R+P Post 5: The kind of video I would like to make

The song 'Blue Lights' by Jorja Smith was one everyone in the group could agree on. It is an emotive song that inspired our group to have similar aesthetic choices for what we would like the visuals of the music video to look like. 

We decided to split the narrative into two parts. Firstly there would be the studio shots featuring Olamide starring as the singer Layla Ade, lip syncing the words of the song and being involved in some miming to the lyrics. Then there would be the narrative of a young man out in London being intimidated by the police and running away from his own psyche. This narrative story seems very conceptual, but we believed that if we could clearly show it to the audience, it could be a very powerful narrative.

Immediately the group started brainstorming ideas of shots we could use that were inspired from other music videos that we had all seen in the past.

One key feature of the music video was to include voyeurism that helped to connote the message of female vulnerability. The idea of a woman looking up to the camera with projection on her face and the backdrop behind her, seemed to be a very good way to have this sort of aesthetic that we wanted.  A profile mid shot always adds a personal element to filming, which would suit the mellow vibe the song has.

I felt inspired by Rihanna's performance of 'American Oxygen' on Saturday Night Live, where she had a projection set up behind her showing political imagery of soldiers and politicians. Due to the messaging in the song shedding light on the frightened mentality of black men in London towards the police, we decided that footage of the London riots in the background would work as more of a fitting political message for the song. As well as this, using projection would allow us to include inter-textual referencing to Mobb Deep's 'Shook Ones Pt.2' album as well as the song 'Sirens' by Dizzee Rascal, which were both referenced to in the song.

We believed that shadow shots were a good idea in the music video, as they would add to the eerie, mysterious vibe that the song has. It would work for the shots outside the studio to show the battle a person can have over their own psyche with the idea of running away from one's own shadow.