Initial Ideas

Our ideas are to challenge the stereotypes and conventions of rap videos by using the opposite genders and race to a normal rap video. We feel there are too many dominantly male video’s, where woman are used as sex objects and men are portrayed as being in a position of power and dominance, so by switching the gender’s around it would cause the audience to think twice about what they are so used to watching in videos and see woman as the more powerful, dominant characters. With the added humour of the female’s lip sinking to obvious male lyrics.

We feel Wu-tang Clan would suit this type of video as they often use humour in their videos and have been slated for being sexist so this could bring them more of a following and a larger fan base.

An example of this is their video ‘Gravel Pit’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV3wh2VPcd0

Wu-tang Clan use humour in their videos to entertain their audiences and make them laugh, we feel that we should carry this theme on and by using females as the lead characters this may point out the fact that woman are not normally portrayed as strong characters in Hip Hop unlike men to the audience as well as making them laugh. Bringing attention to a serious subject but commenting on it lightly. We have an idea to use a fish eye lens effect as it is typical of videos of the same genre: Hip Hop. An example of this is the song ‘Mo Money Mo Problems’ By Notorious B.I.G. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twkh0YiInPM

Another example of this effect is the video Intergalactic by Beastie Boys. This is a print screen from the video.

The actors will be dressed in clothing that the public would associate with urban culture; for example over sized jackets, flat caps and chains as this is typical of Wu-tang Clan and Hip hop video’s and will add to our overall aim. This will be used to add humour to our video as the actors will be woman and will be dressed in male clothing.

These are our image examples of the types of clothing we would like to use and the figure expressions.

The posturing of the actors will be similar to Wu-tang Clan's, for example when they wave their arms towards the camera.

This is a print screen from the video 'Mo money, Mo problems' which I am using as an example of clothing and arm posturing.

There will be no obvious narrative in the video because most videos in the same genre do not have narrative but instead have the characters acting out to the camera- engaging with the audience.

We feel our ideas are perfect for our genre and target audience as we have not strayed very far from the conventional pattern of Wu-tang Clan’s video’s except that we will be challenging the gender and racial stereotypes that they often use. In doing this we hope that their current fan base will enjoy the video as well as welcoming new fans.