Codes and conventions

By Ellie Plummer

MUSIC VIDEO CONVENTIONS

A music video is a short fi lm mixing a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Although the origins of music videos date back much further, they come into prominence in the 1980s, when MTV based their format around the medium.

Music videos use a wide range of styles of fi lm making techniques, including animation, live action fi lming, documentaries, and non-narrative approaches such as abstract fi lm. Some music videos blend diff erent styles, such as animation and live action. Many music videos interpret images and scenes from the song’s lyrics, while others take a more thematic approach. Other music videos may be without a set concept, being merely a fi lmed version of the song’s live performance.

WHAT IS A MUSIC VIDEO?

Visuals either illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics. Illustrate – Music videos can use a set of images to

illustrate the meaning of lyrics and genre. This is the most common.

Amplify – Repeatability is an aspect of amplification. Meaning and eff ects are manipulated and shown through the video and drummed into our vision.

Disjunctive – The meaning of the song is ignored.

GOODWIN’S THEORY

Performance – this is when the music video purely consists of the artist performing.

Narrative – this is when a story is told throughout the music video and the artist is not performing. A good example of this is ‘Paradise’ by Coldplay.

Combination of performance and narrative. – this is when the artist is performing but there is also a story being told in the music video. A good example of this is ‘Dance Dance’ by Fall Out Boy

Animation (often includes narrative)

DIFFERENT FORMS OF MUSIC VIDEOS

Long shots are used to establ ish sett ing. For example, at the beginning of ‘Like a Hobo’ by Charl ie Winston, there is a long shot of the sett ing to show the audience the location.

Mid shots and close ups are used to emphasise the art ist/band and not only the emotions but to refl ect the words of the song with the movement of the l ips of the art ist. This is often done to promote the band.

With bands, long shots maybe be used to show the rest of the band in performance. For example, in the music video ‘Let Her Go’ by Passenger, there is a long shot of the band to show off the band to the audience and also to bui ld a personal relat ionship with the audience

Conventional ly the camera wi l l fo l low the lead singer. Which is also shown in the music video for ‘Let Her Go’, there are a lot of close-ups of the lead singer.

Edit ing is done in fast cuts i f the tempo is fast, rendering many of the images impossible to grasp on fi rst viewing, ensuring mult iple viewing.

CAMERA

Edit ing is diff erent for each genre of music as you wouldn’t have the same eff ects used in a slow song than in an up beat song.

Diff erent eff ects are used to create diff erent scenes or feel ings.

Changes in colour and saturation can be used for a fl ashback or to show a diff erent person’s point of view.

Transit ions such as a fade is used to tel l us that t ime has passed.

The edit ing pace fi ts the music pace. Digital eff ects often enhance edit ing, which

manipulates the original images to off er diff erent kinds of pleasure to the audience.

Edit ing is done in fast cuts, rendering many of the images impossible to grasp on fi rst viewing, ensuring mult iple viewing.

Some art ists choose to include diegetic sound i f their music video has narrative. For example, at the beginning of ‘No One Does it Better’ by You Me At Six they are driving and one of their other songs from the same album is playing on the stereo.

EDITING AND SOUND

The mise-en-scene can vary greatly depending on the genre of music and the type of music video.

Props – performance equipment, band merchandise

Costume – certain outfi ts Location – concert hal ls, venues, street. The

location can help to sel l the song by interl inking with i ts characterist ics and possibly the digipack. For example, in ‘Violet Hi l l ’ by Coldplay, the location is very grey and dul l which is again reinforced by the weather.

Costume is very important as i t can dramatical ly refl ect the mood of a song. For example, a happy song might have the characters dressed in bright colours to refl ect happiness whereas a sad song would have the characters dressed in dark colours to symbol ise the bleak mood of the song. ‘Someone Like You’ by Adele is a good example of this.

The genre of the song might be refl ected in types of mise-en-scene, themes, performance, camera and edit ing styles.

MISE EN SCENE