Music Videos

Structure

The purpose of the Music Video

Promotes a single and, normally, an album Promotes the artist or band Creates, adapts or feeds into a ‘star image’ Entertains the audience Sets the ‘meanings’ of a song by the use of

images

Basic structures

In 3-4 minutes a typical music video combines a mix of live performance, narrative, and other visual imagery including computer graphics and animation.

It does this to advertise the band/artist and song

Music Videos

Often contains a number of different elements:

Performance Narrative Thematic Symbolic

Performance

Many music videos include performance of the artists as part of the video

It was from clips of performances that music Videos developed

-Often contain shots of the artists performing Can be a live stage performance, with shots

of artists and audience Can be the artists in “real life” situations eg

warming up, talking, fooling around Often includes lots of close ups of the artist

and there can be a particular visual style that goes with the artist (a motif) eg particular clothing, actions, props, type of images.

Often the artist can appear to perform in an unusual place - all lip-synched eg a field, a rooftop

Idea of Spectacle

Music Videos may be considered to be examples of 'spectacle'.

In this the performers are performing, often looking directly at the viewer. This is called “direct address” -where they are directly interacting with the viewer.

In the case of men, this involves the look of the character towards the viewer. The male is seen to be addressing the viewer directly. He is supposed to be singing directly for you.

The female figure is often an object of an erotic gaze, object of male desire which is a voyeuristic gaze. A Voyeur is someone who looks at someone for pleasure. This means females in music vids are often dressed and posed in very sexual ways

Narrative Often the video tells a story either that features in

the lyrics or is suggested in the lyrics eg girl dumps boy

This narrative can be like a Mini film, with a beginning, middle and end

Or it can suggest some links to a story It can promote a film with clips from the film

included telling a story

Narrative Because it is only 3-4 minutes it can be -very fast paced, lots of shots and cuts-use inter-textuality with films, tv and other videos-mimic other film and tv genre eg horror or sci fi -sometimes the story can contradict what is seen for

effect-sometimes the artist is a part of the story, or an

observer or completely separate

Thematic There are lots of common themes in music videos Depends on the genre of music Eg Heavy metal bands go for perfomance

dominated clips

Rap has lots of “street” images

dance routines are common for many female artist performances

Symbolic Use of lots of symbols to build up meaning eg

graveyard…death Lots of use of montage -lots of images to create

meaning sometimes often contradictory Lighting often used to suggest mood Fast paced - often only a few seconds per shot to

build up meanings Pictures can support or contradict the lyrics

Some Other Codes and Conventions

Visually stylish – ‘artistic’ mise-en-scene Cutting related to the rhythm of the music Intercutting between performance and images or

story Experimental use of camera/editing (hand held

camera, distortion of colours) Often break the rules of continuity editing. Can

use lots of jump cuts Lots of use of digital effects

Types of Music Videos1 Performance Clips

-Concentrate on stage performance of bands2 Conceptual clips

Based around a theme or storya) Narrative “mini film” idea

i)either simple fantasy situation with other images inbetween eg artist

ii)Or complex genre ‘story’ eg Michael Jackson’s Thrillerb) Non -narrative often dream like , random thoughts around a loose theme eg lost love, use lots of symbolism

To make your Music Video

What is the theme or aim of my music video? Who will this appeal to? How can I make it appeal to this group? What are the lyrics saying? What do the music/rhythms/genre suggest? How can I link music/lyrics/images? What type of video will it be?