Conventions of Music Videos

There are many conventions of Music Videos. One of these is Movement. This is essential to music videos as it represents the beat of the song it's showing. Movement can be shown though camera movement, people moving, dancing or the speed of editing. A good example of movement is Bring Me the Horizon's Shadow Moses. It has quick and shaky actions and editing which represents the song extremely well.



Another convention is Narrative. This is when the video tells a story. Sometimes a story which represents the lyrics exactly or a different story. A good example of this is My Chemical Romance The Ghost Of You. The video shows a World War 2 scene with an old fashion dance with all the soldiers then it goes to the war itself. The video is intense at the end shows a tragic scene of the loss of a solider.


A lot of music videos tend to show the band/artist preforming or lip syncing. It sometimes shows them as acting rather than preforming as in showing a story. MCR The Ghost of you can be used as another example for this. It shows the lead singer Gerard Way lip syncing the song as well as acting like an old war solider. Another great example of this is Panic! at The Disco's song I Write Sins Not Tragedies The video for this shows a wedding which lead singer Brendon Urie crashes lip syncing and talking to the groom through the song.
Another convention in intertexuality. This is when the song makes references to other music videos or films or video games. A good example of this is All Time Low's I feel like dancin'. This video shows the band copying Katy Perry, Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. It copies the artists fully with their appearance.




However although this is an exact copy, there are some which are more discrete. An example of this is The Killers, Miss Atomic Bomb. This music video shows a cartoon story about a boy and girl. Another song which has a similar music video is Linkin Park, Breaking the habit. This also shows a cartoon story but is more detailed.

The Purpose of a Music Video in the digital age

The purpose of a music video is fairly obvious as it's to sell the song! However it also sells other products such as:

• The album the song is featured on
• if the song has been written for a film it adversities that
• an upcoming tour
• t-shirts

Also many music videos consist of product placement. This includes stuff like electric products, drinks, food etc.  a fantastic example of this is All Time Low, I Feel Like Dancin' as, although its just a joke it shows product placement of Rockstar energy. The reason for product placement is to show that the drink is desirable making the audience also want to try it. It also makes the audience think "Well if they have it, it must be good!" and they will go out and buy the product.

Before the digital age Music Video's could only be accessed at certain times like a certain slot on the radio or even on shows like Top of the Pops of Top 40. But thanks to the development of new media technologies music videos can be accessed whenever at any time! One site where videos can be accessed anywhere is YouTube. This allows record companies to upload their videos for a wide audience who can watch the video on a mobile device, laptop, mac book, iTouch etc. This means that the song and artist get a lot of publicity. 

However this meant that the public might not buy an actual physical copy of the song if they can listen to it on-line for free so a few record company's refused to upload the songs on-line. But many record companies have realised that trying to keep the songs off YouTube is time consuming, expensive and futile. Therefore most record companies such as Rise Records upload the songs with a link to iTunes to purchase a copy legally. Although some artists have their own YouTube channel, like My Chemical Romance, with links to their social networking sites, iTunes and also their website. Also music shows such as the voice have their own YouTube channel. 

One Major YouTube music channel is Vevo which has been created specifically for music videos. They gain profit from having adverts before the video and gain money depending on how large the audience is for a video.

Goodwin's Theory

Goodwin’s theory of Music Videos from minnetta1996

Conventions of a Music Video

Below are two Prezis showing conventions of a music video. The first one shows conventions of different music genres.

History of Music Videos

Music videos are known by almost everyone! And so they should be as they have been around for a very long time! One example of an early music video would be St Louis Blue's by Bessie Smith in 1929. However this was just her singing and is classed more as a 'performance video' than an actual music video. It does show her in different places but it shows the band playing and isn't much of a music video.

The first actual music video was in fact the world famous song Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. This was the first proper music video where it showed more clips than live footage. It was released in 1975 putting a mile stone in music history. Another mile stone was the MTV. MTV made music videos extremely popular. The first music video to be shown on MTV was 'Video killed the radio star' in 1981. However it wasn't until Michael Jacksons 'Billie Jean' music video that MTV became a popular music show.

Music videos grew in popularity a great deal during the 80's, but one music video which changed history was Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' released in 1983. Thriller was practically a mini movie with it's theatrical approach. The video showed a hoard of zombies attacking Michael and his date. The video was 13 minutes long and was actually rated PG and classed as a short film. Thriller set the standards high for music videos and since then there has been many weird and wonderful music videos by many different bands/artists. For example Lady Gaga has weird and wonderful music videos which, looking back, are similar to Madonna's controversial music videos in the 80's.

Music Website

The Music Website is a website in which news and other information about a band or artist is displayed. A music website is created in order to promote the band/artist and also to give people a better understanding of who they are, their style of music and a history of them. Also it is created in order to advertise new albums, singles and merchandise. It also keeps fans up to date with tours and news about the artist or band.

Example: sleepingwithsirens.net/

Music Video

A music video is designed in order to show a visual description which best suits the lyrics to the song or just to make the song better known and to give the viewer a better understanding to what the song actually means. Music videos are usually created for about 3/4 singles from an album which best suit the album and to promote the other tracks. They are created and published in order to promote a new song/single and to gain a wider fan-base. It also means that more people would want to purchase the artists album in order to listen to the minor tracks.

Example: Black Veil Brides, In The End

The Digipack

A digipak is a promotional CD package which contains bonus material such as music videos, videos diaries, behind the scenes, extra tracks, live performances, special booklets and sometimes mini posters. They are usually more expensive than the regular CD. They can also be referred to as special edition or deluxe and can be available for a limited time only. The purpose of the digipak is to promote different bands and artists and to gain a larger profit whilst widening their fan base. It's also to gives fans more for their money and to also the bigger fans to get more as a thank you.

Example: Foo Fighters

Brief

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with:

• A website homepage for the band;
• A cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package)