R+P Post 9: Music Videos that have inspired and influenced my ideas

We were inspired by many music videos, all of which were in the R&B genre. Goodwin's theory refers to music videos representing the genre of music and so we tried to look for the typical features of R&B videos that were repeated. One of our biggest inspirations was Ne-Yo's music video for Miss Independent.

Below is what we liked from the video:

• The mix between narrative and performance - we'd want our video to be both narrative and performance based as well
• Most of the time it cuts to the beat - I would really like our video to cut to the beat as it matches the visuals to the audio and so they work together.
• Matching the lyrics to the video. E.g "She walks like a boss" with a shot of the female dancers (dressed like working women with briefcases) walking into frame.
• Ne-Yo's fashion style, in particular the hat - we would like something similar as a noticeable fashion item for our artist.
• The stylised lighting in the performance/dance shots - we would like this kind of lighting or even something with more back lighting to make the dancers appear almost like silhouettes
• The V-formation in the dance breaks - this is structured formation of dancers and appears very sleek and professional and we would like to use this in our dance breaks. 

Other Ne-Yo videos that inspired us were Closer and Let Me Love You. Below are some screen shots from the music video of Closer showing which aspects were the most influential.

We liked the lighting from this video, especially the strobe lighting and the spotlight. Additionally we like the screen work they had of Ne-Yo and a girl and would like to try something similar for our video as it looks classy and artistic. 

From Let Me Love You we were really inspired by the dance breaks. Not only from the choreography but also how the shots cut between each other in a sequences to vary the angle and keep things interesting. Dance sequences are an R&B convention so we would need to include it in our video, however finding enough people to participate for it to look effective might be difficult.

We have also been inspired by Beyonce's If I Were A Boy music video. Even though our music video won't be completely narrative focused, this video's narrative has been inspiring to us as it has helped us to realise that our narrative doesn't need to give all the details away but still easy enough to understand. According to Vernallis' theory, a fragmented narrative is typical of music videos and so our video should be the same. In addition to this there are some shots from the video that we particularly liked such as the moment Beyonce turned her phone off as well as the repeated shots when the roles become reversed.

Repeated shots but with the gender roles reversed

We came to realise that lighting was a major part of our video as we all really like the stylised, bold lighting seen in other videos. Additionally lighting inspiration came from James Arthur's Can I Be Him video and also from Gabrielle's Dreams video. 

Lighting from 'Can I Be Him'

Overall, I believe that we will be able to create an effective R&B music video as we have looked at a range of music videos within the genre and have chosen what works best from each of them.