Generic Conventions of a Music Video

Camera Movement:

Camera Movement in music videos are used to illustrate the video and help the viewer to understand the message and tempo of the video. It is also used to keep the artist or protagonist of the video in prime view for the audience. In music videos carious camera techniques are used including:

• Tilts
• Pans
• Spinning
• Tracking
• Crane Shots

Camera Shots:

In music videos the camera shots tend to include and frequently jump from long shots to close ups to mid shots and extreme close ups etc. All of these shots will be used to place emphasis on an artist or character, location, event or emotion. Wide shots are used if there are backing dancers in the video and close ups will most usually be used to show the artists lips singing the lyrics.

Editing:

In music videos the scene will generally change every 5 seconds but many times it will be even shorter. These rapid changes in scenes will require jump cuts to be used predominantly as the editing technique.

Mise-en-scene:

Mise-en-scene is the use of props, costume and makeup etc. to put importance on the representation of something, it also involves placing performers in certain places and roles to achieve this. Costume would generally represent the artists style and genre for example a rapper in a video may wear loads of jewellery and expensive clothes to make them seem wealthy. Whereas dark or rock music artists will wear more plain clothes to concentrate the viewers attention on their music.



Again depending on the song genre and location of the music video different props and makeup styles will suit different videos. e.g. if someone is crying their makeup would be styled in that way.

Lighting:

Lighting can be used in many different ways to portray a certain style or mood across to the audience. For example darker lighting will most likely be used in a gothic rock bands music video to get across the message of unhappiness to the audience. Light can also be used to highlight a specific artist or prop and make them the center of attention this is evident in many of Hype Williams signature style videos which use a coloured background which gets lighter in the middle to create the effect of the foreground subject illuminating light. This can be seen in both Kanye West's "Gold Digger" and Jamie Foxx's "Digital Girl"

Sound:

The sound is usually the artists song and them singing the lyrics. But in some cases music videos will have intros or mini clips with a script of words that are not in the actual downloadable song. For example Michael Jackson's "Thriller" is first styled like a thriller movie. Another example is Katy Perry's "Birthday" (2013) which features Perry in various comical disguises having an interview.

Colour:

Colour in music videos again can be used to set the atmosphere and mood of a song to really draw the audience in and help them relate the video to the song. e.g. Pop songs which feature happy and upbeat lyrics will most often have brightly coloured music videos whereas rock songs with unhappy lyrics will usually have dark colours.