2. MUSIC VIDEO CONVENTIONS
• According to Andrew Goodwin there are five key conventions that music
videos follow:
1. They tend to include a demonstration of typical genre characteristics
2. There are frequent references to the notion of looking and a voyeuristic
treatment of the female body
3. There is often a relationship between lyric/music and video
4. Often include close ups of artists and the artist will have a visual style that
occurs across their work
5. Can include intertextual references
3. GENRE CONVENTIONS
• My artists genre is singer songwriter
• Singer Songwriters music videos often feature performance or a
performance element, to make the song authentic and demonstrating that
they wrote it
• Music videos often feature a focus on musical instruments, either they are
playing them or others are backing the artist
• Neutral colours are often used as singer songwriter music is considered to tell
a story and is quite a genuine genre, therefore neutral colours are used to
create focus on the topic of the video
• Nature/Urban life are two major themes used in singer songwriter music
videos. Eg- James Morrison made use of Urban locations in music videos, CD
covers and magazine adverts
4. ARTIST CONVENTIONS
• My artist is Ben Howard
• Ben Howard likes to make use of nature in his CD covers, and therefore in his
music videos
• Mise en Scene is very important
• He isn’t often seen performing in music videos, or featuring in his CD covers
like many singer songwriters
5. ANCILLARY CONVENTIONS
• Magazine adverts are often of A4 size, with a very simple design in order to make it
memorable and uncluttered. This is particularly relevant to my genre, as singer
songwriters often keep things simple within their genre.
• Magazine adverts also feature some way to link or contact the artist or record label,
this is often through Twitter links, Facebook links or website addresses. This attracts
people to further search the artist if it is not someone they are familiar with, and gives
a way for the audience to connect to the artist.
• Digipacks are often constructed of four main images for each section of the CD
case.
• There is always a track list on the back of the Digipack, along with a barcode, and
some information about the record label.
• The front of the Digipack mainly features the artist name and the album title, as well
as a main image.
• It is sometimes conventional to add a booklet inside the CD case containing lyrics or
imagery.
