2. NARRATIVE:
Music videos that are considered narrative tell a story within the video.
Usually they are linear and have a beginning, middle and end. The story is
usually told in relation to the lyrics. Having a connection between the lyrics
and visuals help the video flow and keep the story clear to the viewers.
Music videos that fall in the narrative convention are generally shot in a
wide variety of locations, props and costumes. The type of song will be
reflected in the music video. It can also be reflected by camera angles and
editing, for example a slow song will have slower gaps between cuts as well
as less cuts overall.
I will take this information into account when I film my music video as my
song is quite a slow song. With fewer cuts it will help the editing style match
the tempo in the song.
3. PERFORMANCE
Typically, performances are in the majority of music videos. Whether it’s the
artist lip syncing to the song, like you would see in a pop/indie music video,
or a performance from the audiences’ perspective like a typical rock video
would have.
My video will be mostly performance as I feel that videos that have lip
syncing are more fun for the audience to engage with and therefore they’re
more enjoyable. I will use both performance and clips of
buildings/people/traffic to show daily life and to help the music video flow.
This is called ‘mixture’ in music videos.
4. CAMEO
A cameo is when a music video has a celebrity in it. It can encourage fans of
that celebrity to watch the video and therefore create more hype around it.
Sometimes cameos are subtle and are only found when the audience spot
them. But some are used to advertise the video and therefore make it more
successful.
An example I found of an obvious cameo was Taylor Swift’s ‘Bad Blood’
which has a wide variety of celebrities which were used to advertise the song
weeks before it came out.
5. SOUND
Postmodern theorist Andrew Goodwin said that in a music video, sound
should relate to the visuals. This can be through a story that relates to the
lyrics of the song.
Sound can be added to match the visuals of the video, even if the lyrics
don’t. For example if a horse is shown in the video, even if the lyrics mention
nothing to do with a horse, the sound effect of a horse neigh added to the
background would create that link between the audio and visuals for the
audience.
6. MISE EN SCENE
Mise-en-scene relates to everything in the music video; props, costumes,
lighting, location, hair, make up, outfit of the artist etc.
Lighting can create the mood/theme for the video, it can be very bright and
therefore make the video seem happy and upbeat. Whereas if the lighting is
very low, then it creates a sad/scary theme. Coloured lights emphasise a
party feel which would be more likely to be seen on a girl band music video
as it would match their theme. Lights can be played with to create flares and
make the video have a soft/relaxed theme.
Props help to illustrate the story in the video or sometimes can be the main
focus point of a video.
Costumes, hair and make up all help to create the artists ideal look that they
want. Generally, these things are affected by the genre of the music that the
song is.
7. MISE EN SCENE
Mise-en-scene relates to everything in the music video; props, costumes,
lighting, location, hair, make up, outfit of the artist etc.
Lighting can create the mood/theme for the video, it can be very bright and
therefore make the video seem happy and upbeat. Whereas if the lighting is
very low, then it creates a sad/scary theme. Coloured lights emphasise a
party feel which would be more likely to be seen on a girl band music video
as it would match their theme. Lights can be played with to create flares and
make the video have a soft/relaxed theme.
Props help to illustrate the story in the video or sometimes can be the main
focus point of a video.
Costumes, hair and make up all help to create the artists ideal look that they
want. Generally, these things are affected by the genre of the music that the
song is.
