Case Study 1

Kwamz & Flava - Takeover

The main focus of this task is to watch and analyse three professionally produced videos that are similar to the ideas and genre of my own music video. Due to my chosen music genre being Afrobeats, which is a relatively new music genre, I will be studying "Takeover" by an afrobeats singing and dancing duo by the names of Kwamz& Flava. Kwamz and Flava are two British born but with Ghanaian heritage dancers now singers and they are extremely popular in the afrobeats scene. "Takeover" video was released on 14th July and written by Kwamz& Flava.

Synopsis of the video & conceptual, narrative or performance based

In this afrobeats video "Takeover" by Kwamz& Flava, I found to be mainly performance based, lacking any type of narrative and conceptual ideas. The reason for this is because the song takeover is simply about Kwamz and Flava stating that they are going to be pushing the boundaries by reaching and going after their dreams and when achieved they are going to 'takeover' the afrobeats music scene. They are also the main subjects of this video.

Themes & Motifs

The themes that can be picked up from this video are that we and young people should be free and go after our dreams. There this continuous theme of being carefree, letting loose and having fun which is typically what an afrobeats video consists of.

Editing: This particular video has a very rapid cutting rate and it in moving along in time with the fast upbeat song. Throughout the entire video it cuts back and forth between the artists  and the dancers with the artists obviously having slightly more screen time as each dancer/dance group has approximately 5 seconds of screen time before cutting or sometimes fading to the artists then back to the dancers. This extremely fast cutting rate demonstrates the upbeat and fun nature of this video and it's all about letting loose having fun by dancing and that is one of the major themes.

Camera: The majority of camera angles in the video are long and medium shots with close ups on the artists and some of the dancers. This is due to the fact that this is a dance based music video which means due to dancing being at the forefront of the idea behind this video all the dancing needs to be captured. There are also a few establishing shots, at the beginning when Kwamz& Flava are walking and it does a panning whilst still showing the artists as well as their background of this quite urban and street vibe. There is also another establishing shot when see a burst water pipe which is usually only seen in the USA this helped us understand that this may of been where the video was shot.

Mise-en-scene: What can been identified is that this entire video is done outside and that it consists of dancing almost all the entire way through. We know that dancing is a form of expression that doesn't have restrictions and being outside means being free so this further connotes this kind of free to express and be who you are theme. Every person in the video are also in comfortable clothing they are not being confined.

Target Audience: This is aimed at mainly people who enjoy afrobeats and dancing and just feeling free to express themselves and be whomever they choose to be. This is targeted to predominately young people at they are mainly the ones you notice throughout the video.

There is also a clear view of lip syncing

Ideas I could use in my own video?

• ·         Urban setting
• ·         Loads of dancers and just people generally having fun
• ·         fast cutting rate to depict upbeat song