This document discusses various forms and conventions used in music videos to convey meaning and build an artist's image. It analyzes the music video for "It's Tricky" by Run DMC as an example that uses zooms, close-ups, and artistic camera work to showcase the performer and demonstrate the hip-hop genre. The document also examines LL Cool J's "I Need Love" for its use of symbolic imagery and camera techniques to represent the era and artist's style. Finally, it considers the original "SHOOP" music video for its strategic lighting that enhances the atmosphere without drawing attention away from the content.

1. Ancillary tasks
SHOOP
Forms
&
Conventions

2. Form: elements of structure which
give a media text its ‘shape’ and
meaning.
• The use of performance exists to showcase the
artist, demonstrate genre/abilities and to create a
marketable star image. I saw examples of this in
‘It’s Tricky’ by Run DMC. I used this video as I felt
an 80’s hip-hop video would provide me with a
good example. For instance, there were many
good uses of zooms and close ups on the
performer during the performance element in the
video. Because these shots exist in the video you
are allowed a look into the artists star image and it
helps to give you a further sense of the genre that
you are enjoying.
• The next side shows a screen grab of the type of
close up that I am talking about.

4. Continued:
• Examples of shots doing the same thing
from my video will appear shortly. Firstly I
would like to talk about how in my video,
the performance is reasonably similar to in
‘It’s Tricky’ as there are many close ups
and zooms. This again builds the artists
star image and creates an awareness of
genre for the audience.

5. Zooms and close ups in the
performance element of the video.

6. Another example of form:
• The use of symbolic and thematic material is to help
demonstrate the genre of the artist, and to also present the
audience with an idea of the artist’s individual style. In our
case it helped to show what time period we wanted our video
to look like it came from. In LL Cool J’s video, ‘I need love’
there are good examples of this, with the clothing being of the
time (therefore you can recognize the era 30 years later).
Also, the camera work features many canted angles and
handheld shots which nicely builds an image and clear style.
• In our video we used a lot of colour and retro clothing in order
to create our artist’s image and it worked brilliantly, with many
people guessing the time period correctly. Furthermore, the
camera work was very period specific in our video, and not
dissimilar to LL Cool J’s video, again with lots of canted
angles and handheld shots etc. The editing of our video also
put it into a boxed view, just as hip-hop video’s in the 80’s
were.

7. Example of a
boxed shot in LL
Cool J’s video,
instead of full
frame shot.
Hand held shot in
SHOOP
Canted angle in
SHOOP
Animations In SHOOP
In all of these
screengrab’s
from SHOOP you
can see the
boxed editing I
added.

8. Use of Narrative
• A use of narrative exists in order to create a
connection from the audience onto the artist, and
by doing this the audience is able to gain an idea
of the artists personality, i.e their star image.
• An example of a narrative music video is ‘Love the
way you lie’ by Eminem ft. Rihanna. This shows a
man abusing his girlfriend, and in the video we
learn that there are ups and downs, they fight,
they makeup but eventually the girlfriend has had
enough. This is all from the video.
• My video features a much lower key narrative, with
only slight moments of narrative featuring. For
example, the beginning we have the girls on the
rooftop, they see the boys and Kemi is taking her
pick of the boys.

9. A moment of narrative in
Eminem’s video
The moment Kemi spots the
boys in the club
Now we know
which boy she
wants

10. Conventions: elements of content
which are recognizable from similar
texts
• Artistic camera work, a type of convention
exists in order to create a further image of
the artist and their genre. I touched on this
subject when discussing forms, and a
music video that demonstrates this is ‘It’s
Tricky’ by Run DMC. In this video there
are many canted angles, zooms and
quirky close ups.
• This convention inspired our video, as in
the SHOOP video we shot many things
handheld, at angles and we turned it into a

11. Canted angles and
handheld shots

12. Conspicuous use of lighting:
• The reason for trying to avoid a conspicuous use of lighting is
that otherwise all the attention from the audience is turned
towards the lighting. This is an issue because it prevents them
seeing what you have created technically. Ideally lighting
should be something that exists and adds to the mise-en-
scene, but not something that is noticed, perhaps.
• The actual music video for ‘SHOOP’ by Salt-n-Pepa shows
good use of this, having a nice club scene with lots of bright
disco lights that simply act to create the correct atmosphere,
rather than to dominate the scene.
• Our video to the same song does this in a similar way, using a
haze to mask the lighting a little. What we ended up with was
a nice club atmosphere. Furthermore, the second element
against the coloured wall could have been a potential issue,
with the colour squares dominating the scene. To prevent this
we added lights at the sides and back, which stopped the
colour blocks from being to vibrant, therefore taking attention
away from the actual shot.

13. Original video of SHOOP: club scene,
lights
Our version of SHOOP, in
the club with the colour
wall