Music Video Conventions
The conventions of a music video:
- Either a straightforward performance video or a simple narrative video (or mixture of the two) that illustrates the meaning of the lyrics and visualizes the music in a straightforward way.
- They are around 4 minutes long
- The style of video will always match the Genre of Music
- A degree of authenticity of the performance is sought by the band and the director so we find lipsyncing, closeup, mimed playing of instruments, camera shots and angles e.g. the micro camera shots attached to the neck of a guitar and a wide variety of camera shots and angles to engage the viewer.
- Dance routines are often popular in performance videos.
- Another increasing factor is male gaze in music videos with more and more videos having woman as the main focus for example Eric Prydz- Call on Me video.
Conventions of a Narrative based Video
- They need to market or advertise the band/artist and song so must feature ‘repeatability’ In other words the narrative code must be ‘loose’ or simply ‘suggestive’ rather than ‘realistic’ or ‘detailed’. This is because music video audiences need to be able to watch videos repeatedly and a tight realist narrative would prove too boring after the first couple of viewings.Musical Synaesthesia only requires the musical or lyrical ‘mood’ to connect with a narrative concept.
General Conventions of Music Videos
- Camera Movement- Jumping directly between long shots, close ups and extreme close ups. Primarily the close up on the singer’s face is the main generic convention for music videos. Also the extreme close up on the lips for lip synching along with instrument close ups.
- Camera Movement- Whip pans, fast dolly track shots and fast overhead crane shots to follow the running, walking or dancing of performers. Also fast vertical tilts and horizontal pans to really capture the energy of the song
- Editing- Various terms: jump cutting. Creating the visually decentred experience of ‘jumping’ from location to person to instrument without any normal narrative continuity. Instead it is often the beat or the rhythm of the track which provides the organisng principle for editing movement. The editing moves so fast it creates the need for viewing ‘repeatedly’.
Some Examples that we looked at as a class were videos such as:
- Kanye West - All Falls Down
- Beyonce - Single Ladies
- Daft Punk- Around The World
- Jay-Z - 99 Problems
- Eminem - The Way I am
- The Pharcyde - Drop
- Britney Spears - Toxic
- Kelis - Milkshake
- Kanye West feat. T-Pain - Good Life
- UNKLE - Rabbit In Your Headlights
- Arctic Monkeys - Fluorescent Adolescent
Making our own music video
After learning about all the typical concepts of a music video, we had to try and make our own. We were given the song "Hit Me Baby One More Time" by Britney Spears and had to copy the shots exactly. We found this very hard to do as there were many different angles to do and it's pretty clear that we didn't use our time well enough. This task helped us a lot in being more prepared for our own music video, in time management and using different camera techniques.
Here is our music video:
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