Research: Unsigned Artists

Unsigned Artists

Isaiah Dreads

He's an 18 year old grime artist. He's an up and coming artist who has released 2 EPs so far and has featured in 2 fire in the booths. He has a fairly large 'following' on twitter but is still relatively unknown in the scene and for this reason, gaining his permission would be achievable. This artists track 'Hype in The Booth' would be a good selection to make a music video on.




Novelist 

He's a 19 year old grime artist. This artist is arguably flowing into the 'mainstream' side of the genre as his popularity has grown tremendously in the last year. He's released many hit singles and 1 mixtape in his career so far. He's famed for his close connections to South London and often references these in his lyrics. Gaining permission form him may be hard but the quality of sound is certainly near the top of pickings. If we were to use one of his song we would use 'Lewisham Mcdeez' for it's inventive lyrics and useful beat.







Little Katty 

He's a 19 year old grime artist. This artist, arguably the most accessible of all has had a very underground career. Releasing many hit singles such as 'Street Life' and 'On my Job', he went away (prison) for 2 years but is now coming back to re establish himself within the grime genre. His latest track 'I'm active' would be ideal for us to make a video on. 

Research and Planning: Location

Below is a presentation on location for our music video to "Hype in the Booth" by Isaiah Dreads:

Storyboard Animatic - Group Task

Research and planning: Costume

For our video I am wearing a black adidas tracksuit. This is conforming to the grime genre, where most of the artists wear tracksuits in videos, most notably the extremely popular recent video by Stormzy (called "Shutup"). He is wearing a red adidas tracksuit. He is considered to be the face of grime in 2015, and his video has over 11 million views, therefore when people think of this genre they will now think of an adidas tracksuit.

I chose the colour black because our song is quite a dark tune with a heavy beat, this black tracksuit suits the video well, and we'll be filming a large portion of the video at night and in a dark area, therefore the black tracksuit will blend in well with the darkness, instead of standing out. 

Overall, this costume makes the video look much more professional, realistic and fashionable so that the youth watching the video are in touch with it. 

Research and Planning; Storyboard

Research and Planning; storyboard

Initial Research: Audience research

Knowing the artist quite well and following him since the beginning of his still early career helped significantly when opting for a target audience. I've attended a few of Isaiah's gigs and thus allowed me to gage that the type of people constantly return to the bands concerts and more importantly music in general.

Although research can be crucial, by being a fan yourself and knowing other fans you are able to personally observe the typical demographic of a grime audience enabled me to target this demographic specifically. 

Additionally, research into a target audience was aided by my own experience of grime genre gigs at festivals and individual concerts respectively, as well as watching certain grime artists online. This enabled me to interpret the specific type of audience through videos online and draw for successful artists' marketing techniques. Firstly I drew ideas from Yungens' music video 'Ain't On Nuttin' (shown below) - the opening to the music video shows Yungen performing live to a crowd. From this scene we can draw the fact that the crowd look of the ages of 16-22 and mainly consist of ethnic minorities of African/British youths. 

We began by having our target demographic study our choice of song 'Hype In The Booth' in order to see the potential the song had to make a music video and whether or not what we believed was our target audience liked the song generally. 

Feedback is evidently positive and this enabled us to move forward and start planning the song as an animatic and storyboard to start shaping our music video together.

Research and Planning: Group Pitch - Together

Research and Planning: Group Pitch

Research and Planning: Minipitch

Research and Planning: Genre Analysis - Grime - Shane Farrell

Research and Planning: Genre Analysis - Grime

Genre analysis from Shane Farrell

Research: Conventions of music video. Michael Jackson - Billie Jean.

Research and Planning: Isaiah Dreads' first music video

This is Isaiah Dreads' first official music video, which is respectable considering the artist is 18 years old. Although this specific song features a collaboration with another artist;  Saskilla - I still thought this would be an appropriate use of inspiration for our work when producing the soon to be made 'Hype In The Booth'. Firstly there is no narrative to the video but focus on the lyrics which is ever present in the grime scene. The hook of the song 'Lights Turn Green' features the artist rapping under a green light bulb which is an extremely obvious use of synergy between the lyrics of the song and the visuals of the music video; a technique I will utilise with a recording booth in the song 'Hype In The Booth'. Also you can notice the other verses are filmed at night which is a technique often used by Grime artists in the street (other examples include; Yungen, Chip and Stormzy) as it holds connotations of aggression and power. Another technique I plan to use for verses of our 'Hype In The Booth'. The artist is dressed quite casually too in a Basement branded tee, so it will be important to dress our artist in casual clothing; such as a tracksuit once famously utilised by Stormzy in 'Shut Up'. In terms of camera angles there is a wide range but the majority consist of minor panning, free hand camera work with numerous close/mid-shots. 

Research and Planning: Shot List

High Angle Shot

Low Angle Shot

Mid-Shot

Extreme Close Up

Close Up

Panning Shot Diagram

Panning Shot GIF

Research and Planning: Links to similar artists

  Isaiah Dreads is a young grime artist from London, he is unsigned and not too well known in comparison to much bigger grime scene artists. He is only 18 years old, the same age as the group and this makes him a relatable artist for us in terms of style and understanding. We decided to use the unsigned artist as it allows us to market for him specifically attempting the create and image we'd like to depict to his audience. He is London based and writes his own music. He performs in the grime genre and uses strong wordplay. His music video heavily features synergy between lyrics and visuals and conforms to numerous conventions of the grime genre. Isaiah has featured on BBC radio one extra as well as BBC one's fire in the booth ft. Charlie Sloth which is an accolade he can be proud of. 

Yungen

Yungen is another grime artist based in London. However the artist is much more followed with a few videos with over 1,000,000,000 views and he has been signed by Sony records. As you can see in the images the artists are of the same ethnic background. Each style themselves similarly and attempt to utilise wordplay in their music. Isaiah Dreads is in the earlier stages of his career but I'm sure will attempt to emulate the early growth and success of Yungen. 

AJ Tracey

AJ Tracey is a London based rapper also. He once again styles himself similarly to Isaiah Dreads. He like the other two artists has recently featured on BBC radio one which is a key marketing tool for these unsigned artists in gaining publicity and a fan base. He is of the same ethnic background and both focus on beats in their music. AJ Tracey successfully utilised a similar beat to Isaiah's music in his track 'Naila'.

Research and Planning: Timeline

Research and Planning: Mini Pitch

Research: Conventions of music video. My Chemical Romance - Teenagers

Conventions of music video my chemical romance from Pedsldn

Research and Planning: Music Magazine Advert Analysis

Magazine analysis work from ToneEgan

Reseach: Conventions of music video. Novelist - Endz

Research: Magazine advert - Ellie Goulding 'Lights'

• The advert has been designed to look visually cluttered which means that it looks busy on purpose, although there isn't a lot of elements to the advert, the gold title and glitter in her hair makes you look twice.  
• There is a synergistic element to the poster because the title is in Gold, and the name of the album is 'lights'. The glitter in her hair links to the colour of the title and adds the synergistic element. Interestingly, there is a slight pun to her name and the design of the poster. 'Goulding' has 'gold' in the beginning of the name and her hair and the colour of the text is gold. 
• Ellie Goulding's music is different from most genres out there in the music industry, it is a mix between acoustic and pop which links with this advert as it is a natural picture with a subtle hint of glamour due to the glitter effect in her hair. She's showing that she's an ordinary girl while also being a unique artist with a little something more to offer. The album name 'lights' can be represented with the little speckles of gold in her hair. 
• The magazine advert links to Ellie Goulding's music video 'Starry Eyed' which is featured on the album. The glitter effect on this advert is frequently used in the music video, which links the two together and makes the music video easily recognisable and relates it to the album it is from. It makes the album and the music video synergistic. You can watch the video by clinking the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBf2v4mLM8k

Research: Goodwin (Bohemian Rhapsody)

Andrew Goodwin; in ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ (1992, Routledge) has identified the following features of music videos:

-Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics
-There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals-There is a relationship between music and visuals-The demands of the record label will include a lot of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work-There is frequently reference to the notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body-There is often intertextual reference

What Genre is the music and how is this reflected in the video?

This song consists of two different genres. The operatic section and the use of hard rock. In the opera section the video shows the four band members faces, and nothing else. In the hard rock sections, the video just shows band shots.

How do the images relate to the lyrics?

No they don't. The lyrics have a narrative, whilst the video is purely band shots which is often a convention of the rock genre. 


How do the images relate to the music?

The images do not relate to the lyrics, but they do slightly relate to the music. In the opera section, All you can hear is the band members voices, and all you can see in these sections is the band members faces singing. In the rock sections there are a lot of instrumental parts, and the images show the band playing the instruments. The colours are also much brighter in the rock sections, as the music is more upbeat.


How is the artist presented to sell them? How important are the close ups?

The video focuses entirely on queen and their performance. Throughout the video the audience is always looking at the band. There is a range of shots throughout the video. There are some where they are close ups of the band members faces, which establishes each band members identity and character, whilst there are also low angle, long shots, which make it look the audience are in the crowd watching the band play live, which promotes the band and their live shows.

Is there any reference to 'looking'? Are females presented voyeuristically?

there are no shots of females, as the only people in the video are the band members who are all male. The reference to looking would be involving the shots where it makes you feel like you are in the audience, watching the band.

Is there a narrative? How is the video organised and structured?

The song has a narrative, about a child who has murdered someone and is facing a jury, but the video doesn't represent this is any way.

Comments on Camerawork, editing, mise-en-scene, special effects, sound.

Looking up at the band, as if you were watching them live. As this is the first ever music video, the only time anyone would've ever seen a band playing the music would've been live or on TV, where the cameras would've been in with the audience.

Can you spot any intertextual references?


There are no intertextual references, as the video is purely performance shots. Having a narrative in the video would leave space for some intertextual references, but there isn't any in this video. This may be due to the fact that this was the first ever music video, and was very revolutionary.

Research and Planning: Mood Board - Shane Farrell

Research and Planning - Mood Board

In this mood board we see the avenue our video will be going down. We also see representations of the grime culture as a whole.