Case Study Genre in Tinie Tempah's Written in the stars

Tinie Tempah's 'written in the stars' was first uploaded onto YouTube on the 14th of August 2010, on his official YouTube channel. This particular song was extremely successful reaching mid and above in the charts.
Tinie Tempah is an English rapper first really introduced into the spotlight in 2010 with his release of Written in the stars.

The music video for written in the stars features many conventions of the rap genre, this is highly evident in the first couple of seconds as it opens with Tinie standing on the the rooftops of a suburban town. This is a really simple convention as Rap has connotations of fearlessness and disobedience. The singer is fearless and confident in himself and standing tall above others seems to amplify it. the second feature of the video being a rap one is that Tinie is wearing fairly expensive and smart casual clothing, a leather jacket showing that whoever is singing this is a big shot in his world. His posture is that of someone who doesn't really care he commands the screen, he is the most important person there.
This video falls under Gangsta rap as a potential genre as its focus upon clothing style on the main singer, its fancy and sophisticated but the lyrics are rebellious and Tinies actions are shown with no remorse, he does what he wants.

However the conventions of rap are broken shortly after this shot, it cuts to a white room with a man playing the piano, something in which is complete different from what you'd expect a rap video to contain, the white room is also a very odd item to have in the video as it as well doesn't fit the previous suburban theme. Its simplicity and relative calmness is completely different from the run down grey landscape we saw before.


however the conventions of rap are reintroduced shortly after when we get more Tinie and this time is more animated, he performs multiple overly dramatic actions such as the one pictured below however its a fairly long shot and rap normally has close ups or shots that are closer up of the lead singer, this seems to both use and break that convention by having him always in shot but be slightly further away and off set a little from the centre. This continues all throughout the video and it rarely cuts to a proper close up of him, it tends to stick to a wide shot when he is singing.

Goodwins theory of music videos is correct for this video, it focuses on performance and highlights the main singers and advertises them in a fashion that makes them look "cool" or "modern"
The Lyrics also link with the visuals but it is a broken link as he is singing in dusk or early morning, not night as the lyrics suggest, however this could also be a using the lyrics in a unique way.

The music video contains a narrative, its fractured and is only shown in short snippets but a narrative is included within the video, however its meaning is simple a child going through a lot of problems, with parents and lifes typical issues and the lyrics in a stylised way show that the child fate is written in the stars and just needs discovered or yelled out.

The colours in the video are colourful and vivid and as the music video goes on the energy portrayed gets more and more apparent which is challenging conventions as rap is normally full of energy throughout this one builds that energy and releases it on the verses and nearer the end.

Tinie Tempahs other videos such as "not letting go" also follow rap conventions as no real cares and a lot of close ups of the main singer and over exaggerated movements. All of Tinies videos are live performances and performances in general which makes the genre he fits into more repeatable to rap or gangsta.
Written in the stars tends to focus upon the lyrics moreso than the video which is and isnt a convention of rap music, on one hand a performance is vital to portray the rap energy, while focusing on the lyrics make it a more enumerable song.

in all the video portrays most conventions of rap music and does change and alter some aspects of them. this video could fall under gangsta rap sub genre but majority of the time it fits securely into Rap.

Pitch

The Music video features a break up scenario.
in which develops into a dramatic performance/narrative about how the male character really felt about the whole ordeal

moodboard and Mindmap of initial ideas

awaiting link...
please stand by.....

Possible song choices

4Kicks

"I never get lost by your side"

The only known source of the song is on Unsigned.com and not much of this band is available.

Advantages:

Infinite in its music video opportunities, its a song that can be used for pretty much anything but seems to be best suited for a dark gritty video.

easy to follow, the lyrics are not too confusing and its easy to learnt the beat

catchy beat, the beat behind the song is catchy and upbeat

recording quality is pretty good

Disadvantages: 

Lyrics are not too good, a bit dull
The lyrics seem to have no relation to the songs name whatsoever
Only one source of the song exists.
song lyrics are sometimes faded out

1984

"Green Eyed Monster"
http://www.unsigned.com/1984
Advantages:
The song itself has a relatively good beat to it and as such would be easy to put together a music video to it.
the recording quality is okay
it would be easy to write a narrative for the song
Disadvantages:
The songs lyrics are not particularly good and the songs structure is a little dull and boring
the overall presentation of the song is boring and drags on.
This

Analysis of media language in a music video

Heathens by Twenty One Pilots is an extremely wierdly designed music video, incorporating both Suicide Squad movie footage and footage from the band themselves. However the two seem to link extremely well, there are cuts between the two that happen very quickly and are almost not recognisable. In one section the security camera system is framed so it looks like there are many more cameras next to it and in the next shot shows movie footage almost effortlessly. This in all portrays a more relocatable feel to the video, its extremely obvious that this prison is full of mad people, the portrayal of madness is effortlessly shown in the video within mere seconds.
the colour palette is dull, almost all grey scale including the jumpsuits used by the inmates this in itself portrays a dark atmosphere to the video, its dark its dangerous.

Evidence of Contacting Artist for permission over using their music

We contacted the owners of the song, 4Kicks. 

As of yet we are still awaiting a reply

How does "Judith" from perfect circle use media language to portray its genre?

The Judith music video is in the form of a performance, its dark and gritty approach is a convention used by the majority of videos performed by Rock bands. Each character is either blurred out or in shallow focus adding to the portrayal of a rock band. Rock music is normally portrayed by the colour black and in Judith the entirety of the music video. Each player is portrayed by numerous shots most of them not showing their entirety, showing off the parts in which would link them to the rock genre, being the clothes, the way they walk and what area they are in.

The dark gritty and gloomy setting in which the music video is set in also reflects its genre as Rock is normally linked to dark and disturbing motives. The camera being purposely filtered to make the entire video seem more darker amplify the deep tone of the music   as it is almost entirely dark int he video it connotes a very dark subject and the lyrics amplify this factor.
The camera work in the video is mostly darkened out and dull in which shows that it is of the rock genre, most likely more suiting to the punk rock genre due to its overall dull and gritty camera work.

Sometimes the shots move to cover the band members and even though they are pictured they are not the focal point, the focal point is the main singer and due to that adds emphasis on the fact that the one singing should be the sole leader of the band an convention of punk rock and rock as a whole; as presented within other videos such as green days american idiot the singer is the one who controls the video.

The clothing they are wear is evidently of a slight goth undertone, but ultimately the leather mostly links towards the genre of rock, leather in itself is meant to be expressive and bold and therefore the usage of it within the video means that it portrays the genre well. its not overly in your face but its pictured to be normal in which is what fans of punk rock view leather to be.

The location as well is evident of a more gloomy and dark undertone (The punk rock) as the area is dark and poorly lighted and therefore it shows that the song is more catored to the rock fans other than say the pop fans who like and its common for pop videos to have colour and lively attitudes, Judith has a more darker gritter tone to its location and how its location interacts with the characters.


The mic and the way they are singing is used mostly in rock and goth punk music, with them grabbing the mic and singing into it; the use of the mic at head level is not used really in genres like pop or indie rock too much however it is common in rock music.

Applying Andrew Goodwin’s theory of music videos”

Andrew Goodwin's theory of music videos is portrayed within the music Video of "Sucker for Pain"

The music video starts off giving us a brief insight into the locations, a prison showcasing the band members is shackles or in confinement, the first words of the song are "I Torture You" which is extremely relate able to the scenes earlier. The band members are seen to be insane or evil in the way they move and act. In most instances in the video when "Im just a sucker for pain" is sung everyone seems to either jolt or physically hit something. The same kind of thing happens when "Go slow through the fire" is sung as the rapper is seen to be in a room full of fire. There is a constantly fast paced perspective of the music video with it cutting every second or so and slowing down on major lines and verses.

Visually the music video amplfys the insanity behind the lyrics the more the song goes on the more the scenery becomes disjointed, broken and adds more and more items in which could inflict pain.
the ending is specially in relation to the lyrics as they slow and fade out as the fire and insanity take over.
Every character has a specific location in which they are placed, and each singer has specific lines they sing each linking to their backgrounds and scenes. The constant cuts to Suicide squad also show that the characters location and actions are in direct response to the lyrics."That's why my heart cold, full of sorrow, the lost soul is one line which stands out from the rest, its used to confirm that these characters are slowly becoming more and more dangerous and insane.

The narrative itself fits the song lyrics and the pacing, it does this by displaying a setting in which is dark and gloomy with aspects that connote danger, such as chains and prison cells. The glimpses of Suicide Squad footage shown reflect the Movies characters ever growing desperation to escape the pain in which they have caused and endured.





The genre of music is rock and the visuals amplify it by incorporating a dull dark undertone to the video and this is a genre convention of rock music dark visuals. The neon lights are reminiscent of punk genre which is also Reminiscent  within the Lyrics of the video as pain is a convention of punk rock and both the visuals and the lyrics all connoting pain allow for the video to link together with its genre.

There is a narrative within the video and the scenes where they are pulling chains is a link towards the lyrics of the music and also relate to the songs name of sucker for pain. The chains and Prison like environment is remissnt of the links to the flashes towards the movie scenes where the characters live in prison giving it a lot more of an ability to link the two.

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