Iggy Azalea -Fancy

Becky, Tegan, Beth and Kirsty

The type of music video
We chose to swede the music videoFancyby Iggy Azalea.
The music video uses a narrative which is based on the existing filmCluelessfrom the 90s with a
modern take to it.
The video has recreated many scenes from the popular film particularly through the use of costume,
characters and mise-en scene.
The video also used a performance element as Iggy Azalea mimes to the song throughout whilst in the
narrative.
Genre of music:
The genre of Iggy azalea is pop-rap, the music video is not typical of this genre due to her recreating a
famous film called clueless. This music video is different from other artists of the same genre, with
many of them doing a performance rather than a typical narrative. But you do see other artists like
Eminem creating a narrative throughout the music video.
Iggy azalea seems to do narrative music videos like her previous songs change your life and obviously
Fancy. However it also has a performance to it with the regular element of eye contact (with the
camera).

Director X
Julien Christian Lutz better known as Director X is a Canadian music video director who has directed music videos for
Drake, Nicki Minaj and The Wanted. He is known for his tweaking of the letterbox format, when there are two black bars
above and below the frame, as he also has the bars opening and closing at the beginning and the end of his videos. With
many of his videos being very high budget he is involved with everything from the lighting, which is quite bright and stark
throughout the music video, to the wardrobe, a key part of the video as it is so accurate to the wardrobe of the film
Clueless. Director X likes to have dance montages in his videos as this allows him to work with movement of the camera,
however unlike many of his music videos this video is based off of a popular 90s film. Although there is many of his own
direction in terms of the quick cuts and camera shots, the wardrobe, hair and makeup will have had the clear direction from
the film. His inspiration is also much more apparent in this video and it has a clear narrative with a lot more acting, rather
than choreography and singing to the camera. Many of his videos usually feature chorography, therefore the Fancy video is
similar to this as therefore are a few scenes featuring dance moves, however many of his other videos do not feature such a
strong narrative or take obvious inspiration from a film. He does also appear to use the male gaze as the dancing by the
girls I his videos is usually provocative. Overall the narrative of the video does highlight some femininity as although the girls
appear to be something for males to look at, they are also very dominant and superior looking through the use of low angle
shots, as they walk through the school.
Is the video typical of the artist?
Fancy would not be seen as a typical music video by this artist or for the
genre. Iggy Azalea recreates scenes from an iconic film from the 90s called
Clueless and was said to be most compelling movie about teenagers.
This music video challenges the conventions of Laura Mulveys theory of The
Male Gaze as the characters are desexualised and not portrayed as objects of
desire.
In a recent interview she explained why she chose to create the music video in
this way; "I loved Clueless for this song because sonically, 'Fancy' is very
L.A. sounding, you can't ignore that fact,"
Lyrics linked to the video
As the song in the clip we used, is rapping, it is quite difficult to understand. However
as she uses slang for example em it links well to the high school setting as many
teenagers use slang and shorten words. She is generally telling everyone how amazing
she is, this also links to the video as the film it was based on Clueless is based
around a very self centred girl how thinks she is also amazing. She also talks about
Physics, which again links to the setting of a high school. The overall title of Fancy
also refers to the character Cher who Iggy Azalea plays in the video as she is
shown to have a lot of money and dresses in fancy clothes, for example her yellow
plaid skirt and jacket.
Listen to this jam, show 'em what
you got
Inbox, fresh
First things first, I'm the realest
(realest)
Drop this and let the whole world
feel it (let 'em feel it)
And I'm still in the Murda Bizness
I can hold you down, like I'm givin'
lessons in physics (right)


The audience
The audience of the video is likely to be teenagers due to the school setting and the
inspiration of a teen film. Teenagers will be able. As the music video is seen as girly just like
the film, the majority of the audience would be girls. The video also give girls inspiration on
the clothes and make-up they wear. The use of a drastic and unrealistic portrayal of a school
day adds a element of comedy to the video as teenagers know that school is not actually like
this. The video also supports the theoryof hegemony in the way that the artist Iggy seems to
be dominating the school and in charge as she stands at the front in the centre of the
classroom. All the students in the class are also dressed completely differently showing a
strong sense of identity and indivuality between them all.
Representation of the music video:
The representation of Iggy Azaleas fancy music video suggest that her life has had an affect on
the artist she has become, Anthony Giddens believed that to have your own and stable self identity
you need to experience it. The film clueless which she recreated was in 1995 during the period of
time were new technology was introduced to the young generation and a massive part of growing
up, this could suggest that she was inspired to create a new music video which would show the
struggles of generations know that are struggling to build an identity.
Iggy azalea tends to write about her life story like many other rap artists, such as her debut single
work which is showing the struggle which she faced when becoming an artist however this music
video shows the inspiration she had to become an artist, maybe the film clues was a massive part
of growing up and experiencing new things therefore she created a new type of fancy.
Original
At the beginning of the music video the
name of the artists have been created
using a mix of bright colours used for
both the font and background. This
automatically reinforces the 90s era
which is when the film is set. We
attempted to recreate these graphic
titles which was fairly simply to do using
adobe premier pro however we were
unable to replicate the transitions of the
words.
Ours
Original
Ours
In the first scene of the music video a mid shot is
used of the artist Iggy whilst she chooses what to
wear. This straight away gives the audience an insight
to the character as the begin to realise the
similarities between the music video and the film
Clueless. In order to replicate this shot we tried to
keep costume similar in terms of colour and style
although it is not an exact match. The person we
chosen to play Iggy was well suited in terms of her
hair colour and the re-enactment of the scene. We
used a mid-shot of her as well with the us of the same
type of setting.
The next take is a long shot of Iggy at the front of
the classroom she begins to sing her song. This
again sets the scene of the school and therefore the
narrative of the video. A long shot of Iggy as she
stands in the centre of the shot shows her
dominance in the video as she is the main part of it.
We recreated the same long shot and tried to keep
the same setting and props whilst keep the same
arrangement of the other characters.
The song also features another artist which
changes characters throughout. She stands
on the opposite stand at the front of the
class almost as though she is in
competition with Iggy. The characters that
are used are all based on the film
clueless as the director has kept
everything the same from costume to
setting to narrative. We tried to keep the
costume as similar as possible by dressing
her in a black hat, however we did not
have the suitable props of another stand.
The editing in this shot and throughout the
clip are fast cuts and short 1 second takes
which were in line with the beat of the
music. We however did not manage to edit
the cuts on the beat as well as keep the
miming in sync with the sound, therefore
does not look as effective.
A mid-shot has now been used of Iggy Azalea as
she starts to mime the song. This helps people to
know who the artist of the song is if they didnt
already know. Her hair and make-up is exactly the
same as the main character in the film Clueless
, whilst the whiteboard behind her is covered in
words such as Best rapper ever this reflects the
genre of her music and her style of rap. This also
portrays her as self confident in her music. This
supports Giddens theory of self-identity as she
has a strong sense of her own identity. Through
the use of her bright clothes she wants to be
notice and the centre of attention.


When recreating this shot we made sure the text in
the background was similar to the original in terms of
font style and colour as well as a blonde female which
supports Laura Mulveys theory of scopophillia the
pleasure of looking. As blonde women are
stereotypically attractive to men. Unfortunately we
were unable to use the same costume or find one
similar therefore detracting from the overall image.
For this shot we had slight movement
of panning down the students,
however the positioning of the
students here are not completely the
same as the original. We do have the
student on her phone and this relates
to the audience as the technology
used is the same as well as the
portrayal of the girl being bored. Due
to the positioning of the classroom,
we do not have the window on their
right ide, although there is the same
natural lighting but from their left
side. We also had the camera
positioned too high, as the original is
at a slightly lower angle to highlight
how slouched in his chair one of the
students is.
This over the shoulder shot of a student
scribbling on a piece of paper highlights the
disinterest and boredom of the class. This is
something that the audience can relate to as
they may doodle in class as well when they
get bored. We were able to replicate this
shot quite easily in terms of the angle and
props used. This shot in particular had a
very quick cut therefore we had to make sure
that the timing was accurate.
Overall we felt the movement of our camera was not as steady as we would have like however due
to the quick cuts this did not dramatically effect the overall opening clip. As well of this we could
have been more organised and had characters wear more similar clothes however we were limited
in our resources.