This document discusses the conventions and techniques used in music videos. It explains that music videos can feature artists lip syncing and performing, narratives acting out the song's meaning, or mixtures of both. Editing must sync the audio and video accurately. Parody videos humorously change original songs' lyrics and sometimes reference the original's video. Weird Al Yankovic is famous for parody songs and sometimes references original videos. Other parody artists on YouTube use acting, animation, and performance to match changed lyrics.

1. Conventions of a
Music Video
Andrew Laird

2. Music Videos
Music Videos are a useful tool in helping an artist’ promote and sell their
song.
The videos can vary greatly depending on the individual artist and the music
genre of which they are part of.
The genre of a song, and whether it contains meaning will decide what type
of video is created.
O Some videos contain the artists preforming throughout. Usually, they will
lip sync the words but will contain a full performance of them standing
there singing and sometimes may contain them playing instruments.
O Others contain some sort of narrative. This may involve using acting out
certain parts to help tell the story and give added meaning to the lyrics.
This will sometimes be done by the artist but occasionally a video may
contain actors to do the visuals of what ends up in the video.

3. Music Videos
O Some videos even contain a mixture of both performance
by the artist and shorter scenes of ‘acting’ to help portray
meaning and bring out emotion in the audience.
O Some artists/bands use animations in their videos. This
could be used as a constant thing throughout the video or
just little short scenes intermingled with real footage of the
artists’. This method is sometimes used to add humour to a
video.
O Others use the artists/band in the narrative visuals for the
video but do not perform whilst in them. The song is played
over the top of the visuals. An example of this would be the
Foo Fighters.

4. Editing
The editing in a music video is crucial. If an artist is lip syncing in the video,
the editing must be done so that the track plays at the exact time of when
the artist is lip syncing the certain parts of the song. If it is out of sync it will
be easily noticeable. The idea is to get it perfect so the artist looks as though
they are singing it there and then at the same time as the video is being
performed.
The majority of videos use ‘cuts’ which will either be to a different angle of
what is already on show or to a different scene.
However some artists film the video in one complete take that involves no
cuts. Sometimes the same camera angle is used throughout and never
moves positions. This is the case in ‘Bruno Mars’ – The Lazy Song’ but also
some artists film a video in one take but have the camera on rollers and
move about as is the case in Taylor Swift’s video for her song ‘We are Never
ever getting back together’.

5. Parody Videos
The aim of a parody is to turn an already existing song into something more
humorous. The lyrics are usually changed and then a video is created to go
with it. Parodies sometimes are created to take the mess out of an existing
song, be that with the lyrics or the original video.
Although a parody song is all about the new lyrics and video, the key
defining feature is the original song of which it came from. To enjoy a parody
the audience should be familiar with the original song to make it more
enjoyable. Whilst listening to the parody version, they should keep thinking
back to the original and how it compares to the parody.
Parodies are commonly found on the internet. They rarely make it to TV
viewing due to some of the nature of the songs. On the internet there is a
massive liking for parodies as people wish to take time aside from whatever
it has been that they were doing to add a little humour to their lives. Many
parodies can be found on sites such as YouTube.

6. Weird Al Yankovic
O Weird Al Yankovic is a well known American singer/songwriter,
famed for his parody songs.
O Generally, his songs have no reference to the original songs’ artist
or lyrics.
O Sometimes Yankovic will parody the original songs’ music video or
certain parts of the video when doing the video for his parody song.
O Some of his videos are performed by real life actors / himself while
others are created using animations.
O Yankovic often gets his songs played on TV channels such as MTV.
This is a big promotional aspect for him.
Weird Al Yankovic gets his songs played on TV, due to the stature
of appreciation that he has built up with artists and fans over the
years whereas most parody artists’ success is usually withheld to
online hits on sites such as YouTube.

7. Weird Al Yankovic – White & Nerdy
O In this video Weird Al Yankovic mixes clips of acting to
help tell the story of the song and gives an added
dimension of the story in addition to the lyrics as well as
having a sections of the song being performed.
O It is a parody of Chamillionaire – Ridin’ Dirty.
O The song isn’t aimed
at mocking the
original,rather just a
change of lyrics and
a video to go with
the new parody song.

8. Other parody artists.
O This is an example of the kind of variety of music parodies found on
YouTube.
O The first is a parody of Maroon 5’s song ‘Payphone’. It is an animated
video. It carries a story to it that is aimed at taking the mess out of
Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine for the fact the original song is about using
a Payphone and that in this day and age why doesn’t he have a
‘cellphone’.
O The middle video is a parody from ‘Barely Political (The Key of
Awesome)’ that is a parody of Kesha’s song ‘Tik Tok’, This parody uses
acting as a way of help tell the story behind the song.
O The video on the right is a parody of Rebecca Black’s song ‘Friday’. The
lyrics in the parody are about the 2 guys who created it’s lives and what
they do and the video matches the lyrics to the song. They act and
perform during it.

9. What have I learnt from other
parody artists?
From looking at other parody artists on YouTube I
have discovered that a lot of parody music videos
use the convention of having the artists part perform
the song whilst acting out a storyline that fits in with
the lyrics.
For my parody music video, I will take up the same
sort of technique. I will help tell the story behind the
parody lyrics with the help of ‘acting’ out scenes
rather than just stood there singing.