In these next few blog posts I am going to textually analyse 3 posters of the same genre as me in order to gain an understanding of what to include and what not to include to make my final production as professional as possible.
The narrative portrayed by the poster for the music video for the 2018 track Starboy by The Weeknd connects him as the artist, with a lifestyle of ridiculously lavish excess.The poster, as an advertisement for a music video, uses imagery from the music video for Starboy to attract an audience towards the viewing experience, bombarding them with 'cool' images and a 'cool' colour scheme. These relate to Michael Shore's theory of music videos as comprising of 'recycled images' that contribute to adolescent male fantasy. The poster's main audience seems to be adolescent boys as it contains many decadent images consistent with the style of the 'Cinema of Excess' approach exemplified by modern films such as "The Wolf of Wall Street", where amoral spending and the pleasures of being wealthy are presented without a positive or negative judgement. The primary purpose of the poster is to dazzle the viewer with excessive visuals and entice them into viewing the music video to see these visuals in motion.
The poster contains many visuals that would appeal to adolescent males today. The presence of a luxury car in the foreground of the mise-en-scene appeals to the car fascination that many teenage boys have, encouraged by video games such as Grand Theft Auto. The violent imagery presents the artist being suffocated in the upper left corner which in my opinion would attract the same people that play violent video games like this. (violence and cars being the two main elements). Not only is the poster going over the top in terms of expensive luxury cars, but the act of killing someone is considered a very immoral act in todays society, harm towards another human's life is a recurring theme of the wealthy in films. The fact that The Weeknd is being suffocated provokes audience intrigue, they would wonder why he is in this situation, how he could escape and to watch the music video to find out what happens and why.
Another image shown over the top is the use of religious symbols and themes. There are 4 crosses present, three of which are neon colours and one which is on a necklace. The juxtaposition of Christian iconography next to these images of money, cars, power and violence could be considered as blasphemous.
Furthermore, another image shown is the lack of regard for property. A man wearing a balaclava and a cross necklace is showing setting fire to a wardrobe filled with clothes. This could be because the man dislikes the owner of the wardrobe, or does not care about destroying his own possessions as he is wealthy enough to replace them. The fact that he is wearing a cross necklace while doing this reckless act could be seen as another example of a blasphemous act. The panther on the poster is another marker of a lavish lifestyle, big cats have historically been the pets of the absurdly wealthy, this connects The Weeknd with an excessive approach to life that wealth has enabled him with, money being used to purchase bizarre luxury items. ("The Wolf of Wall Street" sees millionaires renting lions for their parties.) The positioning of the artist at the centre of the mise-en-scene with all of the lavish images surrounding him connects The Weeknd further with this kind of excessive behaviour; showing these as being events in the exciting life of the artist.
Starboy is an R&B/Hip-Hop song, and the poster employs visual conventions to establish this genre. Both R&B and Hip-Hop are genres dominated by black artists, and presence of The Weeknd himself, a black man, in the centre of the poster serves to indicate this. Luxury cars are a visual conventions of Hip-Hop music videos, and the prominently-featured Mclaren P1, a sports car limited to 375 units, shows that this track will look at issues of wealth common in Hip-Hop tracks.
R&B music video are usually shot at night to accentuate the sensual nature of the music, all of the images present in the poster for Starboy show events happening that night, this would be expected for an R&B track and not, for example, an upbeat pop song.
The poster does subvert some visual conventions of the R&B/Hip-Hop genre; the large, comic book style lettering used is unusual for Hip-Hop, as when it comes to direct referencing, gangster films such as scarface are often used, with comic books usually being referenced, in more humorous works. Here, The Weeknd is incorporating comic book stylings in a serious R&B/Hip-Hop context, an interesting juxtaposition that works to amplify conventional Hip-Hop imagery of the artist as an exceptional figure to a cartoonish extreme.
Overall I feel that the visual approach of having many scenes from the songs music video on one poster appeals to me a great deal as it gives the viewer a tantalising glimpse into the music video that encourages them to watch the full thing, I find the variety of images presented, and the clear inspiration from movie posters to be very appealing both visually and conceptually.
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