Monday, September 14, 2009

Blog post number 5


Right off the bat of the video “Trying to Find a Balance” by Atmosphere there is a unique style, that is portrayed throughout the whole video. Every so often the screen will go to somewhat hazel and there will be scratches and some graffiti across the screen. This effect added to old warehouse and images of the streets add to the ethos he is trying to get across the viewer. He wants to get across the old school rough street style portrayed in underground hip-hop. His dress and attire also conveys the type of style that he is trying to get across. He isn’t dressed in any fancy sort of way and this all has to do with that old school style of white-tees and jeans. The video also shows a lot of images of those who are less fortunate. These images add to the old school ghetto style by showing images of the streets instead of your modern rap videos of girls and fancy items. Old school Hip-Hop is about the streets and how hard life can be, this video does an excellent job of portraying it.

The video also has a lot of emotion that atmosphere wants to have established. Right at the start of the video there are a lot of dark images. The lyrics are angry and he wants to images in this video want to invoke these emotions in the audience. In Compose Design Advocate they tell you that you need to “make a strong bold statement”. I think that he does an excellent job of showing his anger through his hand the way he uses hand gestures to try and get the audience into the video. It also doesn’t hurt that he looks pissed throughout the whole video, once again reinforcing his anger. It is this mixture of body language and dark images that establishes a solid ethos and emotion.