Music video conventions

Introduction

• In the following slides I will be researching what a music video is and what conventions need to be met for my music video to be conventional and successful in fulfilling its purpose. I will look at the different styles of music video and how the content and structure makes it distinguishable from a particular genre.

Definition

• “A music video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes.”

(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_video)

Styles of music videos

• Music videos can, generally be categorised into one or more of these three categories:

• Performance based (heavy emphasis on the artist performing the song in tandem with the song).

Biffy Clyro - Bubbles Foo Fighters - Pretender

• Narrative based (the video follows a short story featuring either the artists or actors as characters).

All American Rejects – Gives You HellFollows the story of two warring neighbours

Eminem – StanFollows the story of an obsessed fan

• Concept based (contains visuals which may or may not relate to the song, similar in some manner to narrative, it follows an arc but may not include characters or a story ).

MGMT – Electric Dreams

Ok Go’s - Here it goes again.

Promotional

• Promotional music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of artists music. They range from mass appeal to controversial but with the same intent of getting as much talk as possible about the song and also usually feature the artist more frequently in the video.

Examples

• Miley Cyrus' video for Wrecking Ball became a controversial and viral video due to it featuring her swinging naked in a wrecking ball and licking a sledgehammer.

• The video became the fastest viewed video of all time, reaching 100,000,000 views in just six days.

Foo Fighters – The Pretender. A performance based video with the band being the focal point of each shot for almost the whole video.

Biffy Clyro – bubbles. A performance based video with every shot being of one/multiple members of the band.

Artistic

• An artistic video is slightly less conventional than a promotional music video and whereas a traditional music video may just be a combination of music and imagery an artistic video tends to be more of an experimental or abstract short film.

Examples

M.I.A. - born free, featured a world where redheads were the victims of a brutal genocide. Removed from YouTube after less than a day but was praised by critics for “the way it bravely tackled its weighty subject matter” (etcanada)

Nexus.Life.Death - Three concept videos directed by Frank Nasso which accompanied Mudvayne’s self titled album depicting “Satan's grisly attempts in conceiving his first human child on Earth.” (IMDB)

Keane – Bed shaped. Stop motion animation, the video focus’ on a bedraggled man with the members of the band only making a brief background appearance.

30 seconds to mars – hurricane. A 12 minutes experimental short film taking place in what is said to be a dream exploring themes such as violence, sex & religion. Although the band members are heavily featured as they are used more to push the narrative than promote the artist.

TheoriesAndrew Goodwin suggested that there are 7 main conventions in music videos:

1. Music Videos demonstrate certain genre characteristics. (most genres of music had certain traits in which appeared in the majority of music videos). E.g. Pop music tends to heavily feature the artist and some, depending on the subgenre use dance routines throughout the video making that characteristic of that genre. One of the most famous examples being Michael Jacksons thriller video.

2. There is a link between the lyrics and the visuals.

3. There is a link between the music and the visualsThis can occur in many different ways, one way being timing of editing corresponding to the tempo of the track.

4. The Demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups on the artist. This is because close ups allow for the artist to become more easily recognisable which can then aid marketing, making more money for the label.

4. The Artist may develop iconography that recurs across their work. This is any repeated style that would be present in multiple products by the artist. An example of this would be Michael Jackson's Moonwalk which is included in a lot of his music videos and live performances.

5. There is frequent reference to the notion of looking. This can occur in music videos where the artist will look directly into the camera to give the appearance that they are performing directly to the audience.

6. There are often intertextual references. An example of this is Californication by Red Hot Chilli Peppers which includes intertextualreferences from popular video games such as Grand Theft Auto and Tomb Rader

Conclusion

• In conclusion the content of a music video depends on its purpose whether its used as a advert for the artist or used as a story to compliment the song. And depending on the purpose the amount the artist is featured as an artist will vary. This also links to Neale’s theory of repetition and difference as all of the music videos tend to borrow some aspects from one or more of the categories but some blend two or more of them together to create a hybrid of the categories such as including a performance piece and narrative in the same video.