Branding

Artists create a type of brand for themselves. For example Beyonce, she is branded as a strong,assertive sexy woman who is in control and other woman idolise her.

Lady Gaga; This is the irony of the name.. She is simply Gaga! This artist is portrayed as being abit crazy and likes to look "unique" or "individual" but it seems she tries too hard. Not so many people seem to idolise this artist, but they still are intrigued to see what she is going to do or look like next. In this image Gaga attends and award ceremony in which she wore a "Meat Dress'.

Rihanna; Rihanna used to look like a pretty innocent teenage girl who had a great voice and made good music.. The transformation from that to Rihanna in 2011 is clear to see.. Now, she represents herself as a promiscuous woman with plenty of attitude. Obviously as Rihanna started to get older, she started making music that appealed to older teenagers which became not so innocent. Because of this she has made a "brand" for herself as this promiscuous image which she now has to maintain.

Hoodie Allen - You Are Not A Robot Music Video ( Student Project)

After looking..

After looking at the amazing quality of todays R&B music videos, I can honestly say.. My video will unfortunately not look that great! So, I decided to youtube student music videos to look at the quality of other students work and to try and work out how they created their project. This makes me feel disappointed because everybody will compare your video to the standard of, for example, Colin Tilley's videos.

One video that stood out to me was Hoodie Allen - You are not a robot. It does not look overly expensive, but the effects and shots make me feel reassured that it is achievable to make my video look presentable as a music video.

Similarities!

After watching the videos I have listed, I found several similarities.

• At the beginning of every video (minus the Lose Control video) it starts with "Colin Tilley presents" and often it goes on to show the artist/s and the name of the song.
• There seems to be a trend of the way the male artists are dressed. In every video it seems the men are dressed with jeans or trousers with military style boots, jewellery that stands out, and often they are wearing "sunglasses" and the men usually have tattoos.
• In Colin Tilley's videos I have recognised that there is always dancing.
• In the examples I have shown below, the videos look "rough" but the effects and set up still look amazing! There is always carefully placed lighting to give the video that quality look.
• The setting of the majority of the videos seems to be either on a street type scene or underground.

Keri Hilson - One Night Stand ft. Chris Brown

Jeremih - Down On Me ft. 50 Cent

Keri Hilson - Lose Control ft. Nelly

Chris Brown - Look At Me Now ft. Lil Wayne, Busta Rhymes

History of your text

Directors of music videos - (r&b)

Colin Tilley

Colin Tilley is an award winning music video director, born on June 27 1988 in California. Colin has directed music videos for artists such as:

Chris Browns;

• Next 2 You ft Justin Bieber
• She Aint You
• Look at Me Now ft Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes
• Yeah 3X
• No Bull****
• Deuces ft Tyga and Kevin McCall

Keri Hilson:

• One night stand ft Chris Brown
• Lose Control ft Nelly

Chipmunk:

• In the Air ft Keri Hilson
• Champion ft Chris Brown

Jeremih:

• Down on Me ft 50 Cent

Jason Derulo:

• It Girl

As my music video is going to be under the genre of R&B, I am going to research the music videos he has directed and see if I can see any similarities within the videos.

Kanye West - Touch The Sky (MTV Version) ft. Lupe Fiasco

Curtis Mayfield - Move On Up

Influences of older songs..

I have noticed that in more recent music, they're seems to be a key influence of previous/older music. For example, Curtis Mayfield's - Move On Up, was released in September 1970. The video for this song is visually poor, but musically great! (Video posted above) The genre of this song is Funk/Chicago Soul.

Kanye west uses the backing from Mayfield's - Move On Up in his Touch the Sky track in 2006. However the genre for this song is classed as Hip Hop. This shows how music has cross pollinated from what once was classed as Soul but has now influenced Hip Hop music. (Touch the Sky posted above)

Although Touch the Sky is relatively younger, listening to the song you can tell that the same instruments are used from Move On Up.

OK Go and The Muppets - Muppet Show Theme Song

OK Go - White Knuckles - Official Video

OK Go - End Love - Official Video

OK Go..

OK Go are a rock band composed by Damian Kulash, Tim Nordwind, Dan Konopka and Andy Ross. However, they are best known for their quirky music videos rather than their actual music.

The original members formed as OK Go in 1998 and released two albums. Their video for "Here it goes again" won a Grammy award for "Best Short-Form Music Video" in 2007.

The band have gained a lot of fame from their low-budget but creative/different music videos which you can find all of through youtube. Their most recognisable music video is from 2006 for their song "Here it goes again", where the band perform a routine on treadmills. This video has received over 50 million views five years later.

OK Go have their own website which is:

http://www.okgo.net/

Above this post I have shared a few examples of their music videos, obviously I had to cut down on how many I could post on here else I would end up with a blog of their videos. Their latest video which includes The Muppets was released on August 23rd. Enjoy!

Function At The Junction

Soul Function

During a media lesson yesterday, we watched a short film based on soul music and dancing called Function at the Junction. This short film was made in 2002 but is set in the 70s. The plot of the film is a club owner that tries to fix the winner of a Northern Soul dance competition in his own club, but a pleasure seeking male is determined to display his dancing which changes the plans.

The film is fourteen minutes long and the budget for the short film was £14,000! Which is NOTHING compared to other films.

Above this post is the short film, from youtube.