Straight Outta Compton

Straight Outta Compton is a film made on 28 August, 2015. It is a real life story that features the rap/hip-hop group: "N.W.A" and its struggle to popularity. The film deals with issues such as racism, free speech and corruption. The trailer depicts an action packed movie with car chase scenes and fights. This reflects the Compton atmosphere and makes it appeal to a young audience. Universal and Legendary are the producers of this movie. They are featured in the trailer's climax and the Universal brand shows that the movie will be well made, as it is a reputable company, with vertical integration to Comcast, a media mega conglomerate. The trailer shows the music in the background that will attract people from that era who enjoyed their music and will watch it for the nostalgia. The trailer does not give out any explicit story line so leaves the audience wanting to see the movie to see what happens. The use of the hip-hop beat adds to the excitement and reflects the characters' personalities. The characters are a key selling point of the movie as they were a very popular group so fans will be wanting to see the movie and view their story. The audience is 15-50 because young people want to see the movie because they see the excitement in the trailer which shows resemblance to fast and furious. They may also be fans of hip hop/rap so will want to see where it began. However the main audience is from people who were around when the band was at its peak because they are fans of the music so want to see the film.

The Straight Outta Compton website has the same theme as the logo with three distinct bars as the navigation. They lead to, "The Time", "The Crew" and "The Legacy". Intertextuality is used with the logo between the trailer, film, website and viral media campaign. These titles show the most important parts of the movie and focuses on the band and the legacy that they left. It also compares the time that the film was set in with modern day. The logo has black and white colouring only which references racism. It has explicit design reference to music parental advisory notice (social conventions of rebellion and challenge to authority)

Their viral media campaign was a huge success. They chose to advertise on the internet rather than on television because it allows people to create their own memes and share them with each other. Over 6 million "Straight Outta" images were generated before the film's opening day. 

This is a documentary showing the success of this campaign and how it was used to show that everyone is proud of where they come. In the video it says "Everyone is straight outta somewhere". This hashtag reached #1 trending on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook in less than 24 hours, which had never been achieved before. That is why it was an award winning campaign and the most viral hashtag of 2015.

Product Context - F Gary Gray is a black American director who directed "Straight Outta Compton" - He already knew the NWA group as he had directed some of their music videos such as "It Was A Good Day" by Ice Cube and "Natural Born Killaz" By Dr Dre and many more. This meant it was quite fitting for him to be the director of the movie as he knows about the crew and can relate more to their stories. He also directed the movie "Friday" which starred Ice Cube.

Historical context - The LA riots of 1992 were after the injury to Rodney King through police brutality. After they were not found guilty of assaulting King the anger boiled over and people began to cause widespread looting, violence and arson. There were already racial tensions, but the Rodney King assault was the spark event.

Cultural context - The group changed hip hop together and made a new genre - "Gangsta rap" a term created by the media. They said their lyrics were a reflection of their reality and that accounted for their aggression towards the police.

Economic/political context - Institutional racism meant that the police and schools were biased against black people, the police because they assumed all black people were either doing crack or distributing it, and the schools because they thought they were troublemakers.