2. PURPOSE OF A MUSIC VIDEO
Promotes a single and album
Promotes the artist or band
Creates, adapts or feeds into a stars image
Sets the meaning of a song using images.
3. BASIC STRUCTURES
A music video should conventionally be 3-4 minutes
with a combination of a live performance, narrative
and other computer graphics.
Many music videos include performances of artists
as part of the video
It was from clips of performances that music videos
developed
Can be a live stage performance, with shots of
artists and audiences
Can be the artists in real life situation e.g. fooling
around, talking
4. IDEA OF SPECTACLE
Music videos can be considered to be examples of spectacle.
This is when the performers are performing, often looking directly at the viewer.
This is called direct address which is when they are directly interacting with the
viewer.
Examples:
In the case of men, this involves the look of the character towards the viewer.
The male is seen to be addressing the viewer directly. He is supposed to be
singing directly at you.
The female figure is often an object of an erotic gaze, object of males desire
which is a voyeuristic gaze. Which is someone who looks at someone for
pleasure. Women in music videos are often dresses and posed in sexual
ways.
5. NARRATIVE
Often the video tells a story either that features in
the lyrics or is suggested in the lyrics .e.g. boy
dumps girl
Like a mini film with a beginning, middle and end
Very fast paced, lots of shots and cuts
Sometimes the story can contradict what is said for effect
6. THEMATIC
There are lots of common themes in music videos
Depends on the genre of music
Heavy metal bands go for dominant clips
Rap will have street images
Female artists have dance sequences
7. ANDREW GOODWIN
Andrew Goodwin identifies 5 key aspects of music
videos that the audiences look out for which is:
Thought beats – seeing the sound
Narrative and performance
The star image
Relation of visuals to song
Technical aspects of music videos
8. THOUGHT BEATS
First step: is to look at the music itself and take into
account the structure of the song
Secondly: the voice of the song, the artists voice is
extremely unique and can form identification it
trademarks that work well with the star image.
