Music Video Theories

1. B Y K A M A L A N D G E O R G E
Our own Theory Of Music
Videos

2. Intro
 Over the vast amount of time we have taken when
completing our research and planning, we have both
watched countless music videos that we have analysed,
discussed and also taken and developed ideas from. We
have noticed things like patterns that happen across the
majority of the music videos that we have made into our
guidelines for a typical music video.

3. First Guideline – Main Artist Focus
 The first of our guidelines for music videos is specifically
what the camera focuses on. Normally in typical videos
the main shots of the video would be focussed specifically
on the artists that have created the song and they would
be the ‘star’ of the video. This has specific links to both
Dyer’s Star Theory and also Carlsson’s theory of the
commercial exhibitionist. This is because the artist would
be perceived as a person that people aspire to be like and
this is shown through things like high key lighting
making the artist look as best as they can. In our project
we will be following this as the narrative will be focusing
on the ‘lead singer’s’ perspective of the story.

4. Second Guideline
 Another thing that we noticed throughout a few music
videos was that the main artist in the video would be
performing within the video. This is normally them
either playing an instrument or singing but can also be in
the form of dancing as well. We have also noticed that
more recently music videos would have a separate story
line and mix it in with the artist performing. This can be
seen in songs such as Rockabye – Clean Bandit, Sean
Paul, Anne-Marie, and also in Say You Won’t Let Go –
James Arthur. In our video we will be having the main
‘lead singer’ performing by singing in the video.

5. Images taken from Superheroes – The Script

6. Third Guideline – Sexuality and Relationships –
Male Gaze
 We have found that, more specifically in videos made by
females, that there is a lot of sexual representation in music
videos. Videos normally try to show relationships between 2
heterosexual characters but instead of showing in more of a
classical romanticised way, it is shown in a more sexual way.
Females are normally shown to be wearing quite revealing
clothing thus submitting to theories such as the male gaze, in
order to try and reach out to a variety of audiences, when
concerning gender. An example of this could be with Nicki
Minaj in High School. An example of a relationship video
could be with Closer by the Chainsmokers (lyrical music
video). In our video we will following part of this guideline as
we will be including themes of heterosexual relationships but
it won’t be presented in a sexual manner.

7. Images taken from Closer and High School by
The Chainsmokers and Nicki Minaj