Statement of intent

My video is going to show the lifestyles of youth during the summer and how they can differ. The two areas of representation are going to be mainstream and alternative youth culture, and this will be shown by their choice of activities, clothes and behaviour. The alternative people will be shown skateboarding as this is a widely known counter-culture that will be very visually pleasing and will fit well with music if the tricks are done in time with the beat. The mainstream youth will be seen going to concerts, day trips to cities, beaches and going out as these are all very common activities. The Mise-en-scene will also change in terms of the clothes the characters wear according to their group; the skateboarders will be wearing more streetwear styled clothing whereas the mainstream characters will be wearing more generic popular clothes in order to conform to cultural and social stereotypes. The song I will be using is Gold Dust – Shy-FX as it is happy and up-beat sounding and has slower sections along with high intensity drum and bass sections that will allow me to create clear divides between the groups and play with establishing shots. These slower reggae sections will work well with slow motion effects and will contrast the fast-paced skating and concerts nicely.

The aim of a music video is to promote the artist and to do this effectively I need to appeal to the most relevant target audience. Shy-FX produces mostly drum and bass and dance music, which is a genre that appeals mainly to younger audiences between the ages of 15 and 25 however not exclusively. The video will appeal to a wide range of people but will focus on ABC1 demographic between the ages of 15 and 25. I will achieve this by including teenage characters that will be relatable to many people as they are representing both mainstream and alternative cultures. The video will include both males and females in order to correctly represent gender and although the video will focus on youth culture, it will still attract people of all ages; as it will create a sense of nostalgia for older viewers. I will include visual effects such as slow motion to change the pace of the video according to the music and at the end the video will rewind back to the start very quickly to give the impression of someone reminiscing on the past summer. This will emphasize the sense of nostalgia and open the video to interpretation as it could symbolise someone thinking about their past summer or could also just be events occurring in the present.

In order to conform to genre conventions of dance music video the cut rate will be very fast with clips 2-3 seconds at most as this will keep the audience interested and in time with the song. In most music videos, the action in the video is done in time with the beat and so the skateboard tricks, flashing concert lights and cuts, will all be in time with the beat to conform to this. Most of the shots will also be close up shots using a fish-eye lens, as this is very typical of older music videos with a lower production value. This will be an intertextual reference to some of Shy-FX’s older music videos as well as countless other music videos such as “HUMBLE” by Kendrick Lamar and “gimme some more” by Busta Rhymes. Hype Williams is a music video director who made videos for Busta Rhymes and Kanye West and is known for using a fish-eye lens to visually distort the image and get as close as possible to the artist. My video will reference his style of filming as well as many skate videos from the 90’s and classic films such as “Jackass”.

I will also create a website with a menu bar which will have a "home" button as well as "Music", "News" and "Contact". These pages will provide all the necessary information about Shy-FX and the opportunity to buy tickets to his upcoming shows. However the two pages that will be marked are the "Home" and "Music" ones. The website will have information about tour dates, the artist’s latest work and an interview in order to promote the artist, as this is the main function of an artist website as well as provide information for the user. The interview will be a question and answer style video where i ask Shy-FX about upcoming events, music and much more. This will help build the relationship between the audience and the artist which is crucial in creating identification with the artist for the fans. I will use banners that have videos that can be swiped along by the user to browse content including music video and the interview. This will make the website easy to use and make the content more accessible creating an overall cleaner and more professional production quality. This will be snapshot of a website and would be continually updated with more content and information for the fan community. There will be synergy between the website and music video as they will include similar colors and themes as the production company logo. This synergy links the two products.

My website will use the same font and colours as seen in the logo for the production company at the start of the music video as this will create brand synergy and digital convergence between platforms. This is important as it creates an instantly recognizable and consistent aesthetic for the audience and will link the artist, Production Company and website together seamlessly. The inclusion of social media links will also help gain exposure for the artist and allow the audience to keep up to date with their lives. The convergence of media across various platforms will create a larger audience for the artists as his work will be promoted to a wider range of people and the synergy between all of them will be essential to create a professional production value.