Islamic Music video influence

This is one Islamic music video which highly influenced us to put in religious acts in our trailer for this two faced character. This video has some attributes to our trailer as this person comes out to a sinful community so does Kareem. The video is showing some of the kindness and helpful acts that one of the Muslim Prophets Muhammad(SAW) had always done during his lifetime as he battles through the community which is full of sin and bad acts.

The real hustle - Editing character Motion influence

The real hustle video that we had uploaded has had influenced us into using similar shots and effects to show the different characters. Just like the Real hustle video we have decided to use stop images for each character with their names so that the audience will get to know them more. We want to use this effect with all the main characters in the soap trailer as it will give the trailer a outstanding effect from other trailers.

Prop : Prayer Mat

This is another prop that we had used, a prayer mat. Muslims use this to get closer to God by praying what is obligatory over them and extra. The opening scene starts off with Kareem praying 'Bowing down to the feet of God' this is the way Kareem repents for the sins he commits daily. The prayer mat symbolises his faith, and the sincerity he has towards his religion. Kareem doesn't take his faith with him in his outside life because of his street pride.

Props used in our Soap

We used these props for the soap trailer to symbolise the two sides of Kareem's life. We chose props as a perfect way to represent different aspects of his life and personality. We used the religious beads to present his faithful, inner self and the silver chain represent the pride, power and money in his outer life and no one can take that from him.

Album Imagery - T.I. vs T.I.P.

This highly anticipated album by rapper T.I. was released late 2007, in this album he is in a battle with himself, his old self and his new self, this is a similarity to Kareem as Kareem is in war with himself too. There are two parts to the album cover, one of T.I. and one of T.I.P. (his old self), this inspired us to attempt to do something similar, this album has influenced us and made us manipulate Kareem's Character. As we can see how he has made a transformation from the old him (bottom) to the new business minded him (top), As Kareem is based on a guy who has a split personality we thought this was perfect for album imagery.

Luther (Character)

Luther is a TV drama based on the character Luther, this is similar to our soap trailer "Kareem", having the titles as the same as the characters name gives the audience an insight of what it could be about, Kareem as we know is a troubled youth that has obstacles in his life, but rather overcoming these obstacles he pretends they aren't there and he carries on, Luther is murder detective who is a genius at what he does, but it's what he does to find out things that can worry the audience, he's got this mind and he doesn't think before he does anything, as Kareem has a split persona, he can't control his passion, we see Kareem struggling to do things, Luther and Kareem definitely have a similar character as they can't control their bad side.

"Rez" Character From Shifty - Jamal Character From Kareem

"Rez" is Shifty's (Shofiq) older brother that is understanding and there for him when Shifty's parents kick him out of the house, he brings him in at his home, Rez is a religious muslim that expects Shifty to do good in life but Shifty being Shifty he secretly does other things that are "Haram" in islam, for example Shifty stashes drugs in the house that he sells in the most unexpectable place for instance we see a shot of him pulling out drugs from the fridge, Rez is like our character Jamal, Jamal expects only good from Kareem but Kareem takes advantage of his brothers kindness and does things behind his back, Rez and Jamal are definitely characters that have alot of things in common, both characters are protective over their younger brothers.

Music Video Inspiration

This music video by G-Frsh has inspired us to take shots from a vide variety of angles, the camera movement and balance in this music video is exactly what we want, with the video colour being that slight bit dark, this gives that edge and depth to the video and also adds that dark gloomy effect, that's what we need in some particular scenes for our soap trailer, again the handheld shots in this video are similar to the handheld shots to our soap trailer, the different perspectives and angles that have been shot have made us experiment with our shots, the techniques that have been used to shoot this music video are somewhat similar to ours, the beat to this music video is edited with the shots having that pattern, we want this for our soap trailer as it will create an impact on the audience seeing something different. The lyrics that G-Frsh has used reflect on our main characters life "Kareem" and his anti social mates, being "cocky" and "arrogant", these lyrics are rather metaphorical and have more than one meaning for people to understand it, quite clever, again the metaphoric use of these lyrics reflect on our character Kareem as he has more than one side to him so do the lyrics. This music video is very powerful and projects a powerful impact on the audience, this is what we want for our soap trailer, not to be a music video but rather have that impact on the audience.

By U3.TV

Inspired by the Musood Family from Eastenders

We like the fact that Eastenders has a family that come from an ethnic background. However we felt that there are not much families coming from ethnic minorities represented in British soaps. The musood family inspired us to bring more attention to the issues that people from ethnic minorities suffer in western societies like London. Just as Syed has a problem of having to choose between his family and faith and what he feels strongly about, our character also has the same problem.

Kareem comes from a strict Muslim background who do not approve of committing sins or ruining the family reputation, just like Syed's family. Syed and Kareem are not entirely alike as Syed is homosexual and Kareem is heterosexual but I do feel they can be emotionally compared by the fact that they cannot express themselves and do the things they want for the sake of others. Both live a double life and feel as though they have to play two different characters so they can fit in. Kareem feels as though he needs to act differently when he is with his friends and differently with his family. This may be because they would not accept him for who he is.

Syed has a very controlling mother who doesn't approve of Syed being a homosexual (which is considered a sin in Islam.)
However Syed has a laidback, caring father who goes with him to the mosque and is very supportive. Kareem has a similar family to Syed.

By U3.TV

Inspiration through music

This is one of many tracks we looked at that really inspired us as a group, mainly because of the title of the track and the connection it has with our soap. The fact that the artist of this track raps about being someone they are not and naming the track two faced, really exposes people who are clearly not being themselves. This helped boost our ideas of being two characters in one body, throughout the track the artists express their two faced character through sarcasm.

By U3.TV

Inspired Imagery

This picture/image is when our whole idea came into perspective for "Kareem", the split image of a good muslim and a split image of a thug, this image inspired us alot to make a soap trailer relating to something like this. This isnt a characer inspiration but the image shown above is our big inspiration of the main character 'Kareem'.

By U3.TV

Inspired by Michael Vasquez (Artist)

Michael Vasquez is an American artist inspired by his neighborhood and his surroundings to produce artwork relating to what he observes in everyday life, as he grew up in gang culture that inspired him alot to express his emotions through art, his art work should relate to our soap as the character Kareem is living up to the stereotype of a  "wannabe gangster", Michael Vasquez Art work theme relates to our soap trailer and it also inspired us to think about what kind of the character he is. We have really thought about making our poster look something like this too
By. U3.TV

WEEK 5 OF RESEARCH AND PLANNING:

The past 3 weeks weve been researching inspirations and we added all things that we believed will inspire us as to making our soap trailer. We looked at different types of urban music with meaningful lyrics that reflected on our main charcters persona along with different images and artist styles that we may use when designing our final poster and magazine cover. We analysed different charcaters from different urban films and soaps that have  personalities  which link or reflect with charcter's personalities from our soap.

Props used in our Soap

Hats are used to represent a person, Different cultural backgrounds wear hats to represent themselves, some people may wear a hat to show something others may wear a hat to hide something, some people wear hats to hide their insecurities and to feel superior. This is the case with Kareem who believes that wearing the religious hat makes him feel strong and close to god. However the wooly hat is worn to shield his innocent side which he tries to conceal from his peers. The Islamic hat on the right portrays Kareem's religious side. The colour of the hat is white which symbolises new life, innocence and purity. The change that Kareem makes after praying is he puts on a black hat after taking off the white one, this juxtaposes the innocent atmosphere that was previously presented. The connotations of the black hat are evil, mischeve and death.

Inspiration for Kareem - Shifty

 

Shifty also known as Shofiq in the film "Shifty" is a mislead character and also is a Muslim engaged in this life of being a drug dealer, he was our inspiration for the character"Kareem". They both come from muslim backgrounds and urban societies"Shifty" is similar to our character "Kareem" as he is  has no motive to be a bad person, however bad influences take over and do not let them take the right path. The name of the film also inspired us to name our soap after our main character which we felt will have an effect.

By U3.TV

Ying & Yang

Ying & Yang is used to describe the contrast between forces in the natural world we live, for example: high and low, cold and hot, dark and light, female and male, we used the concept of Ying & Yang for our character "Kareem" as he can't control his good side and bad side, however he tries to balance them out but the darker side always oversomes his lighter side, in our trailer we see various powerful scenes of him doing good, struggling to do bad, and casually doing bad, he's sinful, he knows it. On one hand he tries to have a religious bond with "Allah" as he is of a muslim background, but as soon as he steps out of his house, the bad begins. Anti social mates he affiliates with control him to do bad and influence him to a point where he doesn't know what to do but to reach out to the comfort from "Allah". In "Kareem" we see him battling with himself as if he is in war with himself.

By U3.TV

Inspiration for Ameera - Lexi

Lexi is an emotionally distressed character who lives in a council flat in an urban area, she is troubled with drug addiction and fails to find a partner because of her bad reputation she created in the past. The day Sam leaves prison she is the only person who is willing to speak to him, she doesn’t even know him very well yet she takes him to her home. Ameera has been dating Kareem for a while and has been very happy as he treats her better than everyone she has ever dated. But she has become very concerned after his behaviour has changed drastically, she feels as though he is in trouble as he stops answering her calls, she starts to follow him everywhere to get his attention and check if he is alright. She becomes very upset when he starts neglecting her just as Lexi gets extremely upset when Sam starts neglecting her and not answering his phone after having sexual contact in her house. However both characters are not aware of the reasons behind Kareem and Sam's strange behaviour. Ameera and Lexi both come from urban societies yet Ameera and Kareem have a very understanding relationship as they have the same religion, whereas Lexi and Sam come from different racial backgrounds. Ameera dresses in a modest, fairly religious way and Lexi dresses in more revealing clothing. They both use colloquial language in their speech and both have London accents. 

                   

Rough cut of trailer

This is the rough cut version of our trailer we have just about got everything into the order we wanted from the actual script. This is not edited tightly so do not expect it to be perfect in terms of sound. From this we will get feedback and then this will allow us to ensure that finished product will meet the needs of the audience.

Teacher feedback that we had received is that this 'trailer needs to be a bit more specific in showing the two sides of Kareem', the rough cut scenes do not really show the difference between the two lives that he is living. 'Kareem will need to be shown more doing the bad things than the good'. The trailer will need to be more clear in terms of portraying the characters shown in the trailer so that it leaves an impact and interests the audience.
 We have managed to gain video feedback from some of the our target audience and they have suggested some ideas which we can take on board for the final tightened editing of our trailer.

Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde - Inspiration/Comparison

We thought this popular, famous english story could be very similar to what we were looking to do, The story of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde has a precise similarity compared to our story as in the book you visualize a man have a duality and having two different personas both bad and good, giving that contrast between the character, In our trailer "Kareem" we see Kareem being two different people at the same time again giving that contrast in our trailer, this creates an impact on the audience seeing the same guy having two different personalities, there is a conflict within the person, like Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde being the same person, Dr Jekyll being the good person and Mr Hyde being his inner evil, Kareem our character in our soap trailer is in war with himself similar to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde struggling to control himself and his uncountable temptations. Dr jekyll is a man that's concealing his secrets as Kareem is trying to do the same, trying to close his negativity but because he is in "too deep". In both Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde and "Kareem" we see a character in battle and war with himself.

By U3.TV