Mood Boards | a2musicvideo

Moodboards

My group and I are portraying a certain image for our girl band, as does every other artist. Sophistication, Sexiness & class. In order to decide and find a good way to portray this image to our audience, we each undertook tasks of creating mood boards, as a way of constructing research into previous and contemporary RnB girl groups' image. This will not only help us find how to conform to conventions, but also figure how to challenge conventions to be original and unique.

We viewed the way in which girl groups wear their makeup, costume, hairstyles, different poses for photo-shoots, magazines and album covers.

Brown Eyes - Our Image

Matching Outfits:

Here my group and I have made a collage of some of the different outfits that many RnB girl groups have worn. The common trend in these outfits that they are quite revealing. Despite this, the outfits look 'sexy' and the revealing clothing match the portrayed image of the girl group; for example the Pussycat Dolls; dark colours are common among their outfits however they try to include elements of bright colours such as blue, pink and purple to add contrast.

Additionally, matching outfits among RnB girl groups are another convention we found whilst researching. If you look at every photograph of girl groups, they are either wearing the same or similar dresses/outfits/colour/style. We believe this would be an appropriate way in order to present our unity as a group, yet the small differences in the outfit will indicate our originality.

When planning our outfits for Brown Eyes, we have to take in to consideration the outfits that would appeal to our chosen demographic. We have decided to not have a completely revealing outfit such as Destiny's Child (bottom - right) or Pussycat Dolls (bottom- 2nd from the left), instead have a more tasteful and sophisticated way of wearing "revealing" clothes such as Destiny's Child's purple and nude dresses (bottom left). We found that this would be a perfect way of presenting our star image to our audience.

1. Destiny's Child

Below I have conducted short case studies on example girl groups which tend to use matching outfits, make-up, hairstyles and poses.

Destiny's Child are a prime example of the term "sexy and sophisticated", they wear both dresses and trousers and still have this image presented throughout.

When wearing different outfits, Destiny's Child have a clear design concept which they then manipulate to the individual members personal style. Although some of their outfits are not easily accessible for audience members to relate to (purchase), they can still try and replicate the style when they go out shopping.

As a group we have decided to incorporate this idea when choosing the dresses that we are going to wear in both our music video and digipak.

2. Cherish

Cherish's style has the tendency to be more "street" than feminine, however they still maintain the essence of 'sexiness'.

Their common outfit would be similar jeans/ trousers/leggings and a top rather than revealing dresses and extremely similar outfits I believe they did this as they are all sisters that look extremely alike, therefore show their individuality through their clothing.

Although their outfits are not identical they keep a certain aspect the same, such as the colour scheme or the same jeans with various tops.

Also, Cherish's 'trendy, latest-style' clothing are items that would be easily accessible for their audience members to purchase, this is due to them appealing to the people in their audience demographic "street" & "trendies". Because their style is casual yet sexy, it is quite easy to replicate.

Whilst planning our poster for the 'freebie' inside our digipak, we are considering to wear trousers/leggings rather than a dress. This so that we explore a wider range of outfits from the RnB genre rather than just dresses, to appeal to our audience's demographic to the best of our ability. We believe this would also be a good way of presenting our youth and 'energy' by being able to a wider range of poses (e.g. different levels - floor/elevated) with trousers.

3. Pussycat Dolls

The Pussycat Dolls originally started off as a Burlesque dance group. Although they became an RnB/Pop girl-group, they still reflect the element of burlesque in the outfits that they wear.

As a group they all wear very similar outfits; the overall style is the same however the colours and cuts of the individual outfit would be tailored to the individual members style.

We can infer from their photographs, 'sexy' and 'mature' are the image that they are portraying.

Moodboard

Hair-styles:

My group and I have made a collage of the different hairstyles that female RnB artists have had in the past.

As a whole we have decided to have curly hair for the individual members of Brown Eyes. However they will be ranging from different types of curly, for example one member would have cork-skrew curls like Kelly Rowland, another would have cornrows along with loose curls like Alicia Keys, a natural tight-curl afro, and loose body-wave curls like Beyonce.

We decided on curly hair because we found that curls were common amongst the genre, the only exception is the Pussycat Dolls as they have a different hair type to the other RnB artists. We took into consideration all our group member's hair types, and found that curly hair would be the most appropriate, accessability for curling, and a common relationship with our audience's demographics.

Moodboard

Make-up:

The make-Up used by female RnB artists tend to be subtle with natural tones and darker or nude shades of lipstick. This contrasts the make-up used by the Pop genre, who have a tendency to use bright, bold colours for lipstick and layers of 'eye-catching' make-up.

As a female RnB girl group, we are portraying a sexy yet sophisticated image to our audience members, which is why we feel that using subtle tones in our make-up will enhance this star image and best reflects/is most appropriate for our age group.

Moodboard

Posing:

Presented is a collage of different poses that various female RnB girl groups have previously done for their photo-shoots.

From our research, we as a group can infer the common trends in the types of poses that these female groups do. A main convention would be standing up poses, this is so that they can show off their feminine curves and make the image look sexy, in order to appeal more to their audience. Some of these poses involve different levels and different objects such as beds and chairs.

After researching, we as a group have decided on the different poses that we are going to use for our dipak cover, poster and magazine advert. For our digipak front and back cover, we are going to use a standing up pose, this is so that we can show off our feminine curves and so that the audience can fully see the entire group, united. By us all holding each other's waist also signifies us coming together as strong powerful young women.

Our poster will be an aerial shot of the group. This is another pose that we thought looked quite sexy yet sophisticated through the outfits we would be wearing.

Our magazine advert's pose would not be the same as our digipaks, however to keep the continuity between the digipak and the magazine advert we are wearing the same outfits in both- we learnt that continuity is key for recognition from our audience. We decided to choose a seated pose as it is the most appropriate form of pose for our image - sexy, sophistication. We believe chairs or stools will help present our lady-like femininity.

For our CD, we are going to have a close up of all of our faces individually, positioned next to each other. We thought this would be an excellent way of our audience highlighting our individuality.