east coasts). The whole plot of how it became more and more popular had caused an outburst political and social issues. Therefore I do not only think this is the best genre for music, but it's story is also one of the most interesting.

Pop Music presentation

Today in class we were presented a very informative presentation on the pop music genre.

Pop is popular music. It relates to any genre that is popular at the time. For example, in the 60's, rock and pop

A couple Ariana Grande songs were used as an example for the present day typical pop music video.

Pop Music by Billy Cancea-O'Duinnin on Scribd