STYLES OF MUSIC VIDEOS

NARRATIVE Narrative based music videos emulate a storyline. The artist can feature in the story but that isn't always the case. This style of music video is often used in the pop genre to tell a romantic story, for example Sam Smith's 'I'm Not The Only One'. Sam Smith doesn't take part in the story and uses actors to perform instead.

NARRATIVEOn the other hand, there some artists that will feature in the narrative such as Taylor Swift in 'Wildest Dreams'. The video, set in an African Savannah in the 1950s during the golden age of cinema, follows the story of fictional brunette actress Marjorie Finn (Swift) shooting a romantic adventure film, Wildest Dreams, in the desert with co-actor, Robert Kingsley (Eastwood) which is a reference to the 1985 film Out of Africa. The video is interspersed with shots of African wildlife and natural scenery including shots of a cascading waterfall and others such as Swift lounging with a lion. After a fight on set, the romance ends and the video cuts to a Hollywood premiere, where Swift sees her co-star, Eastwood, with his wife. She is visibly upset but tries to act nonchalant, and the video ends with her fleeing the premiere and seeing her co-star run out onto the road in the side mirror of the limousine. (Wikipedia)

CINEMATICCinematic music videos have high production values and feature a storyline liked the narrative based music videos. The main difference in that the cinematic music videos provide a 'film styled' quality to it. An example of this is Ed Sheeran's 'A Team', it narrates the story of a girl addicted to drugs, living on the streets of London, played by Selina MacDonald. She tried to sell magazines for money, but only managed to sell one to Sheeran. The girl struggled so much that she resorted to selling her body to earn money. She may not have loved it, but it provided her with a general income. Later on, the pain became too much for her to bear and she just wanted to end it all. She traded in her "dirty" money for drugs, referencing the lyric "...and in a pipe she flies to the motherland." In the end, the girl succumbs to her drug abuse. (Wikipedia)

PERFORMANCE BASED

Performance based videos focus mainly on filming a performance styled music video which normally include some sort of stage and crowd, An example of this would be 'Duality' by Slipknot. The video starts with a large crowd of fans running towards the camera which is clearly behind a window. As the song switches in intensity the video cuts to shots inside the house of the band performing in very close quarters with the fans. The video constantly switches between clips of the band performing and fans destroying the house and the surrounding environment. (Wikipedia)

ANIMATION

Animation music videos use either digital or stop motion animation instead of real life footage. The Cribs' entire music video for mirror kissers uses animation as a background with use of a green screen. Although this method is time consuming it allows the artist to create effects that may not have been possible, especially on a small budget.

PASTICHEPastiches are based on features from another genre/time frame. Unlike parodies, pastiches do not insult the texts. Madonna's 'Vogue' uses influence from the latter 20th century craze over fashion.

The black-and-white video, set in Art Deco-themed 1920s and '30s surroundings, starts off showing different sculptures, works of art, as well as Madonna's dancers posing. Along with this are images of a maid and a butler cleaning up inside what seems to be a grand house. When the dance section of the song starts, Madonna turns around, and, similarly to the lyrics, strikes a pose. The video progresses, and images of men with fedoras, Madonna wearing the controversial sheer lace dress and other outfits, follow. As the chorus begins, Madonna and her dancers start to perform a vogue dance routine, where she sings the chorus as her dancers mime the backing vocals. (Wikipedia)

AS LIVE

The 'As live' styled music videos contain concert footage to make it seem as if the entire music video was filmed live. An example of this would be Muse's 'Follow Me' as it shows them walking on stage and performing. The music video for "Follow Me" was released on 11 December 2012. Similarly to the video for "Resistance", it consists of live footage from the O2 Arena and Atlas Arena during the 2nd Law World Tour. (Wikipedia)

PAR ODY

Parody musc videos mock another artist's song. An example of a parody is Hot Chip's 'I Feel Better'This Peter Serafinowicz-directed clip imagines Hot Chip as a generic, well-combed boy band, whose pop party is interrupted by a mysterious figure in white who alerts you to the bizarreness of the whole situation. (http://www.nme.com/list/the-10-best-parody-music-videos/377903)

INTERTEXTUALITYIntertextuality music videos refer to other existing texts. An example of this is Christina Perri's A Thousand Years used in the Twilight saga movie 'Breaking Dawn' as the music video directly correlates to the scene in the movie. In the video we notice that a love scene from 'Breaking Dawn' is being shown simultaneously with Christina Perri's lip syncing and reating directly to the films context

CONCEPTThis is a style of music video that is based around a concept or an idea. They tend to be rather unique/utilise a particular editing or film technique. An example of a contextual music video is the Foo Fighters' 'Best of You'.The music video was directed by Mark Pellington, best known for his work on the video for "Jeremy" by Pearl Jam. He was inspired by the death of his wife a few months prior to the shoot, and was drawn to the song's notion of dealing with pain in life.