Styles, Conventions and Techniques of the music video

Styles, conventions and Techniques of the Music Video

Music videos have many different styles and conventions. in this essay i will be picking apart these and applying them to music videos out there in the real world today. the first convention i will be discussing is the use of the live performance.

The live performance method is when the band/ artist performs in front of a crowd in the music video. It shows the artist(s) and the crowd both having a really great time which helps promote their live performances as someone very good to go and see. The video above is the music video for Bruce Springsteen's hit single 'Born to Run'. The video is comprised completely of live footage from different concerts of his in the eighties.

It shows both the band and the crowd having a really great time and promotes Springsteen as an intense live music performer. it also shows the scope of his fan base. It will make other people attend his concerts and will give people who are watching the video an idea of what Springsteen is like on stage.

Narrative and Interpretive

some music videos offer some kind of narrative to go with the music. There are different ways that the narrative can be told. they can be consolidating the lyrics, contradicting the lyrics and even sometimes don't have to pay any attention the lyrics at all. the images can be literal or it may take some interpretation. the video below (Icky Thump) takes a more literal approach as it follows the front man jack white as he does all of the things he sings about.

As Jack white sings, we see what he is singing about on screen which makes for an interesting video as it holds a story and expands the world of the song further than just the lyrics can.

Surrealist and absurdest

In a surreal music video the content is very often surprising and very unconventional, and very often has little relationship with the lyrics of the song. Fatboy slim's music video for his song 'weapon of choice' is rather surreal and has little relation to the actual song itself.

Impressionist

An impressionist music video attempts to try and get the emotional tone and message of the music rather than giving a literal meaning. most of the time this makes them look more artistic. there has been an art movement named the impressionism movement in the 19th century which focused on the emotions on the artist and how things made them feel. rather than realistically capturing the world itself. these music videos commonly have soft lighting, flowing and intermergent colors and very soft edges, a lot like in the art movement.

Inter textual: Synergy, Allusion, Pastiche and Homage

Music videos every now and again reference other subjects. soundtrack videos most of the time have reference and footage from the film itself (Synergy). Music videos can also allude to some other media text or a person in history or even an event. basically any historical or cultural reference. A parody is when something makes fun of the subject matter and a pastiche is more of an unrelenting version of a parody. A artist may also pay the someone else respect who had some kind of influence. This is called a homage. Weird Al Yankovic is a master of the parody, one example is his song 'Amish paradise' that parodies Coolio's gangsters paradise.

An example of a pastiche is the Foo fighters video for the song walk that gets a lot of inspiration from the 1993 film Falling Down starring Michael Douglas. The similarities are obvious. Even the outfit that front man Dave Grohl wears is the same as Douglas' character in the film. Take a look for yourself in the video below.

Here is a still from the start of the film Falling Down and underneath, a still from the music video. the similarities are obvious, they are both in a similar car, in a similar situation(traffic jam) and are both wearing more or less identical clothes. This is a very clever music video that pays great homage to a great film.

Animation (Stop motion, digital)

Videos can be wholly or just partly animated in some way. the whites stripes' Fell in love with a girl is complete stop motion animation and is made from lego, this video really propelled the white stripes into the mainstream.

LIP SYNCH - Miming and playback

It is very common for the artist in the video to mime the lyrics so that it appears that the artist is singing to the lyrics. This doesn't only have to happen in performance music videos, it can also be done in narrative-based music videos. the speed of the song can also be changed to film effects such as slow motion. In the video for the song 'The Scientist' there is a lot of lip synching going on. However this is a different kind of lip synch completely. the whole video is played in reverse, so, to get the lip syncing right. the front man Chris Martin had to learn the whole song backwards and then say it backwards when recording the music video. it works out great and makes one of the most memorable music videos of all time.

Editing

Music videos can be edited in different and interesting ways. these different styles can often challenge the conventions of classic continuity editing. below are the most commonly used methods of editing in music videos.

Cutting to the beat

In music videos cutting to the beat of the music is often used and helps establish rhythm to the editing. In the video to the white stripes song the hardest button to button cutting to the beat is done heavily and it looks great. they use this method of editing as the main focal point of the music video.

Post-production effects

Visual effects and CGI can be used in the post production stage to enhance the audience's viewing experience. It may make the audience want to watch the video if the effects are cutting edge and look breathtaking. it can make the audience of the band expand if the effects are clever, Mesmerizing and complex. Artists have to be careful however to keep the effects to the genre of the music. The video for 'Californication' is styled like a music video, this was done in post production.

Split Screen

This is a very interesting editing technique. multiple versions of different events are shown at the same time which results in a very interesting and quite bewildering effect. Blink 182's video for the song Always does this to great effect.

Chroma key

This is when footage is shot in front of a green screen or a blue screen and the action is filmed in front of it. The colour behind is then taken (chroma keyed) out so that it can be replaced by a different image. In Eminem's video for 'purple hills' chroma key is used heavily.

Camera Movements

Pans, tilts, crab and tracking shots are frequently used to enhance the excitement and flow of the music video. This makes the audience enjoy and get more engaged in the music video. In the video for Meat Loaf's hit song 'i would do anything for love (but i wont do that)' camera movement is used heavily. In the shots of the motorbikes at the start the filmmaker has used whip pans.

Camera angles and shot types

by varying the shot distance and camera angles the filmmaker can create meaning and tone and also , like camera movements above, keeps the audience engaged. If the camera angles are interesting then the audience will be interested. In the video for Jack White's song Lazerreto there are several unique camera angles used such as this one where the camera is attached to the microphone.

Mise En Scene

The mise en scene of music videos is often very striking. It is crucial in creating the mood and atmosphere of the song and it is hard to find any music video where mise en scene hasn't been taken into consideration. It can get across almost any emotion that the artist is trying to convey. In the music video for the white stripes' song 'My doorbell' the mise en scene helps make the video look very old, like it was set in the forties or fifties, this is done through the use of props and costumes from that time period.