The document discusses several conventions of music videos. It begins by outlining the main purposes of music videos as promoting singles, albums, and artists. It then describes the basic structure of most music videos as being 3-4 minutes and combining live performances, narratives, and computer graphics. Common themes in music videos depend on the genre of music. The document also discusses how music videos often tell short stories and can feature direct address of the viewer or use of the "male gaze" and "female as object". It identifies five key aspects audiences look for in music videos.

1. CONVENTIONS IN A MUSIC VIDEO

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.