There are many generic conventions in music videos, I am going to demonstrate these by using The Scientist by Coldplay as an example:
Varieties of different camera shots will be used to show the artist, here we can see a close up of Chris Martin.
Camera movement is also very common within music videos as we can see from the close up the camera pans to a long shot.
Lighting is also very important within music videos, as it highlights the artist and makes them look better or more attractive which then appeals to a larger audience.
This screenshot also demonstrates camera movement as the camera pans from Chris's feet to a full body shot.
Music directors try to include different backgrounds and scenery to keep the audience entertained.
Again, a large range of camera shots are used, here we can see an establishing shot.
Costume/outfit changes are also a generic convention of music videos, here we can see Chris in a changed outfit. This may be due to product placement or to display the artists style.
Props are generic conventions in music videos. In this video this car is a prop. Props can be used by the artist or be included within the narrative of the story.
This screenshot shows the narrative within the video, having a narrative within the music video is also a generic convention.
This album cover displays the artist, Miles Kane, in black and white and then uses large, bright pink writing to contrast with the black and white, in order to make his name stand out. A simple yet very effective album cover.
It has featured Miles Kane as the main focus of the album cover to appeal to his audience and to increase his popularity.
Gorillaz - Demon Days
Demon Days by The Gorillaz highlights all four of their animated characters. By using black and white as their main colours it allows the main focus of the album cover to be on the characters, in which case represent the artist. The font used is in capital letters and in white to contrast with the black background. By doing this it makes the band name and album name stand out to allow its reputation to increase.
Arctic Monkeys - Whatever You Say I Am That's What I'm Not
This album cover by the Arctic Monkeys displays Chris McClure, friends of the band, smoking a cigarette. This caused controversy with the NHS as it promotes smoking. By causing controversy it causes interest to followers of the NHS and even smokers in general, which allows the albums popularity to increase further.
Also, many young people who believe smoking to be cool or mischievous would begin to feel the Arctic Monkeys are cool and therefore want the album. This is similar to the effect that an explicit content warning on the front of an album has.
Eminem - Relapse
Relapse by Eminem displays Eminem's face by using pills. This is a very artistic way to show his face whilst displaying a background story to the album. The album is about Eminem's recovery from drug addiction therefore the sticker on the front cover resembles a prescription drug label, which has been prescribed from Dr. Dre.
This creates interest with fans of Eminem as they want to know more about his recovery, and fans of Dr. Dre will also become interested due to his features within the album.
The album cover includes an explicit content warning sticker on the front which makes people (especially young people) believe that having this album is rebellious as you have to be over 18 to buy it. Therefore they will try harder to buy it, even if they are not particularly big fans of Eminem or rap music.
Diane Martel has directed these three music videos by Miley Cyrus, Ciara, and The Killers. Dianes' videos display similarities as all three are performance videos which focus on the main artist. Due to the artists popularity and fame, Diane can afford to keep the videos simple and focused on the artists as many fans will want to watch the artist perform to their own music.
Joseph Kahn
Joseph has worked on famous music videos such as:
Eminem - We Made You
Taylor Swift - Bad Blood
Nicole Scherzinger - Poison
Joseph's work all share similar features to one another. In these three music videos I have selected of his, the artist is the main feature of the video, this follows Andrew Goodwin's theory of The Star, and the video is not supposed to be taken seriously but instead to show a different, more comical side of the artist. He works with upbeat songs in order to show this funny, relaxed side of the artist.
Even though the artist is the main focus of the video, he features many other actors within his videos to interact with the artist to portray the artists dominance in comparison to others.
In Andrew Goodwin's theory, it states there are 5 key aspects in a music video:
Thought beats (seeing the sound)
Relationship of visuals to the song
Narrative and performance
Technical aspects of the video
The Star image (making the artist centre of attention)
This can be demonstrated through the music video 'Gold Digger' by Kanye West:
The Star Image - In the music video Kanye West is the centre of attention majority of the time.
Relationship of Visuals to the Song - In the song the lyrics 'baby by busta' are said and this is then directly related to the image in the video.
Again, this screenshot shows the relationship of visuals to the song, as in the song it says 'I know somebody paying child support for one of his kids' and this is directly related to the visual of the kid.
Andrew Goodwin also agrees with Laura Mulvey's theory of The Gaze. He talks about the voyeuristic treatment which shows that by filming certain features of men and women in a sexual way, it creates an interest and attraction to the viewers.
The voyeuristic treatment can be shown here as close ups of this women is irrelevant but creates attention to the male viewers.
The concept of the gaze is one that deals with how the audience views the people represented in the video. This theory consists of three different gazes:
That of the person behind the camera.
That of the characters within the video itself.
The gaze of the viewer.
A music video which uses this theory is 'Blurred Lines' by Robin Thicke.
Throughout this music video the women are portrayed as objects rather than people and are arguably the main focus of the video due to their revealing outfits and their bodies.
Having girls such as these creates a talking point to viewers, both male and female, as male viewers talk about the girls and their attractiveness, and the female viewers talk about sexism and even though it may give the video a bad image, it creates an awareness and makes the video even more popular on YouTube and social media.
The screenshots I took below demonstrate how the women are portrayed throughout the video:
Shake It Off by Taylor Swift has become a massive hit with over 1 billion views as it creates so many hot talking points within the video to appeal to a wide audience. It includes several different genres of dance styles, such as Jazz, Hip Hop, Ballet and Cheerleader, which again appeals to a wide audience as fans of these genres will be interested in this video.
Taylor Swift performing her song demonstrating ballet.
She then begins to perform her song whilst demonstrating Hip Hop.
Here Taylor Swift is imitating Lady Gaga from one of her music videos.
Taylor Swift performing to Jazz.
Here Taylor Swift recreates the scene from Nicki Minaj's Anaconda.
This creates a talking point for social media and gives fans of Nicki Minaj reason to watch the video.
Here Taylor is dancing in the form of Cheerleader.
Taylor Swift performs all theses different genres of music and imitates all these different artists to create an interest with the artists fan base whom she is imitating. Some people would argue she is taking the mick out of the artists that she is imitating, however this is a clever way to create a hot talking point around the Shake It Off music video, which then allows the videos publicity to increase.
Rap God by Eminem is one of my favourite music videos as it parodies several famous TV shows, films and characters such as Max Headroom, The Matrix, The Walking Dead, Pong and Super Mario Bros. This creates an interest for fans of these shows and characters which then gives more reason for people to want to watch the video, even if they are not fans of Eminem or the music genre. It also becomes a talking point and begins to trend on social media which is a massive platform to advertise the video on. This is one of the reasons 'Rap God' has received 235 million views on YouTube and is such a success.
Here Eminem parodies Max Headroom. We can see he has modernised the recreation to appeal to a younger generation.
Eminem then begins to parody The Matrix and again modify it to add his own twist to the recreation.
Here we can see a cameo of the game Pong.
And then a cameo of the game Super Mario Bros. This appeals to a younger generation who played or remembers playing these retro games.
He then includes footage from The Walking Dead which has recently become a hit TV show which therefore creates an interest to a wide audience of people.
Finally we can see Eminem cleverly imitating the game Portal.
Linkin Park - Numb These three rock music videos share the same characteristics as each other as they are all part of the rock music genre. The generic conventions of the rock music genre are that the videos are narrative based and show cameos of the artists within the video. The videos follow Andrew Goodwin's theory of demonstrating genre characteristics as the artists and actors dress in a 'rock' fashion to display the music genre.
These three videos are by big Hip Hop artists, Jay Z, Kid Cudi and Eminem. These videos relate to each other and show generic conventions of the Hip Hop genre as in all videos it features the artist of the song. This is because it follows Andrew Goodwin's theory of 'The Star' in which the artist is shown as the main viewing point. Also as these artists are very big and popular, they have a very large fan base and audience that want to see them in their own video performing to their own song.
The Killers, Coldplay and Arctic Monkeys are all big alternative music artists. Alternative music videos tend to be performance based focusing on the artist or lead singer of the band. There is no storyline to the video in itself however the music may be based around a situation that has occurred in the artists life.
The music video creates interest to viewers as they want to see the artists performing their own song, and the clever use of camera techniques keeps the video entertaining.
Nabil Elderkin Nabil has worked on famous music videos such as:
Alt-J - Hunger Of The Pine
Foals - Bad Habit
Arctic Monkeys - Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?
Nabil's work on music videos tend to portray a storyline. In both Hunger Of The Pine and Bad Habit Nabil portrays a storyline in the form of an analogy. However in Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High it is still a narrative based video. The storyline in these videos may not be so clear to see, this is done so large audiences can relate to the story as it leaves them to guess the storyline and adjust it to suit themselves, therefore giving interest to the video.
An example of this is 'Feel Good Inc.' by The Gorillaz:
The Gorillaz are uniquely recognised for consisting of 4 animated characters, 2D, Murdoc Niccals, Noodle, and Russel Hoobs. Therefore all their music videos are animated to show their virtual characters.
In this screenshot we can see characters lying on the floor, this represents all the people that have already been 'dumbed down', whilst only the band members have been awakened.
Even in animation music videos there is still lip syncing and playing of instruments. In this screenshot we can see one of the Gorillaz characters playing his guitar.
Here 2D is yelling at the people that are sleeping through a megaphone in an urge to awaken them.
There are still several varieties of camera angles used in animation videos to keep the audience entertained. In this screenshot we can see 2D shouting at the sleeping people in a different angle to the previous screenshot.
We can now understand 2D is trapped in this windmill in which he cannot escape from.
Here we can see 2D trapped in this viewing room in which he can only see this omnipotent image surrounding him in the room. This drives him into a hypnotic frenzy in which he tries to resist the urge to become 'dumbed down'.
He then begins to repeat 'feel good' to stop himself becoming 'dumbed down'.
Even though this is an animation which seems to be pointless, there is a story to it as well, which shows animation can also involve a narrative.
or
'Heartless' by Kanye West:
'Heartless' by Kanye West is great demonstration of an animation music video as it includes a lot of quick transitions, camera angles, and costume changes.
In these two screenshots we see the director and artist of Heartless, Hype Williams and Kanye West.
Various camera angles are used in this video, such as a close up shown from this screenshot, even though the video is animated the director still uses a variety of camera angles.
This video isn't purely lip syncing from Kanye, it contains other scenes, such as the one shown from this screenshot, to keep the audience entertained.
Even though this video is animation, it is very realistic as the smoke effect from the cigarette looks realistic as well as the costume choice as it represents Kanye's image.
Animations include a variety of costume changes and scene changes as we can see from this screenshot.
