Research

There are many songs that classify as hip-hop, but we decided to look at Written in the stars by Tinie Tempa and Eric Turner. Through most hip-hop videos there are a lot of camera angles throughout to make it stand out. Here are some of the known camera angles we found effective:

EXTREME CLOSE UP-This helps you look at the facial expressions of the performer, and how into the song he really is.






LOW ANGLE SHOT-This is effective because you are able to see the buildings of the city, which makes this a great a location.

WIDE SHOT-This is great because we can see how plain and white the room is and it make the piano and performer stand out.





CLOSE UP- There are a lot of close ups during the video, close ups are always effective because you are able to see the performer.





There were also Mid-shots, High-Angle shots, Panning, Zoom and hand held, that were used throughout the video.

This video is a disjuncture video, our own video will be an amplification video.

As well as the different camera angles there we a lot of cuts to and from the narrative and performance, and as the song gradually came to an end the cutting speed became faster. This made us feel that the song was coming to and end, this is because most hip-hop music videos finished with a big ending with fast cutting.

There were four locations in total in this video, and they were basic, but they still looked effective in the video, the location's were:

As you can see by these screenshots, there is different lighting through out the video, in the White Room and Basketball Court the lighting is high key which makes it look bright and warm, however on the roof and in the corridor, the lighting is low key, which makes it look dingy and eerie.
Where the narrative aspect is concerned, it is bordering more on the amplification narrative, which means that on the some of the verses the narrative does connect to the lyrics; however when it comes to the chorus the video shows the two performers dancing. In all, the balance between narrative and performance is 50/50, there are performances on the chorus but on the versus’ you see more of a narrative side.

In conclusion, our opinion is that the music video has a lot of shots and fast cutting within, which we all feel is a great way to put a music videos together because most songs are fast beat, like this one and so you need a video that matches the beat, and so that it doesn’t seem like its dragging on.

Here is the link to Written in the stars:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgFyi74DVjc&feature=related