Genre Essay for "Hate This Part."

Genre for Music Video:

In this essay I will be discussing the genre that I have chosen to use in one of my production pieces, that is my music video for “Hate This Part Right”. Genre is often used as a way of distinguishing one style from another and some genres are successful because the conditions for the genre’s existence exist, for instance some people’s interests are served by its labelling and the generic ideas.

The genre theory, a “regulated variety” by critical theorist Neale explained how genre theory is to do with a circulation of expectations between industries, media texts and audiences which leads to a ‘regulated variety,’ which we took into consideration when creating our own music video. Both Khushel and I began our research process by analyzing and investigating real media texts, ensuring that we gained a better and wider knowledge of the conventions which are an essential for power ballads. The first thing I researched was Goodwin's theory where I used his ideas and put this into practice when analysing Keri Hilson's video "Knock You Down" ft Ne-Yo and Kanye West, as it portrayed a couples relationship breaking down. This was a narrative story line that both Khushel and I were interested in using for our own music video so it was important for us to examine this in real media texts. 

When choosing a song that fitted the genre of R&B, both Khushel and I came across the Pussycat Dolls ‘Hate This Part Right Here.' This song is a pop and R&B track sounding much like what we enjoy to listen to in the charts today. By choosing this song as a possible track for my music video, it opened the door to many editing and special effect ideas as the track is quite a slow song with sections of the chorus becoming upbeat, allowing me to create a faster paced editing. This song is a clever track to use in order for me to display some of the skills that I have picked up on and learnt over the last two years of my course, that is, using wire-framing and displaying two shots on top of each other, (the birds eye view shots of London at night and close ups of the artist’s features) by blending them together to create a shadowed effect. Additionally, I thought that by choosing this song I would be able to incorporate a narrative storyline to exemplify how the female protagonist is reminiscing over her relationship, coming to the realisation that it is going to come to an end due to the constant arguing between the duos. We created a narrative story line displaying this, heightening the emotions of sadness and heartbreak that the couple felt as they were aware that their relationship was about to come to an end. However, we juxtaposed the scenes of the breakdown of her relationship with sections of the artist singing and choreographed dance scenes, (allowing the artist to express herself freely and openly - releasing the build up of stress and sadness from within her relationship) which is exactly the look we wanted to create for our video.

What is more, is that because the genre of our video is Pop/R&B we thought closely about what clothing, locations, lighting and mise-en-scene should consist of and how we could mimic these traits in an R&B music video. Also, audiences who are likely to listen to this song – “Hate This Part” are also likely to listen to artists such as The Saturdays, Rihanna, Katy Perry and Pixie Lott all of who’s style of sound is Pop/R&B. Additionally, all of these artists have each released up-beat songs as well as power ballads similar to the Pussycat Dolls.

Clearly, it is crucial for artists to have a defined target audience and our intended target audience were those aged between 13-29+ as the narrative and performance concept of this video relates to those of this age group. Additionally, because the song is a power ballad with the chorus becoming more up-tempo we came to the decision that the narrative story line might relate to the older teens and young adults, i.e 17-25 whilst the performance concept being a choreographed dance scene would appeal to the younger generation, i.e 13-17 as they will find this more enjoyable and fun to watch. Therefore we wanted to add a narrative and performance concept to our music video to ensure that we engaged both the younger and older generation and provide them with exactly what they would like to see in a music video aimed at their age group.

The only disadvantage of this track is that because the song was recognized as being the albums best number it could have been difficult to re-invent the song in order to make it our own and we could have found difficulties in promoting this to our target audience, that is, people aged between 13-29. Additionally, another problem we may have been faced with, is the fact that because sections of the song are fairly slow and the beat of the song isn’t very fast paced, I would have needed to ensure that the shots depicting the emotion between the couple appeared interesting rather than dull and boring, resulting in losing our audiences attention. Our aim was to engage the audience’s full attention with an aspect of exploring the emotional sides of the song as well as incorporating a fun and enjoyable performance to watch as well and I would like to think we pulled this off well.

Additionally, when researching videos which fit the same genre characteristic as our music video, that is, R&B I found out how woman are represented through the lyrics and main footage in their videos. Women are portrayed in a negative light - as sexual objects by dressing semi-naked and wearing minimal clothing as they move and dance in a circular motion around the artist seductively, flaunting their body to their audiences. This scene is a cliché convention which has been re-used over and over again to exploit woman’s sexuality in music videos and can be seen in Mohombi ft Nelly's video "Miss Me."

Therefore, we decided that we didn’t want to be another group that exploits woman in music videos in order to draw in our audiences. We want to be able to take hold of audience’s attention by the talent and aptitude of the artist. We want the artist to feel as though their fans and audiences know them for who they are as a respectable and highly regarded singer and not for the exploitation of their sexuality and being known as “the hot one.” What is more, is that we want our protagonist and artist to be portrayed as someone who is well thought-of and decent and if anything an artist that encourages teenage girls and young adults to imitate and respect their idols.

All in all, I believe that in my advanced portfolio, we created a music video consisting of a clear and fluent story line that could be decoded easily, illustrating a girl who was strong enough when making the tough decision to end her relationship due to constant confrontations, as well as highlighting the emotion and intensity of the artist seeing her at her most vulnerable state as she came to the realisation that her relationship was over. I am certainly pleased with the final product and it could not have been achieved without Khushel or me and our own creative decisions and knowledge of real media texts fitting the genre of R&B.