Choreographer Shane Sparks

Shane Sparks
Hip hop choreographer Shane Sparks is known for his role as a judge and choreographer on the reality television dance competitions "So You Think You Can Dance" and "America's Best Dance Crew." He won the American Choreography Award for co-choreographing the 2004 film, "You Got Served" which was a huge hit in the cinema and amongst young thriving dancers. He is extremely talented as both a hip-hop dancer and choreographer.

He was born on June 25, 1974 in Cincinnati, Ohio and he became interested in dance at the age of eleven, when he started performing in talent shows.

Sparks moved to Los Angeles after graduating from high school to pursue his dreams of dance. He began working as a substitute hip-hop instructor, and soon took over the class. His classes quickly grew to be the biggest in LA. Sparks soon began working as a choreographer for popular venues, including the American Music Awards. He was also a choreographer for the film "You Got Served", and served as a judge at the 2004 World Hip Hop Championship. He has worked with an impressive list of stars, including Lindsay Lohan, Aaliyah, Monica, and Benji Schwimmer.
Reality TV and Shane Sparks:

Sparks is well known as a judge and choreographer on the reality television dance competition "So You Think You Can Dance."

How is the target audience addressed

How is the target addressed?
I took a look at R&B music videos on youtube and took a look at the comments below, in order to get an idea of the age of the target audience i clicked onto their profile and this gave me information about their age and location. Most comments on the music videos were positive and i found a large amount of comments coming from young youtube members. The age boundary which i averaged was around 14 – 23, and this was what i predicted and the music videos appeal to those individuals because of their age and the stereotypical characteristics and contemporary types of entertainment they enjoy which was attached to them.




As you can see here, in the profiles of the youtube account holders, it shows the ages that are shown here are 14, 17 and 20. So this is what made us decide on our specified target audience

Representation of Genre

Our music video genre is R&B and here is a list of the characteristics of what a typical R&B video has:
 Majority are male artists
 Female is the object of desire
 Dancing is often involved and key in representation of artist
 Contemporary modern clothing e.g. nike, jewellery, trainers, sunglasses
 Male has a soft voice, rarely shouts of hoarsens voice
 The artists sings to the female, the female is what he wants
 Often certain body parts of the female is shown e.g. legs, lips, eyes
 There has been a change in the past few years, in the original form of R&B there is the 70's, the soulful, love making music, smooth soulful sounds from smooth sexy voices, Low and sultry, seductive. Or now Hip hop R & B and edgy street sound more focused on the artist rather than desire.
 There are some music videos where aspects of the original forms been incorporated, the old age R&B themes are still used currently today.
 Often there is a dilemma and the dilemma is sorted and solved as the music video develops e.g. Rkelly and Usher – Same girl
 The artist always ends up with the girl – this is where we challenged this as in our music video the artist loses the girl of his dreams.
 The clothing is modern as mentioned before, usually dark clothing
 The music videos are usually set at home or in the street.
 Target audience is between 13-25

The list goes on but there are certain aspects here which we used, developed and challenged.

As mentioned the target audience is between 13 – 25 so this justifies the ever reoccurring use of modern language, attire and popular dance. Most R&B videos involve break-dancing and this is due to its popularity within that specified age group.

The females of the music video is stereotypically the heroin of the artist, the male leading artist must ‘get her’. The artist sings towards the female as if he is singing to the female audience beyond the music video. Typically R&B videos usually show the male artist achieving his goal in getting the girl that he wants.

Semiotics

This refers to the analysis of representation, the idea of reality was important in our music video. We wanted to create a sense of authenticity and we did this by developing the props of a typical R&B music video. Typically artists would have expensive jewellery and elaborate wardrobes and cars, however in our music video we used basic necessities such as typical R&B hip hop clothing and used dance as a tool of expression. By not using elaborate props we could make our music video much more convenient and appeal to possibly a wider audience, this wider audience would be the people who would appreciate the idea of legitimacy and the idea that this actually could happen. This construction of reality helped a lot in not only reflecting the R&B genre but the concept of our music video. Also we furthered the transgression of the concept of the music video by incorporating reoccurring themes; by doing this we could establish familiarity so that the viewer was less confused about the suggestion of the music video. Through constant re-use of our key motif we hoped to make the music concept seem natural and unmediated, so we had to be very ‘picky’ on location as visuals are very important in either reinforcing your concept and if used in the wrong manner can lead to contradiction of the music video concept. So we decided to stick with the basic theme of unchanged backgrounds, we felt if we tampered with the background it may affect the natural setting making it appear less authentic. Basic colours such as red, white and black because after discussion we decided to incorporate some binary opposites to create the effect of past, present and future – the idea of Black vs. White, Sad vs. Happy, Up vs. Down as Levi-Strauss suggested.

Semiotics played an important role in developing the analytical perspective as it made us consider ways in which our product would have been interpreted and helped us modify it as we had to consider questions such as, what is being represented? How is it being represented? What is the influence of these factors?

Goodwins Theory

1. Music videos establish the genre characteristics
(e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band).

2. There is a relationship between lyrics and and what is visually displayed.
(either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

3. There is a relationship between music and visuals
(either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

4. The demands and needs of the record label will have the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work. In our case its the ring/time.

5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking particularly use of the female body.

6. There is often intertextuality and reference to it (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc).

Foo Fighters Magazine Advert Analysis

Foo Fighters Greatest Hits

The title is in a very simple font but stands out a lot in the advertisement, there is something strange occupying the letters ‘O’, ‘G’ and ‘E’. It appears to be lighting and from this use of font connotes the idea of power and strength. The title and subtitle is all in caps lock so again this can be related to the idea of strength and being on top. There is the use of 3 main colours, black, red and grey and the contrast of these colours makes it stand out. The title is more visible and the reader focuses more on the logo. The logo is placed in the centre of the album cover and it’s an unusual technique to use as most covers and magazine advertisement show the artist in order to promote them, but in a way this technique is very useful because it is not like many others so it is likely to attract a wider audience as well as their established fans. The use of red and black makes the logo even more noticeable and puts more focus on the brand. In the background is what seems to be some sort of plan, possibly a fighter jet plane. The grey background works well with the title and logo colours, fighter jets are associated with war and from this it reinforces the idea of strength and power. The logo is plastered on the jet so it denotes the jet fighting for them, as well as this the bolts connote toughness being ‘hard’. The use of red also supports its theme as red relates to blood, fighting and victory.
The use of the subtitle ‘Greatest Hits’ appeals to readers as it displays their established successful songs and makes it the highlight of the album, something worth purchasing as soon as it comes out. There is the production team logo on the bottom as well as date of release; the date of release is then presented with ways of purchasing and getting hold of the album. All the ways such as CD, CD/DVD, LP, DOWNLOAD. As well as this it has the highlight of the album, so a few well known songs are displayed in order to gain viewers and remind them of what good songs the Foo Fighters produce.
The magazine ad is very simple but has a lot of denotations which connote its dominance and supremacy over other bands, justifying why it is by displaying some of its famous well known songs. The idea of having a logo could be possibly added into our advertisement. Maybe our motif could be the logo, so in terms of going round and round a ring could be placed in the middle, this is something I will discuss with my colleague Josh.

Nas and Damian Marley Magazine Advert Analysis

Immediately the audience can see a consistent use of the colour Black, White and Red. There is a photo of the two main artists. Nas and Damian Marley.
Nas is a notorious rap artists and the font used to display his name is used in most of his album covers. It’s a typical urban title, large and sharp. Damian Marley is on the other side of the cover and he is a reggae artist – the son of Bob Marley. These artists are very different in terms of the genre they perform so already the viewer can anticipate some sort of clash or diversity between what the artists are going to perform. The bridge could denote the difference between them both lyrically and culturally, or it could possible reinforce the idea of two different forces coming together despite their origin of music and background. The colour of black, white and red are very basic but powerful, red signifies blood or fighting and the black and white depicts the past or change. The visual medium without colours, is in hues of black, white, and shades of grey with the red highlighting of the words ‘One’ ‘Mics’ and the day it is on ‘Tuesday’, so in translation there is going to be a convergence of two artists on one set with a microphone on Tuesday. Therefore suggesting to the crown there is going to be some sort of battle. The advert is quite basic but strong in what it represents, this is done by the use of basic colours and basic fonts, this does enough to cause anticipation from the audience of what could be an epic junction of two different artist.