Ill Manors research

·         Ill Manors is a hip hop protest song by English singer and songwriter Plan B.

·         The track was released in the United Kingdom on 25 March 2012 as the lead single from the Ill Manors soundtrack, a film which Plan B also directed. The song was written in reaction to the 2011 riots across England, and specifically Plan B's perception of "society's failure to nurture its disadvantaged youth.

·          Ill Manors received mostly positive reviews from music critics and peaked at number six on the UK Singles Chart.

·          In October 2012, the song won the Q Award for Best Track

·         The music video for "Ill Manors" was filmed on 17 February 2012 and was directed by Yann Demange

·         Ill Manors received general acclaim from music critics. At aggregate review website Metacritic the album attains an average score of 83 out of 100.

·         A low budget British film

·         The guardian newspaper Dorina Lynskey stated a out this music video as “the first great mainstream protest in years”

·         The message the that the song is trying to get to the audience is that why are teenagers always known as the bad ones, why are teenagers always known as the trouble makers, why are high class people treated better than middle or low class people,  and why are the government making everything expensive.

·         The song was first played on BBC radio 1

·         The music video was released in march 2011 through a  American company Atlantic Records

What techniques does the video use to establish the setting and engage the audience?

In Ill Manors loads of techniques have been used to establish the setting and engaged the audience, such as: shots, editing, sound, and background all of this is used to get the message across. In the video they have used of long and medium, shots to show us the setting of the video and to connote what the film is about. The reason why they have used these shots is because you could almost show everything in the background, and the producer of the video wanted the audience to see the background is because he wants to show all the graffiti, vandalism, crime, and violence happening in the background. The reason why is was important for the producer of the video to show that in the background is because he wants to show us or wants us to think about the film and what the message that he wants us to understand.

Another thing that is used to engage the audience and to establish the setting is editing. The producer has used editing to engage the audiences. He has used fast editing because the target audience is teenagers and they normally get attracted by fast things, so that’s why the producer has used fast editing so he could engage the audience.  Editing is very important in making any clip. You could do anything with editing. You could also make the audience suggest a meaning with editing.  In Ill Manors everything is in a fast speed, this is done because the producer wants us to have that feeling that the video is about violence and the people in it mean something.

The reason why sound is very useful and important in this video is because this video connotes violence, crime, vandalism, and all of the negative points, that’s why sound is very important because it expands on all of them points. It is also that scary tune playing at them back which suggests that it’s about crime and it gives a negative stereotype.  The thing that really engages the audience in this clip is the lyrics; they are all about negative points and are suggesting negative things about politics. This would attract its specific target audience, which are teenagers, and the song is sung in a rap style, which teenagers always love. This would make them love the clip and would make them go watch the film. It also engages its audience.

The background is used in the music video to establish the setting and engage the audience. The background is mostly places where there is graffiti everywhere, which connotes all the negative points and it also gives us the bad stereotype of the people in the video which are all teenagers.  This engages the younger audience of the film because they love things like this, it would pull them in. All the background establishes the setting, and it suggests the bad stereotype of London,  the audience start thinking this because they get brained washed by the music video, the thing that pulls them in the video are the bad locations and scary places, where all the drug dealing happen and where all the crime and violence takes place.

 How is gender/ethnicity/age represented in the video?

In the music video gender is represented by showing loads of teenage boys. In the video most of the characters, nearly all are boys; the reason for this is because boys are normally into violence, crimes, and all the negative things. That’s why they have use boys in the video to give them a bad stereotype. There are only a few girls.  It also gives a dominant representation of young teenagers and it makes the audience think that is this the age group who always cause some problem.  The reason why they have used boys rather than girls is because when you see a group of boys standing together with their hood’s on it gives a moral panic in the mind of whoever is walking past, but if you see a group of girls standing there you won’t feel as scared because we know that girls are normally better than boys and everyone expects more from girls than they do from boys. 

In the video they have used a mixture of ethnicity, such as white and black, the reason for this is because they want to gives us that bad stereotype of them people. The reason why they have black people in it because the news always shows or uses black people as trouble makers, and show them as if they are up to something and they reason why plan b has used black people in the video is because it’s easy for him to get his message across. He wants to show all of them people in the video as trouble makers, and the reason he has black people in it is because he knows that black people have already got a bad representation and if he uses them then it’s easy for him to say that these people are going to cause problem, not only him but then the audience would start thinking that look there’s black people in the video something is going to happen. They create a bad stereotype of black people as they are known as trouble makers. In the music video teenaged age’s people are represented as bad people and trouble makers. They have showed young children smoking and others drinking or having a bottle in their hand, to represent them as bad people or bad influence.

 In what ways is the video typical of music videos and what values does it promote?

The value that are being promoted in the music video is supporting working class people, because what the video connotes is that why are rich people treated well rather than the middle class.  The video all anti-government which means that it is against the government because they do not like how the people who live in a council estate are being treated.  The genre is hip-hop. They genre convections in this video which makes it a typical music video, is through fast editing, main character, and themes about struggles

Who does this text/artist appeal to and why?

 The social group classification group for this music video is group E, which are the people who are taking state benefit. The psycho graphic group that this video appeals to is strugglers and reformers. The reason for this is because the people showed in the video are addicted to drugs and alcohol and the people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol struggle in life and are known as strugglers.  The video is also for reformers because they are the people who are normally looking for freedom and they want to be independent, and in this video the people are like that they are looking for freedom as they connote that they are not being treated equally. I think that this is the right groups which appeal to this video.