Music Video Research: B.o.B

B.o.B ft Hayley Williams - Airplanes

Genre: Alternative Hip Hop
Director: Hiro Muari
Year: 2010

'Airplanes' is the second official single from American alternative hip hop artist, B.o.B, featuring a guest appearance from Hayley Williams of the American rock band Paramore. It is a highly conventional video for the mainstream hip hop genre, and utilises a vast number of generic features in order to create product familiarisation and mass audience appeal.

The video is mainly performance based, as it stereotypical of this genre of music. There are brief shots of a scene at a party in illustration of the lyrics "after all the partying", but this is kept fairly short and infrequent. This is perhaps to focus more emphasis on the artist himself as opposed to any narrative or concept. This is fairly typical of artists being marketed towards the mainstream in this manner, as it creates a sense of intimacy with the audience, and a feeling of engagement that could not be achieved in a live performance setting.

NARRATIVE:

For the most part the video could be seen as illustrative of the lyrics, as important sections are emphasised with physical enactments - for example, the line "That's just how the story unfolds" is accompanied by a clip of a girl taking a photograph on an instant camera. This could possibly suggest an idea of journalism, and perhaps imply that he is referring to his portrayal in the media, the photographer representing the idea of the paparazzi attempting to take him picture. This works as a marketing device for the artist in some way, as it adds a conventional sense of glamour to the video, making the artist seem popular enough that the media want to pursue him.

Another way in which the visuals illustrate the lyrical content of the song is through the use of projecting - the lyrics are actually physically projected onto the walls of the location, which perhaps serves to emphasise the meaning behind them to the audience, or more than likely serves to act as yet another promotional tool, giving the audience the means to learn the lyrics to the song, thereby increasing it's popularity and familiarisation with the audience, creating a mass appeal.

In the chorus the word "Airplanes" is sometimes illustrated with a dance movement, opening the arms wide and moving to convey the idea of a soaring aeroplane. Dance routines are highly conventional of the general hip hop and R'n'B genre, and although it is not a method utilised a great deal in this video, there is still some reference to dancing or gestures, particularly whilst the artist himself is rapping, thereby loosely adhering to the generic conventions, whilst perhaps trying to distance the portrayal of the artist from the stereotypical rapper by not including each convention in it's full recognised format.

At around 1:50, the artist is rapping on stage about the state of the music industry, and how he wishes he could go back to a time when he was creating music that he enjoyed, or his own terms, as opposed to the more forced approach that a mainstream label would bring. In illustration of this, the audience before which he was performing disappears in a flash of light, leaving the artist performing by himself, emphasised by the excessive isolation and space surrounding him in the frame.

MISE-EN-SCENE:

The location of the video is fairly typical for this sort of genre - it appears to be a large, spacious and vacant warehouse, creating familiarity within the genre by setting the video in a recognisably urban location. The attire of the artist is also fairly conventional for the mainstream hip hop artist image he is being marketed as - smart jeans, trainers and hoodie's etc. This shows a certain stylistic element to the artist whilst remaining very casual and relatable to the intended target audience.

CAMERA:

The use of camera is fairly basic in this video, with not a wide variety of shot types. The main type of shot used is that of the frequent close up to mid shots of the artist, and guest vocalist. These types of shot are used to enforce the image of the artist, and create a sense of familiarity and recognition with the audience. This relates to Richard Dyer's 1971 theory of star image, in that a "star is an image constructed from a range of materials", which can include their music, music videos and CD covers etc. This basically means that with this type of mainstream genre, the artist is very much marketed on a mass appeal basis as a whole package, including their style and image, not just dependant on the music alone. This is an approach that would tend to be avoided in say the rock genre, where the emphasis very much tends to be on the musical craft and skill as opposed to the image of the artists themselves.

The female vocalist is perhaps shown to be of a lesser significance through the use of camera. She tends never to be fully in the frame, drawing emphasis on parts of her body instead, and perhaps indicating a lower importance than the artist himself.

LIGHTING:

The excessive use and manipulation of lighting in different forms is one of the key conventions to a hip hop / R'n'B music video. The lighting is extremely low-key, creating a feeling of power and supremacy to the artist, perhaps implying that he is on a more authoritative level to the audience. The use of lighting in this video creates its key effect, projecting a range of bright colours and patterns across the screen. The female vocalist is often portrayed in an almost Voyeuristic style through the usage of light, in line with Goodwin’s theory - for most of the video, she is shown as a silhouette against a brightly lit background, emphasising and objectifies her body and figure, attracting focus for sexual pleasure. This also relates to the theory of the male gaze, which is a common convention throughout videos of this sort of genre, used as a method of appealing to fans - particularly males, and serving as an egotistical boost for the male artist, again implying a sense of coolness and popularity.

EDITING:

The editing in this music video is quite slow paced and soft, which is quite unusual for this type of genre, where it would be expected to be of a faster pace in order to create excitement and possibly confusion, thereby demanding multiple replays of the video before fully understanding the whole picture. The relationship between the music and the visuals is quite strong however, with the pace of the editing matching the pace of the song. Continuity editing is common here in order to match the lip syncing of the performance with the lyrics to the song. The transitions between the shots are kept relatively simple and straightforward, thereby not removing any focus from the artist himself. A number of fades and flashes of light are used along with straight cuts to move from shot to shot, allowing for fluidity between shots, and causing no disruption to the visual flow of the video.