Research into existing products - Jay Z, 99 Problems:

Context: This music video was for Jay Z's third single '99 Problems' from his 2004 album called 'The Black Album’.  The video was directed by Mark Romanek, who is widely known for his work directing music videos, including many famous music videos such as Nine Inch Nails 'Closer' video and Janet Jacksons / Michael Jacksons 'Scream' Video.

The video itself has received worldwide fame, gaining many awards such as 3 MTV Video Music Awards, winning the categories of Best Rap Video, Best Director and Best Editing.

The video is also famous for being very controversial, for example, feminists have said that some of the lyrics in the video and the way women are represented in the video is very disrespectful and derogatory. The video was also controversial as The Humane Society of the United States stated that in the video a few scenes are featured in which dog fighting is glorified.

The video gained even more fame and criticism for its final scene, in which Jay Z is shot multiple times, some critics have said that this glorifies gun crime and some TV companies were worried about airing the video because of the use of gun violence, as a result, when it was first aired in April 2004, MTV attached a warning about the violence used in the video so the viewers were aware and it also featured a statement by Jay Z saying why he wanted the video to be aired unedited, as he felt the final scene was essential to the music video itself.

The video itself was filmed in the urban setting of Brooklyn, New York, where Jay Z grew up, and his issues close to him are brought up throughout the video, such as his controversy with the law and arguments with individuals.

The video it shot entirely in black and white, which breaks a code and convention of music videos which are normally shot in colour, but the seriousness of the issues raised, such as crime and racism are reinforced by the dark, serious colours. Jay Z also stated in an interview that he wanted to break the mould and create 'art' instead of another music video, and the lack of colour relates to art films which are usually shot in black and white.

Genre: of the music video is Rap, which Jay Z is known for, but also features some rock instruments such as the electric guitar that normally wouldn't be found in a Rap single, so it ventures into the Rock / Rap category of music, already, Jay Z is breaking some of the codes and conventions of typical Rap videos.

Style - Textual Analysis: From the first couple of seconds of the video we can tell that the shots are very fast paced with plenty of jump cuts as the eatablishing shot is a low angle shot running up some stairs which leads into a vertical pan downward of the side of a building, which leads to some images of street art at different distances and angles, throughout the video there is a wide range of juxtapositions. From the very first second of the shot on the stairs we hear the non-diegetic opening line, "If you're having girl problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems but the bitch ain't one." From then on the electric guitar starts and the song itself begins.

The mise en scene of most of the video is very urban, featuring industrial buildings, teenagers breakdancing and the inside of a prison, some would class the mise en scene as being based on the 'ghetto'.
At a low angle shot we see Jay Z's first performance shot to the camera, in which he raps the lyrics to the single, the low angle is letting the audience know that he’s in charge and the main character of the video. Throughout the video no diegetic sound is heard; another convention of a music video, where the song and its instruments / lyrics dominates the video over any other sound. Throughout the video Jay Z uses exaggerated arm / hand movements, adding to the performance element of the music video.

The angles used in the video are very diverse, but mostly being at a low angle when Jay Z is present, for example, the camera is at a low angle when he is sat inside his old house on a sofa, showing his dominance. As the cuts are very fast paced, it allows a lot of different cutaway images to be shown to the audience which help build a better idea of the narrative, such images such as boomboxes, which were popular when Jay Z was younger, and some teenagers doing stunts over a wall which adds to the urban style of the music video. The random images such as religious symbols that don't add to the performance or storyline can mean that the music video is in the abstract category of music video styles.

Most of the shots used in the video are mid shots to close ups; for example, we see a medium close up of a boy putting a ski mask over his head, relating to the crime theme of this video which leads to a close up of a housing sign which leads to a close up of Jay Z and then a 'spy hole' on a front door.

The camera itself tends to move a lot in the video instead of staying stable, for example at points where the camera is facing forward, it will tilt slightly diagonally, giving a sense of disorganization to the video, or a sense of something not being quite right, this could tell us that some of the shots were filmed on a handheld camera where the movement is more fluid than if it was on a tripod.

As the video progresses, we see one scene of Jay Z walking across the Brooklyn Bridge at a low angle mid shot, in which we can see much of the cityscape behind him, as he performs the song. This shot is more brightly lit in natural light than many of the others and is prominent compared to the rest of the video so it's memorable, the lighting could mean that it’s better and brighter outside of the place that he used to live in. This scene appears many times during the video in which certain lines are rapped and then it flicks back to other images.

Many nameless faces appear in the video, for example we see a man with half his face covered walking down Jay Z's hallway, who eventually crushes a sign saying 'love', showing the harsh nature of the place they live in, and a small boy outside of a house whose covered in a duvet and a poorly dressed man with a beard stood on the street, relating to the urban feel of the video by showing that some people don't have a lot of material possessions in that area.

Amongst the cutaway images in the video, we can follow Jay Z throughout and create a narrative. From a few seconds into the video, we see Jay Z in his old apartment, then in jump cuts across the video we witness a long shot of him walking down a stairwell which turns into a close up of his face as he reaches the bottom of the stairs. Later on in the video we then see a long tracking shot of Jay Z leaving the apartment block and walking out into the main street, which seems to turn into slow motion when he leaves the building.

There is one major segment of the video where we witness Jay Z being pulled over in a car by a policeman, and the dialogue of their conversation is rapped by Jay Z, most of the shots are close up so you can see Jay Z and his acquaintance expressions. The scene features a range of camera angles, from a horizontal panning motion outside of the car to an over the shoulder shot of Jay Z. In-between the shots of Jay Z in the car we see another sequence of Jay Z at a mid-shot at a low angle, tracking Jay Z as he is walking around a record store followed by his acquaintance, a large man with a beard in a big fur coat as the song plays.

In-between those scenes we also see a long shot of some boys breakdancing which then jumps into a close up of a spinning motorbike tyre and close ups of teenage boys faces laughing and enjoying themselves. These scenes are filmed in slow motion to break away from the fast nature of the editing in the video.

When the car is pulled over, we see a quick series of jump cuts from one shot of the left side of the car to the right side of the car, we notice that the policemen are Caucasian, and as Jay Z explains in the rap, he was pulled over for nothing other than being African american in the past, even though he had illegal substances in the back of the car.  We see many shots of the car, ranging from long shots of the road  to close ups on the trunk, in the editing an X-ray effect is used on the trunk of the car to reveal cases of drugs in the trunk.

When Jay Z gives his responses to the policeman, a different image is shown, medium close up shots of Jay Z stood in a dark alleyway next to some fire escapes with his arms crossed and wearing his hat low to cover his face like he would've done when answering the police questions in the car.

When the police threaten to bring out the 'K9' car, we see a close up of a dog in a cage, barking and biting on the cage in slow motion to show the vicious dogs that might've been used by the police.

We then see a shot of Jay Z in a mid-shot at night so it's poorly lit performing to the camera as images of a prison appear, most of them are close ups of the iron bars.We then see a scene where two women are sat in a diner at a mid-shot with a man at the table, they look scared and constantly look down at the floor, the video has also been labelled as offensive as it makes women seem weak and timid compared to men, who appear dominant in the video.

We can also see jump cuts of long shots of streets in the dark of the night and medium close ups of the side of cars and women’s legs, again objectifying women.
We are then transported back to the diner where the man at the table throws objects off the table and the women run out of the diner, one now holding a child and screaming in fear, again making women seem weak and inferior to men.

We are now viewing mid tracking shots to close ups of a large man with muscles and tattoos with an angry look on his face storming around the inside of the prison we saw earlier, jump cuts are also seen of men fighting in the street at mid shots, these set the scene as to what Jay Z is rapping about as we can hear the non-diegetic sound of him discussing fighting and men telling their 'gang leaders' all about it and arguments and fights become more serious. We then see inmates at mid shots with the camera tilted diagonally slightly in every shot holding up signs for their mug shots and as camera flashes go off, the shot is brightly lit for a few seconds like a real camera with a flash would do.

The next big segment of the video is a tracking shot of Jay Z from behind (over the shoulder) as he walks up to a back street venue in the dead of night so most of the shot is pitch black. Later it mid shots to close ups are seen of Jay Z performing on a small stage which is artificially lit surrounded by jumping fans, also close ups of dogs barking and fighting with each other are shown, this is where the claim of glamourizing dog fighting has come from.

Images of a mid-shot of a man in a coffin are shown before Jay Z's final dramatic scene. In this final scene we see a long to mid shot of Jay Z stood next to a fence as he is shot in the torso multiple times by unknown characters, the whole of this is filmed in slow motion to show how extensive and gruesome the injuries are and to make the scene more dramatic and intense. As this scene finishes, images of close ups and extreme close ups of a singing church choir can be seen as well as close ups of coffins, relating to the death element of the video.

To finish the video, there is a sequence of random images that have led up to Jay Z's 'death' in the video which help to complete the overall picture of what led up to him being shot, the final image is of the camera shaking as it looks like somebody is running away from the scene of the crime.

Form: Due to Jay Z performing in the video followed by a narrarive of him being harassed by the Police, I believe that this video is a crossover of the performance and narrative styles of music videos. It also has elements of abstract as some of the random imagery appears to have abstract meanings such as the religious symbols.

Audience: The reckless life that Jay Z lives in the video, hiding drugs in his car, getting locked up in prison and getting into fights, doesn't relate to many people, but when it does, he might be aiming at older teenagers 16-20 year olds, because they're more likely to get into trouble for fights than say an adult who is more mature with more life experience. Also when he talks about how famous he is now and how he was discriminated against, his audience might also be anyone thats come from the same urban, 'ghetto' background, who were in his shoes and know what it's like but have made life better for themselves. There is a wide age group for Jay Z's audience, ranging from about 16, because anything younger than that and they shouldn't really know what gun crime is like etc, to adult age of about 45. Obviously the song and video is too graphic and violent for the likes of pensioners to be the audience, also I think that people over the age of 45 couldn't really relate to the gun / drugs crime of today that Jay Z talks about because they're from a different generation. The video has 8,167,906 hits on Youtube, making it fairly popular on the Internet.