CONVENTIONS OF POP MUSIC VIDEOS

By Shannon O’Hara

Examples of good pop music videos I have been researching...

• Katy Perry- Last Friday Night (TGIF)• Little Mix- Wings• Carly Rae Jepsen- Call Me Maybe• FUN- We Are Young• Olly Murs- Heart Skips A Beat• Demi Lovato- Neon Lights

Linking visual and lyrics...From research I have found that in pop music there are a lot of links

between lyrics and visuals..

“ive got the eye of the tiger”

“the way that you flip your hair”

“I got them moves like Jagger”

Linking the lyrics with the visuals helps the audience remember the lyrics of the song as they can see it. Which then makes the person remember the song and hopefully want to buy it.

Links between music and visuals...

• Editing clips to the beat is often used to make a video more aesthetically pleasing.

In the video wings by little mix the 4 different shots of the band members are edited to change position to the beat of the music, this makes it more interesting for the audience.

A lot of rapid cuts are used in fast paced music videos

Connotations of the genre..• There is usually bright lighting and some form of bright prop

of costume in pop videos. This makes it stand out more to the young target audience as it appears lively and fun which is something young people are attracted too.

• Costume for the artist is usually whatever is in fashion at that time.

Some artists like Olly Murs have a trade mark piece of clothing that they always wear in videos, for example his hat..

“i love her T-Shirt”

The clothes they wear make them relatable to there target audience as fashion is important to young people and teenagers.

Artists might choose an item or outfit or a recurring symbol. This makes them recognisable, and therefore, popular.

There are often references to the artists name..

• This is important for example if a person turns on a music channel half way through a song they can still identify the artist

There is usually a lot of performance in music videos. This is because a video can’t be full of narrative, otherwise they would be boring. They also want to be taken seriously as artists, so they show themselves performing.

There can also be synchronised dancing in music videos, this is usually done by female pop artists and shows them to be all round performers and not just singers.

Shots..

• There are often close ups of the artist or the band in the music video. This is because they want to keep their faces relevant, as the world of pop music is ever-changing.