Styles, Conventions and Techniques
A good style of music video is the "In Concert" and "As Live" footage. This is when a video has footage of the band playing live. This technique is used mostly in rock and country bands. But more recently in pop bends where they show them on tour meeting the fans and playing on stage. The video below is the song "Shameless by Garth Brooks and the video is of him singing the song at a gig in 1991. The videos are not just about the band singing live, its about changing the usual way of just lip syncing to the video
Watch GARTH BROOKS - Shameless in Music | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
Another convention of a music video is to do a narrative and interpretive video. This is when the images in the video match the lyrics of the song. This is one of the most used types of music videos because it creates a good and interesting music video. But it also good for the audience to really feel the song as the lyrics are said through the video as well. A good example of this is the song "Give You Hell" by The All American Rejects. The song is all about two opposite neighbours that have opposite tastes, and they are both trying to make each other angry, so they try to do various things to do that. In the video we see this by then doing various things like playing their music really loud late at night and shining a light in the room early in the morning.
Another and more unusual style of music video is a Surrealist/ absurdity video. This style isn't used much in music videos because they can be very confusing to watch. They are videos that have very little to do with the lyrics and the story of the song. The video is usually just to get attention from the people watching as they are strange. A good example is the song "Hurricane" By Thirty Seconds To Mars. This video gained large publicity because the song is 13 minutes long and the video having a story that is hard to understand.
Impressionistic style of music video is a much more emotional and powerful style to use when doing a video. This style is mostly used on sad or emotional songs as the videos and lyrics are what the singer is feeling. I have chosen the song "Ghetto Gospel" by 2Pac and Elton John because the song was written by 2Pac was a outcry to end the war on the streets. This is because there was a lot of gang violence that lead to one of his close friend being killed.
Intertextual is a large area when it comes to music videos as there are many different styles in this area, you have Synergy, Allusion, Pastiche, parody and homage.
Synergy are videos that have got the right to have another product in it, they often are songs that are used in a movie, so the video has clips of the movie in the music video. The link below is of the song "Footloose" by Kenny Loggins the music video consists of actual footage from the movie "Footloose".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltrMfT4Qz5Y
Allusion videos make references to real life events, they often refer to people and events current and historic. The link below is of song "We Shall Be Free" by Garth Brooks. the video is all about world peace and used clips of old news stories on war and natural disasters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEyoZ4fdkdU
Pastiche is a style of music video where they likely make fun of an existing song or an artist. These videos mock an artist, but in a way that is light hearted and funny, but keeps some of the old video. The link below is of the song "Walk" by Foo Fighters, the song was heavily influenced by the 1993 film "falling Down". he lightly mocks a mans troubles on his journey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PkcfQtibmU
Parody is a style of music videos that makes fun of a artist or a music video. This is similar to a pastiche but it makes fun of the video a little bit more. The most famous example of this is Weird Al Yankovic. He has done many covers of songs . The one I have chosen is his version of "Another one bites the bust" the "Another one rides the bus".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZkouut-9RQ
Homage is when someone pays tribute to a person. these videos are often the artist paying their respects to a person through video. the link i have chosen is "Girls Chase Boys" by Ingrid Michaelson. the video plays homage to Robert Palmer's song "Simply Irresistible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GBT37_yyzY
One of the must creative and most aesthetically pleasing music video styles is animation. There are many different style of animation, claymation, stop motion and computer/digital. the link below is of the song "Her Morning Elegance" By Oren Lavie, the video is done by using stop motion animation. It is cleverly shot by having a series of events happen on a bed.
Lip-synch is used in near enough every video where the artist appears in. Lip-synch is where the artist is required to mime along to the lyrics in the video so that it looks like they are singing it in the video even knowing they have pre-recorded the song in the recording studio. The video is of the song "I Really Like You" By Carly Rae Jepson. the song is song by a woman, but in the video they have the actor Tom Hanks to lip-synch along to the lyrics in the video.
Editing
A good technique to making a good music video is by cutting to the beat. This is a technique where you change a shot at the exact time the beat happens on the song. The song below is of the song "Rolling In The Deep" by Adele. The shots change to the beat of the song.
Post-production effects is a great way to get people attention when it comes to your music video because when people see how much has gone in to a video to make it look as good as it can be is impressive and very modern. The effects that are used have to be suitable for the music so for example lots of explosions wouldn't work on a love song. The music video I have chosen for this is the music "Rock DJ" by Robbie Williams, the video uses visual effects to gradually turn Robbie into a skeleton going through a layer of the skin at a time.
Another clever editing technique is the Chroma Key, this is when a green or blue screen is placed in front or behind something, one you have done that you can project any image in to it making the person or the object look like they are in the location that is projected on to the green/blue screen. This style is usually used when you are trying to put something in a different location or object.. For example the video for "Parachute" by Charlie Simpson cleverly uses a green screen to project an image on to a piece of card in front of him showing the good side of his life where as he is in a bad stage of his life.
Split Screen is a very clever way to tell a story of somebody being happy and sad at the same time, or just polar opposites. Split screens work by have more than one shot on the screen at the same time. I found a really good example that uses this and its "All I Need" by Radiohead. The story is of two different boys from different classes, the story shows how good the life is of one child, and how bad the life is of another child.
I also found this example that isn't about good and bad but the way they have used split screen to make it look like one person is very clever and creative, it changes the video completely.
Every music video has camera movement in it, but some videos use pans, tracking shots, tilts and crab shots to make it look like the camera is moving with the person or the object. this makes the audience feel apart of the video. These styles are usually used in action packed and pacey videos. A good example is the song "This Is War by Thirty Second To Mars, the video is very action packed and has a lot of pan and tracking shots to show the pace of the video and to make you feel apart of the video.
different shot lengths and angles is a great way to change the feeling with the video because different shot lengths and angles show different emotions in a video, for example a shot that lasts long that gradually gets closer could mean that someone is sad so to have less shots mean that there is less rushing about and peace instead. The video below "How To Save A Life" by The Fray is a very sad and emotional song so they have used slow-motion and long shots to make the video feel emotional.
The Final style, convention and technique of a music video and the must important is the Mise-en-scene. The Mise-en-scene is the actual video itself, it counts for everything including the artists, sets/locations, props on set and the lighting. All of these things need to be taken in to consideration when it comes to the a music video as the music video needs to reflect what the song is talking about, weather its a happy song, sad song and even animation. Here are a couple of example that i believe the Mise-en-scene is very important for the song.
First Here is an example from a sad powerful song. The song is "Earth Song" by Micheal Jackson, the song is very emotional talking about the world and how the human race is destroying it by poaching animals and cutting down trees. The Mise-en-scene shown actual footage of people who are effected by these events, also footage of deforestation happening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAi3VTSdTxU
The second example is from a comedy song. The example I have chosen is Macklemore and Ryan Lewis's song "Thrift Shop" This song is strangely about a thrift shop and wouldn't really make any sense but with the video being as funny as it is, it makes the song very funny to watch. Also the shots used match what the words that he is singing. Humor is a good way to attract people to watch your video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK8mJJJvaes
And my final example where the Mise-en-scene is important in a music video is "Hopeless Wonder" by Mumford And Sons. The song is about somebody trying to win over another person, so you would expect the video to be a romantic video where it shows the person trying to get the other person, but in this video it is in a way a pastiche video where it mocks most romantic music videos. It as used four world famous actors to act as the members of Mumford And Sons. The picture below shows two of the actors looking in to each others eyes romantically.
And in this shot they mock there own old style of clothing and look they are going for by the old fashioned dancing they do. And the way they dance is very comedic.
And finally in the picture below they mock old rock songs by they way they smash up their instruments on stage, so to go with the pastiche theme of the video they copy this by smashing up their instruments whilst crying.
I believe that this video is perfect for the song because most love song have the same kind of videos of two people falling in love with each other so for them to do this video in the way they have is very clever, and changes the song completely.
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