Music Video: Styles, Conventions and Techniques

When making music videos there are many different styles, conventions and techniques that the director can implement and as there are not any rules when it comes to the making the productions directors can get creative and use different techniques. In this assignment i will go over all of the different styles, conventions and techniques that are used by directors when making a music video production and give existing examples. The examples i give will most likely not only have one style, convention or technique and may have many of these cross over with other videos.  

The first style used is in concert and 'as live' footage. In concert is the when the video contains live footage from previous concerts and blends it in with the rest of the music video. The other half of this is 'as live' footage which is the director filming the artists performing on a stage as if they are playing live when they actually not. This allows the director to do what he wants with the artists performance and can get then doing relevant things to the rest of the video. An example of in concert and as live footage is Twenty One Pilots - Car Radio were near then of the video the artist goes on stage and then proceeds to walk through the crowd with everyone one looking at him. This video was clearly planned out for the video so it would be "as live" rather than actually live.


The next style is narrative and interpretive which are both styles based around the song lyrics and how closely they follow the visuals. In some cases the visuals of the video could have absolutely nothing to do with the lyrics and is just interesting to watch however they can also follow closely creating a narrative literally taking the lyrics and creating visuals based on what is being sung. The director can also take a interpreted approach by taking the lyrics and creating visuals based around the same kind of ideas rather than following along. The example I have chosen is Same Smiths - I'm Not The Only One in which it follows along a story of a couple and the struggles they are going through and is complemented by the artists lyrics playing along about relationship troubles whilst the visuals follow.


The next style is surreal videos which are a styles based on being unusual to the viewer and would normally leave the viewer with questions. This style would be unconventional and would surprise the audience with its strange narrative or visuals. These types of videos would not normally have any relevance to the lyrics.The Example of the style is Coldplay - Adventure Of A Life Time in which the lyrics have very little correlation to what is going on in the video. The video contains monkey versions of the artists (Coldplay) and start to dance and perform in the jungle as if they are the normal band performing. This is surreal as the way in which the monkeys move and perform as if they are humans and in reality they are CGI characters.


Impressionist music videos are a style that tries to capture the emotion that the song has without following the lyrics too closely. This is a more artistic style as it tries to use visuals to give the audience emotions that the song has already achieved. This makes this style hard to pull off as the songs emotion is usually given by the artists performance and translates them emotions through visuals which can be a difficult job. The example I have chosen for this style is Nero - Guilt which CGI mixed with computer effects and transitions give the video a dramatic and high focus atmosphere which takes the views attention and keeps the focus on the visuals throughout the whole video. The lyrics are always important to a song however this video is based around the visuals and tries to avoid the audience thinking to much into the song and keeps the attention on how it looks.


Inter textual:
Synergy is a music video created to promote both the artist and a movie or another media product. If it is a song to go on a soundtrack of a movie then the video will often contain clips from the movie or could have recreation of scenes from the movie. Synergy normally means that the song is connected to the other media product meaning they are directly connected and not just references. An example of synergy is Wiz Khalifa - See you again ft. Charlie Puth which was a song that was made to be on the soundtrack for The fast and furious which is a movie about cars. This song was also created to be played during the film at the end of the movie and was a tribute to one of the actors that died during the filming of the production. As the movie was based around cars the artist in the video are see and around various cars which keeps with theme of being like the movie and makes a connections between the different media products.


Allusion is when a music video has references of events, people, historical figures or another media product. This can be a recreation of a event or a twisted version of an event.

Pastiche is an imitation of another artist or artists style which is paired up with parody which makes fun of the original product.

Homage is paying respect to an influence which you take aspects of their work and use it in your music video to remember their work and carry on their style and work.

Animation is another type of style and this style is purely based on if there is any animations in the music video. This can be any amount of animation some may only have a few shots with it and some are entirely animated. This can also be either stop motion or digital, both would be considered the same as animations. The example of Animation I have chosen is Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc, The whole video is animations and tells the videos story purely through the animated characters. The artists of this video (Gorillaz) are known for there music videos as all of them are animated and normally contain the same characters that are based around each of the members of Gorillaz.


Lip-sync is where the video contains an individual mouthing the words of the song to show them either to be the singer or mouthing over the singer. In most cases it is the artist mouthing over their own song. This technique is used for narrative reasons most of the time to add to the story or to put an interesting spin on a everyday event. This would also be used to speed up the song or slow down the song and can be used with other effects such as a story being played in reverse but the singer is still singing forward. The example I have chosen for this style is Coldplays - The Scientist which is a video telling the story of  a car crash and what happens after however is played in reverse so the audience don't see what happened until the end of the video. Throughout he whole video the main singer of Coldplay is featured and is mouthing all of his songs in reverse so when it gets reversed he is still singing it the right way around and the singer spent a while learning how to sing the song backwards so when they filmed it looked natural.


Music videos are often edited in interesting ways as there are no rules when it comes to continuity and editors will be able to get creative, because of this there are different kind of editing techniques that can only be used in music video production. The first editing technique is cutting to the beat which is essentially used to edit the footage around the beat of the song, this gives a flowing rhythm throughout the video and will feel natural to the viewer. An example of this Editing technique is The White Stripes - Hardest Button To Button and revolves around the technique as the artist use the instrument as the video moves around. This video works by every time a beat is hit the artist moves forward keeping the previous scene still there making there look like the artist is being duplicated and they achieved this though the use of editing.


Post-production effects are also an editing technique which is adding in effects to the video to make it more dramatic or something for narrative reasons. Another reason is to attract people to the video as there are interesting effects going on and also attract different audiences for the artist. All effects are added in during the editing process and are used to do things that would be difficult or impossible to do practically. Effects used should always fit into the genre of the song. The example for this technique is Eminem - Love The Way You Lie ft. Rihanna and in this video it follows the story of a dysfunctional couple and one of them ends up burning there house down and this is where the effects come in as it would take a long time to build a house to burn down they set a little fire and then used editing to make it look like the whole thing is fire, this is all done digitally after production.


Split screen is another editing technique which is essentially splitting the screen in to show different events going on at the same time showing the audience more than one story to follow at once. This can be used in different ways to show contrast between the story's or could show the same event from different perspectives.

Chroma key is a music video being shot using large amount of green screen/ blue screen to make the artist or subject of the video look like they are somewhere that they actually aren't to give the viewer something interesting to look at whilst they perform.

Camera Movements is a technique used in all types of media productions and is used in music videos to give the video flow as each shots should flow onto the next shot without looking jumpy. This technique is purely for the audience feel excitement, to feel immersed in the video without being distracted. The movements used are pans, tracking shots, tilts and crab shows which all have a unique movement to them. The example I have found for this technique is Twenty One Pilots - Stressed Out which has many different movements as the whole video was shot with hand held meaning the camera had nothing to rest on making all of the shot feels shaky and wobbly which give off the effect that it is more personal and less professional made. The importance of camera movements are large as if there are no camera movements all shots would be static, feeling the same and would likely bore the viewer.


Camera angles and shot types are also used in all types of media productions and is using the camera in different angles and distances to give off a certain tone or meaning and is completely dependent on the directors preferences. The shot variation could also include aspects of mise-en-scene. This technique is crucial in giving the the director the ability to make it theirs and give it a specific tone and atmosphere. The example I have for this technique is Justin Bieber - I'll Show You which contains the artist (Justin Bieber) wondering around a beautiful country side and gets various different shots of the views. I chose this video as the location really allowed the director to get many different types of shots to try and capture the beauty of the location. All of the shot are captured to look as its from the artist perspective. All of the shots in this video are diverse and different form the other shots and very few shots are done in the same way. This videos theme is that the artist is free and is able to do anything and is why the location is so open and is also why the shots are mostly from his perspective.  


Mise-en-scene is the arrangement of the set which would include lighting, objects and the settings. This is used to create certain moods by using the set to fit what the songs overall theme. This can be an impact on the finished product as if not done properly the set will look out of place and as result will make the whole video look weird. It also give a tone to the video and would help to invest the audience. The example I have found for Mise-en-scene is Coldplay - Hymn For The Weekend which features the artist performing in public in India whilst background footage shows the main singer walking around the streets of India. The mise-en-scene is extremely important in this video as the setting of India needed to be shown in a appropriate way as most of India struggles with poverty. As India has issues with poverty you would expect the streets of India to be dull with no life or colour, however in this video they mange to find the life and colour in the most poor and struggling places and mange to show the beauty in it.