We have seen fading shots and the use of opacity levels in our inspirational videos, which we researched at the beginning stages of the projects, and attempted to replicate these techniques. Rihanna videos often use this effect, and we also used it heavily, in specific areas where we wanted to portray the two sides of one character’s personality.

The mirroring effect here was also a technique we used a fair bit, and again to pastiche Rihanna’s “Rudeboy’ music video as well as make intertextual references to the inspirational video used within our research and planning stages of the project.

The smoking shots were inspired by a shot from the introductory sequence from ‘True Blood’. The homagistic style of vertical intertextuality is not directly replicating signs from the text but has taken inspiration from it, including the muted colours as shows in the narrative portrayal in our music video.