Props And Locations

PROPS:


- IPod
- Speakers
- Mobile Phone

As this is an electro pop song we wanted to mainly focus on the actual content of the video, particularly the dancing. Therefore we don’t feel the need to include that much props.

COSTUMES:


Lana (Singer)

- Grey Tracksuit bottoms
- Black vest top
- Black trainers
- Leggings
- Sky high heels
- Sunglasses
- Dress


Boys and Girls (Dancers)
· Bright clothing
- Leggings
- Trainers
- Hoodies
- Jeans
- Skirts


LOCATIONS:

We have various locations for the video as we wanted to make sure that the video has an urban look and feel to it.
- Canary Wharf (Fountain)
- A long street (Unaware of street name)
- Sir John McDougall’s Park/Victoria Park
- School Theatre
- Dance Theatre

As we are sure we are going to use the locations above, we still felt the need to have back up just to make sure that we are organised.
- East India Quay (Bridge)

With the approval of Lana I had found looked though all the suitable props and locations.

Research on Genre and Artist

Genre
Déjà Vu" is a Romanian electro pop song released by Bob Taylor, and featuring the female recording artist Inna, in the summer of 2009. Electro pop was first made known in the 1970s to which it wasn’t highly popular. Compared to now where electro pop has now become better known in the 1990s and early 2000s. Electro pop has always appealed to the more European market as its songs consist of catchy hooks and dance beats. The term was used primarily during the 1980s to describe a form of synthpop characterized by an emphasized electronic sound — often described as cold and robotic — and by minimal arrangements.
By the early 1980s there had been a long history of experimental avant-garde electronic music, notably in northern Europe that provided access to a bank of technical expertise built up over decades, via organisations such as the BBC Radio phonic Workshop, and the London Electronic Music Studios. These institutions were patronised by early rock synth pioneers such as Brian Eno, Roxy Music, Tangerine Dream and Pink Floyd.

Despite this, electro pop flourished in the United States in black culture, particularly in Detroit. Musicians such as A Number of Names and Cybotron pursued a version of the style inflected by R&B and funk which eventually established the Detroit techno scene. Afrika Bambaata, from New York, also invented the electro style of hip-hop by sampling Kraftwerk.
In recent years, the electro pop sound and style have also arguably influenced many other mainstream pop artists. The second album by British singer Lily Allen released in 2009 called It's Not Me, It's You is largely electro pop.

American singer Katy Perry had a huge hit with "Hot n Cold" which had an electro pop flavour. The British and other media in 2009 ran articles proclaiming a new era of the female electro pop star and indeed 2009 saw a rise in popularity of female electro pop artists. In the Sound of 2009 poll of 130 music experts conducted for the BBC, ten of the top fifteen artists named were of the electro pop genre. Lady Gaga had major commercial success since 2008 with her debut album The Fame. Other Artists especially from the States have commercially enhanced the popularity of electro pop music. Kesha is a young and upcoming artist whose first single Tik Tok was number 1 in America showing that electro pop is still continuing to grow.

Artist

Elena Alexandra Apostoleanu known as “INNA” was born on October 16, 1986 in Mangalia, Romania. She is a Romanian house and dance singer. She began working with Play & Win in 2008 same year when she released the disc single "Hot". At the age of 8 she started taking singing lessons. Inna had a few musical projects but didn't get much attention.
In 2009 at the MTV Romanian Music Awards, Inna won the best dance, best act, best show and border breaker awards making her the most successful singer from the show. Her top singles were "Hot" and "Love".

Inna debuted in 2009 with the album Hot, produced by Play & Win. The main single from the album, the eponymous "Hot", reached top chart positions in Romania, Portugal, Moldova, Bulgaria, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, Poland, Serbia, Spain, Syria, Turkey, Russia, Hungary, Slovakia ,U.S. Greece and Ukraine. The second single promoted from the album, "Love", reached number sixteen in Kiss FM's Fresh Top 40 in its debut week. She was nominated for best singer and best single at the Eska Awards in Poland. Inna also released a single titled "Déjà Vu", in collaboration with Bob Taylor, that was a major hit in Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Russia, The Netherlands and Hungary. Her fourth single from her debut abum was "Amazing", which reached number one in Inna's home country Romania and entered several European charts.

Anamatic Storyboard

This is the anamatic storyboard for the music video (Bob Talyor ft Inna - DeJa Vu). We have included different locations, costumes and so fourth.

Lana had prepared the animatic storyboard for our music video.

Music Video Analysis 2 (Pink - Stupid Girls)

The controversial music video for Pink’s ‘Stupid Girls’ was directed by Dave Meyers in 2006. The song was a big success but was overshadowed by the actual music video which had been downloaded 8.6million times as soon as it was made available on the Internet. Pink, being such a successful and outrageous artist we have seen her star development change on so many occasions, as well as her music genres. The genre for this video was pop which the most popular style of music is. Pink portrays many characters in the video to make a statement about how young girls aspire to the hypersexual personae of female celebrities rather than for their careers or talents. In the beginning we see how a young girl is put into a dilemma of whether as a angel and devil appear who are trying to persuade her to either be who she wants or a ‘stupid girl.’


At the beginning of the video (0:30) pink talks about how girls have lost their ambitions and now are focusing on living the high life. The characters in the video are parodies of young female celebrities such as Mary Kate Olsen (0:35), who provides the basis for the Bohemian-chic dressing style of the girl who visits a Fred Segal clothing store and goes to the pet shop to buy a dog “With their itsy bitsy doggies and their teeny-weeny tees” this demonstrates the typical ‘stupid girl’ who wears all the designer labels and buys a little dog which is quite popular with young female celebrities of today (Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie and Britney Spears.)





Pink goes into deeper issues when she talks about health and how a girl with purging disorder who considers calories "so not sexy" makes herself sick. “Oh my god you guys, I totally had more than 300 calories. That was so not sexy, no” Yet Pink makes this into a joke with her costume and blonde hair even the way she was speaking shows how she wanted to show how unserious this issue is.

The visuals have continuously backed the music as Pink had tackled every topic that she had sang to really get the point across about girls who act in an immature like way. The video has been carefully thought out as the pace of the song really flows well with the video. As the video is solely focused on the inter-textual references, the instrumentals are not especially taken into account. At one point in the video the pace slightly increases (1.07) as the song leads back to the second verse we get a recap of the beginning as it is a different shot per second.

As the video is so notorious the record company was planning on to get the song as much recognition as possible with giving it mainstream airplay on all radio stations. This will automatically get the song some acknowledgement before the video was released and will get people to buy the single. Pink has always maintained this image of being quite boyish and tough throughout her career. She has always been an idol to many young people as she has maintained her image and showing that you should be proud of who you are and to not care about what other people think. Even her clothing she has worn has been quite laddish, wearing quite dark colours and make-up. The video is typical of Pink as she is always had this attitude even from the beginning of her career when she was an R’n’B. In her video “So what” really shows Pink’s attitude and the song was positively received. The video really displays the change that Pink had gone from a rock to pop. From the beginning of her career her songs had more of a soul feel to it such as “There you go” to rock “Just like a pill” and the pop like “Stupid girls”.

Looking into the account of Pink’s previous videos, even though there are some explicit seems which do demonstrate sexual references in there which could easily be scrutinized by the media, Pink has cleverly made it into a joking way. The scene with her in the bed as she was being videoed which could be seen as participating in a Celebrity sex tape (2:35) she is simply poking fun at other celebrities participating in such activities. The varieties of shots used in the video have really displayed the fun that Pink would have wanted for the video. There is part where Pink is trying to be seductive when she is washing a car but once again its Pink making it a joke as she slips and falls on the car as well as trying to be sexy and provocative.

The video shows inter-textual references of Pink as an angel and a demon who try to influence the future of a young girl. The angel shows her a series of images demonstrating the stupidity of current trends in female celebrity.

Some of the negatively portrayed characters in the video are parodies of young female celebrities such as redheaded girl who accidentally hits pedestrians with her car is a parody of Lindsay Lohan. This suggests the idea of how negatively young female celebrities are shown in the media, as they are literally on every magazine and on top news for the imprudent behaviour.The scene in which Pink washes a car in a bikini is a parody of similar scenes in the music video for Jessica Simpson's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" (2005) where this once again demonstrates what Pink thinks of young female celebrities and how they are not taking seriously in their careers as the world clearly have an interest in their image and in this case Jessica Simpson’s blonde hair and tight shorts.

Near to the beginning of the video (0:31) Pink is dancing next to a 50 cent impersonator as she is trying to show how woman are not being taken serious in society as well as not taking themselves seriously.

The video is manly concept based as Pink is looking into a strong topic. While the video is parodies of many young female celebrities and is showing how Pink is poking fun at this idea of what a stupid girl is we really get the sense that Pink is conveying a serious message to the wider audience about these issues which are not really taken into account. Pink’s message was clearly stated in the song how she feels about today’s world and the lack of ambition and drive. She feels that everyone should be who they want to be and not what do what everyone is doing.

Shooting Schedule

As I wanted to use the school theatre for our music video I was told that I needed to speak to the performing arts technician (Mr Hitchenson). With permission from Mr Hitchenson I had created a facebook event regarding the details of the music video to allour peers.

Unfortunately due to the mix up of the dates, Lana therefore had to create a new facebook event which stated the correct time date and venue.

Star Image and Development

I have looked at several music artists that have changed their star image throughout their careers and made a huge impact on the music scene today such as Madonna, Elton John and Pink. The image of Christina Aguilera has made a large and controversial impact on today’s music listeners. Christina Aguilera was born on the 18th December 1980 and began her career at a young age as a singer and actor on Disney Channel's television programme the Mickey Mouse Club along Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. She then went signed to RCA records and released her first song for the soundtrack Mulan. In 1999 she released her first album “Christina Aguilera” which went on to sell over 17million records worldwide. She has released 3 other studio albums “Stripped”, “Back to Basics” and “Bionic” after her first album and has sold 42 million records worldwide making her one of the most successful female artists of all time. Some of her most recognized song was Genie in a Bottle, Dirrty and Lady Marmalade. Aguilera has a strong vocal and has managed to work in all different types of music genres from Pop in her younger years (Genie in a Bottle) to R’n’B (Cant Hold Us Down) to Swing Jazz (Candyman) as well as a bit of Rock (Fighter).

As Christina Aguilera began her career at quite a young age she was very much controlled by her music label to keep her innocence and stay out of controversy so as she began her career it was predominantly pop music to appeal to the younger audience from a 13 – 18 year olds as she was portrayed to be a pop icon. Her look was essential and although she began quite young Aguilera always embraced the female body with wearing revealing clothing to make give her that provocative look but managed to maintain that innocence. It is only when Christina gets control of her music and career we really see the female empowerment brought to her music. She uses her sexuality as an advantage to appeal to women; this can be seen in her video “Can Hold Us Down” when there is a female vs. male conflict throughout the video as they battle each other with a dance competiton.

As every teenager does when you are growing up you identify who you really are and what you want to do and we saw that straight away from Christina Aguilera. Her star image made a drastic changed when it got to her second album Stripped where she gained serious media attention from her radical change of music as well as image. She embraced her sexuality and brought forefront that she is now a woman and eliminated that girl next door image all of this is shown in her music video “Dirrty”. She began to wear provocative clothing such as a bikini and chaps as well as wearing heavy make and dark colours in her hair. The way her videos have been edited to constantly showing her female power and sexuality reinforces her image as a star, for example in her 2001 collaboration with Lil Kim, Mya, Pink and Missy Elliot “Lady Marmalade” her characteristics of female dominance we displayed with the constant close up shots of her clothing and hair. The consisted of Christina being assisted by her workers as she once again showing how powerful she is with the tantrums she had throughout the video. This is where we see much more of an edgier side of her. The video was performance based video as it had so much detail put into it with her close up dancing with men as well as women such as the shower scene where it was all women.

Throughout Christina’s career there have shown a lot of close-ups in her videos as it tries to create a relationship with her audience and to make the audience see who she really is, this occurs in her very heartfelt song “Beautiful” as Christina is telling a story to alert the world of the message se was trying to convey. In order to get Christina as recognized as possible promotion was essential in make sure she is a global success. As Aguilera has her own unique style and attitude towards certain things, creating her brand needed to include things such as posters, dolls and clothing that will make her an international success.
Aguilera encourages female domination as she wants to send a particular message to all women which can also been seen in her video “Tilt ya head back” where she is the love interest of Nelly and yet again we get to see Christina using her looks and charisma to make the men weak and infatuated by her. The long shots used were to really emphasis on Christina’s body and beauty, this being another example of female empowerment.
As times have changed and women now have a say in society and being just as powerful as men this is now a reoccurring trend when it comes to female entertainers, especially from Christina Aguilera. She has maintained that same positive attitude that women are a dominant force and should embrace the female body which she has spoken about in her videos especially in “Can’t Hold Us Down”.
Aguilera’s videos have all been a bit of narrative as well as being performance and yet they have the same message about girl power which is very much impressive as she will always continue to change her image and genre of music.
In conclusion to all this, Christina Aguilera is a diva and icon and has been a controversial music artist for a long time. The change in style as well as music genre shows her versatilities. From the very bland music videos that were created for when she was young the contemporary songs and videos have really took its toll on today’s music listeners.