Codes and Conventions of Music Videos:

What is a music video?


 A music video is essentially a 'short film' that features a song from the artist/bands album along with images sometimes to create a story, however, it doesn't always have to. They can be made for promotional or artistic uses. A music video has specific codes and conventions (outlined by Andrew Goodwin and Pete Fraser), yet some of these can be broken, and it'll still be classed as a music video. It's important to know what the codes and conventions are because this can help us as an audience determine what genre this particular song/video belongs to etc.


 A music video can last the length of the song it is promoting or it can last longer. If it lasts longer, it's most likely that there is a narrative to the video, that takes on this 'short film' concept. One example of a music video that is longer than the song is the famous video for Michael Jackson's hit 'Thriller'. The video is nearly 14 minutes long in comparison to the song which is only about 5 minutes long. The music video uses intertextuality within it's horror narrative as the story is similar to films like "An American Werewolf in London". It was released in 1983 and is still the most successful and influential music video of all time. This shows that if a video is very creative, it makes them 'timeless'.

 Music videos also typically feature the artist or band in the video, as this helps to promote them to the audience and the audience also become familiar with them. However, this isn't always the case. An example of a band that never feature themselves in their videos are Gorillaz. They always use cartoon gorillas in their videos, which has become their trademark image. Although the audience do not know what they look like, they still recognise them because the cartoon gorillas has become their trade mark image. This also makes their videos so much more interesting, because it's something different that many other artists don't do.

 A lot of music videos also include a narrative to go with the track. This helps the viewer engage with the video and encourages them to get involved with the storyline and carry on watching it. An example of this convention is the music video to Lady Gaga's and Beyonces' "Telephone". It tells the story of how Lady Gaga's character breaks out of prison then her and Beyonce's character meet and then escape again..At the end there isn't a closed narrative, it is left with a "To be continued..." sign. This makes the audience wonder what will happen next and encourages them to look out for the next video in case they carry on this storyline into a new video or song.

A music video should be visually memorable, because it will interest the audience and make them want to watch it again. Also if it has so much going on that the audience won't be able to catch everything in just one viewing so they'll have to watch it again. An early example of a video that has this effect is Peter Gabriel's 'Sledgehammer'. There are a lot of visual effects and animation which would have attracted the audience and interested them, especially at the time of its release, it was one of the first videos to do something like this.

Most music videos that feature the artist/band usually help to construct an image that the band/artist want to be portrayed as. Some Pop artists, such as Taylor Swift and some Disney Stars such as Selena Gomez, want to project a sweet and innocent image that will appeal to their younger audience and this reflects in their music videos, however, Rap artists such as Snoop Dogg for example are known to have a 'gangster' image, and his music videos reflect this. They generally feature girls with little clothing, cars, bling, smoking, drinking, partying, gangs, expensive clothing and showing a wealthy lifestyle. This sort of music video appeals to his audience- predominantly male, that may aspire to that sort of lifestyle.

A lot of music videos are produced to promote the artist/band and their music, so that the audience will spend money on their music/shows. However, some music videos are produced more as an art form (normally not mainstream videos) that some people may find particularly interesting to them personally, and would even want to go out and buy the music video on DVD if possible. In some cases this makes the video more memorable than the actual song itself. For example, A-ha's "Take on Me" failed to chart two times when the song was released, until their music video was made, after this it was nominated for awards and charted at #1. This is memorable for it's mixed media of animation and live-action, and it's theme; "fantasy" and "reality".

MTV was the very first television channel to be dedicated solely to music videos. Created in 1981, MTV helped popularize music videos, and impacted the music industry profoundly. Before MTV there were forms of music videos, like The Beatles "Magical Mystery Tour", however, MTV helped artists to create much more interesting and innovative videos for one single from their album. The first video that was shown on MTV was The Buggles "Video Killed the Radio Star".

Some artists use music videos for the marketing of other products, whether it's their own products or things such as films. Ronan Keating's "When You Say Nothing at All' is a good example of a video that promotes a product. The song and music video were recorded to promote the film 'Notting Hill'. The video features clips from the film and Keating himself. It is clear to the audience what is being promoted, this then also helps Keating's audience become wider as he's appealing to "Notting Hill" fans, as well as "Notting Hill" gaining more audiences because of Ronan Keating fans...

Artists, such as Britney Spears, will use their music videos to promote their own products. A few of her videos feature her perfume, which will help to make people aware of her product as well as her song. Her fans would then want to go out and buy the perfume because they've seen her using it in one of her videos. Meaning that she'll not only gain money from her song/video, but her perfume sales also.

Pete Fraser outlined that the lyrics of songs generally establish the mood of the song in the visuals rather than showing shots that mirror each line in the song. This is true in most music videos and an example of a video that does this is Ed Sheeran's "The A Team". The images mirror the lyrics in some cases, but mainly the slow tempo and the lyrics set the mood. For example, he says "Strange men/Or sell love to another man
" and the video is about a homeless prostitute, showing that the images mirror the lyrics. However, the slow tempo and lyrics like "It's too cold/For angels to fly/Or angels to die" can also set the sad, depressing mood. 

The tempo of the song can also determine the amount of cuts and the paces of the cuts in the videos. Most fast paced videos have a lot of cuts and quicker cuts, whereas a slow tempo song would have less cuts because the shots last longer. An example of a video that shows the editing corresponding with the tempo is Foals - "Cassius".

Mise-en-scene can help music videos be catagorised easily into different genres because of the use of colour, lighing, clothing, body language and character movement as well as themes and performance. Cinematography and editing also are important when helping to place a music video in a specific genre. For example, Michael Jackson's "Beat It" would be difficult to catagorise into a certain music genre because it's more of a short film than a music video, the song belongs to the Rock genre but the video does not, however, an example of a music video that can be easily categorised is Taylor Swift's - "You Belong with Me". This video is from the Pop/Country genre, and you can tell this from the fast, upbeat tempo, her clothes/colours in the song as they're fashionable, quite girly and are mostly bright colours. She also acts out a lot of the lyrics which is fairly typical of the Pop genre. Lastly the theme of the song is also something you'd expect from this genre, it has a typical "teen movie" feel it it.

What we have learnt:

We have learnt different things about what makes up, and what is, a music video. We can use this research when creating our own video as it will help us with making a video specific to our genre. Though there isn't any set rules to making a music video, there are still some conventions that we would have to keep the same so our audience know what genre our video and song belong too.