Codes and Convetions of R&B and Soul

R&B was an African-American urban sound that evolved from blues and jazz in the late 1940's it was descried as rocking and jazz.lyrics of R&B are about everyday life work, sex and drinking.By the 1960's rhythm and blues would include soul music. in the seventies disco was added to the R&B category as was funk. By the 1980′s R&B was defining music that included soul, funk, rock n roll and pop music. Classic-Soul and vocal harmonies were being popularized by Mariah Carey, TLC, R. Kelly, and Boyz II Men were bringing love songs in R&B to another level, as they grew more and more popular. 

R&B now covers a range of music and taking in account of music videos it there are specific type of codes and conventions that makes it different to other genres. R&B requires a lot of attention is it may fall in to other catagoreis at it covers a wide range of music. The genres focuses a lot on the artist as the main stage as there are there to sell themselves and their music. The record companies tend to insure that the artist/  band is selling their image in order to bring more sales to the business. In the screen of iTunes, there covers of the music video of the genre of R&B and Soul shows screen grabs of the Music video which are being sold, this implies that there are numerous number of shots under the genre of the artist. This Element comes under the Camera work:

Camera Work:

• As stated before, Close ups are used to sell the artist or bands image to maximize their publicity. 
• long shots are used if there is a performance taking place, with solo artist there would be tend to be dancing to keep the viewer engaged with the video, where as in bands there have performances. However, in Rihanna's Music video "Stay" it does not conform to the codes and conventions. 
• Mid shots are used to show the Artist facial expression if there is narrative involved, allowing to see the viewer to see their emotions. 
• Similarly like Hip-Hop videos there is a number of close up shots, some to the effect of voyeurism some to the effect of paying close attention to certain detail. In addition, it allows to create a sense of intermarry between the viewer and the artist.  

Mise en Scene:

• Setting for R&B videos are primarily taking in expensive houses, this shows the wealth of the artist, however this may depend on the directors vision of the song. 
• Props such as cars and jewelry to show to an extent of the artist wealth, however depending on how the artist want to portray the lyrics, where Chris Brown challenges the codes and conventions with his song ''With you'' presenting him as regular guy. On the other hand, his video "Forever" It shows him in a expensive car, showing the range and extent which a user can take the interpretation of the lyrics even when the have similar context. 
• The Posture of the artist would show there emotion and the way they move across the frame. There body language also allows us to see there emotions. 

Editing. 

• Montage tend to be the most common form of editing where there is a series of picture which is fast paced editing. This would tend to follow the tempo of the song, at the same time illustrate of form of a frame after each beat to go with the music.
• Slow paced editing to set the a calming mood. 
• The key element of R&B is to create verisimilitude so elements of editing such as CGI and split screen. However colorization of black and white filters and brown filters are there to set the mood. 

Intertextuality - It promotes Pre-existing text, which can be easily reconsidered by the audience this has been shown in numerous numbers of video. Examples of these a:

1. Robbie Williams - "You Know Me" Alice in the Wonderland (Book)
2. Taylor Swift - "Love Story" - Romeo and Juliet (Play)
3. Jay Z ft Beyonce - Bonnie and Clyde - Bonnie and Clyde (Book/Film)
4. Aluna George - Attracting Flies - Fairy tails. Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood ect.