Inital ideas for cast

Stereotypically, within the Hip Hop/Rap music videos, the cast seem to follow certain conventions. From looking at a few music videos within this genre we have seen that there are reoccuring similarities in the cast:

• Stylish
• Young (18 - 25)
• African-American, Asian, and Latino ethnicity
• Female cast members exposed as sexual objects
• Male cast members seen as superior and dominant

With have taken these conventions into account and want the cast members for our video to fit in with the genre and to represent it well. Our idea for our main cast character is Laura Richardson. Laura fits the criteria for 'stylish, young and black origin', and although she is not a sexual object, she shall be depicted this way in the video to futher fit in with the Hip Hop genre. Also Laura takes drama, this will greatly benefit our music video as the acting will be taken a lot more seriously and will make the video look more professional and less 'jokey'. This is an important factor as we want our audience to be able to connect with the cast on a serious, emotional level.

Laura will be acting out the main character in the music video. Although the story line is incomplete at the moment, we want the audience to be able to connect to Laura on an emotional level. One idea we have for making this more possible is to use direct address. This is where Laura will be looking directly into the camera which will make the audience feel as if Laura is looking straight at them. The group and I have also decided we want the storyline to be quite dramatic, which will once more make the audience sympathise with our main character and follow the story of the video. This is how we intend on capturing and holding the audience's attention, by having a dramatic storyline (lineur video) which is interesting enough that the audience will want to carry on watching.

Another important factor which influenced our choice for Laura as the main character in the video is how she relates to the audience. The target audience for hip-hop genre is roughly around 15-30 years old. However, the lyrics in this song are less explicite and offsive than some of the other songs within this genre, so the younger listeners will be allowed to listen and watch. As Laura as 18 years old, she can represent a lot of the listeners and viewers of the music video so many people could relate to her.