Re-Draft of Genre Essay:

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.

Generic conventions of music genres and music video genres explains how a genre is to do with a circulation of expectations between industries, media texts and audiences which can often lead to a ‘regulated variety,’ (a term used by critical theorist Neale) 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 R&B. 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 couple’s relationship breaking down. This was a narrative storyline 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. Some of the conventions we were inspired by from the “Knock You Down” video were several of the wire framing shots depicting the artists reactions relating to the break up of their relationship, for example when one shot focused on the artist walking away from her boyfriend, the other showed the boyfriends reaction to seeing this. However, after much consideration we decided against this as we didn’t think it would work as well as we originally thought it would so we decided to film shots similar to these but edited them as individual clips rather than wire framing them together.

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. 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 decided to analyse a similar generic narrative from the video “Taking Back My Love” by Ciara and Enrique Iglesias as this consisted of a narrative storyline that we wanted to adapt for our own music video as it depicted the aftermath of a break up. With this in mind, we created a similar 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.

We also juxtaposed the scenes of the breakdown of her relationship with sections of the artist singing and choreographed dance scenes. We were inspired to add choreographed dance scenes into the chorus’s of our music video when watching and analysing Pixie Lott’s “All About Tonight,” due to the fact that her dance routine appears on screen during the chorus’s also where her moves are sharp, elegant and fast paced due to the frames changing and being cut quickly adding tempo to the song which is a look we wanted to create for the chorus’s of ‘Hate This Part’ also. Additionally, each of the many dance routines she performs shows an element of an R&B genre, similar to ours. Bearing this is mind; we decided to film a choreographed dance scene to add to the video as it also allows 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.

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 due to the fact 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. What is more, is that throughout our advanced portfolio we stuck to McQuail’s Uses and Gratification Theory particularly focusing on ‘personal relationship’ and ‘personal identity’ which we believed specifically related to the genre of R&B since the ‘personal relationship’ allowed our audiences to view the intensity and build up of stress and grief from within the breakdown of the relationship especially when the artist was singing to her boyfriend for the last time ending their relationship, as well as personal identity whereby we were able to view the characters alone and isolated from one another, for instance where the protagonist was placed inside her bedroom whilst her boyfriend was left waiting outside in the corridor. Even these individual scenes showcased the couple’s personal identity as we were able to again view the couples isolation and grief, which is often a recurring theme in other R&B videos which showcase the breakdowns of relationships.

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." 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 wanted to be able to take hold of audience’s attention by the talent and aptitude of the artist, as well as encouraging teenage girls and young adults to imitate and respect their idols. We wanted our 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.”

Genre places a media text into it’s own group providing it with an identity which can be recognised by a variety of audiences and I believe that my music video for “Hate This Part,” successfully fits the genre of R&B using a clear and fluent narrative that Todorov argued was important to any genre by following an equilibrium at the start of the video which then followed with a problem which in our case was the bedroom scenes which showcased the couples emotion and intensity as they ignored each other, viewing them at their most vulnerable state as they were each aware that there relationship was coming to an end, which then lead to the resolution whereby the female protagonist made the hardest decision to end their relationship due to their constant confrontations, realising that this was the best thing to do for themselves. We deliberately left the ending open (where the protagonist is depicted walking off into a crowded area) to capture our audiences attention effectively allowing them to wonder what her new equilibrium may be in the future.