Conventions Essay

Codes and Conventions Essay

There are a lot of different conventions that a music video follows. For example for cinematography long shots are used to show specific locations that are in the music video or to show the full outfit that a singer/performer is wearing. Close ups are used to show the expressions on the singers/performers face but they are mostly used to make the lyrics more obvious and make the viewer pay more attention and to create emphasis on what the singer in the video is saying, the close ups are used to reflect the words of the song.

For example, in Cher Lloyds video of ‘Want U Back’  this is the close up of her face, to make the viewer concantrate on what the lyrics are

This Katy Perry video also includes close-up to create more emphasis on the lyrics on the song, which makes the viewer pay more attention.

 

Mid shots are also used to help promote the artist, these mid shots make it clear to the audience of who the artist is and also their style of clothing as viewers use the artists as role models, they will copy their style, the mid shots help promote these. Also, in this video bright colours are used which is a more specific convention of bright colours to a certain genre of music video.

Tilts, pans and tracking are used to trace the artist, especially if the artist is in a performance video, there would be a lot of movement involved in the video therefore the camera would need to follow the artist, the pans and tilts ‘trace’ the artist.

For the mise-en-scene, props that are involved in the video are used to add to the scene or to create significance, if a prop is involved, this would be a vital piece of information in the music video. The colour of the whole video, whether it is black and white or bright colours or dark colours, sets the mood of the music video, for example dark colours are used for more rock songs rather than something such as classical. The artists costume plays a big part in the music video, because the viewer watch the music videos of the artist they like, whatever they are wearing in the music video, they will be influenced on how to dress by their role models which is the artist in the music videos.

When creating a music video, there are a lot of ways that you can create it. A performance music video can be created; this is where the artist puts on a performance such as a dance to entertain his/her audience. There is also a narrative, this is where the words of the song that have song sort of meaning to the artist or viewer are acted out in some way in the music video. Cameo; this is where the artist features in the narrative but is not part of the story lie. There is also an animation; this is where animation is added to the music video such as cartoon characters of pictures which creates an entertainment music video for the viewer.

With editing, jump cuts are the most popular. These are used most of the time in music videos because it is an easy and quick way for the video to ‘keep up’ with the music, if the music is fast paced, then the music video will need to have very short scenes, with lots of jump cuts. There isn’t very much to sound in a music video, the sound is either the vocal of the artist singing in the video, of the song placed as a track over the video.

For each genre of music video, there are different conventions. The song I have chosen to use in my music video is a Pop music video. The conventions for this are slightly different go general conventions. In Pop videos bright colours are usually used as well as flashing lights in the video, creative settings and backgrounds are also used to make the video look different and unusual. These colours of the mise-en-scene are more appealing to the younger audience that would be the more likely audience to be watching these music videos, they express themselves through pop music, and pop music’s target audience is aimed at younger people rather than the older generation.

For example, this music video from Little Mix, this mid shot of two of the artists from Little Mix shows their costume in the video, this shows the viewer’s their style of clothing. Teenagers look up to the girl band, as role models, they try to dress the same because they think that this is very stylish because this is the way they dress.

The type of costumes that people in pop music videos are innocent, this is so that they are not giving the wrong impression to the younger audience. The artist wants to set a good example for the younger audience because they look up at the artist as role models.

All music video have codes and conventions such as close up, but a lot of the different genres of music video have a lot more specific conventions such as bright colours for pop videos.