1) The document discusses several music video conventions including artistic camerawork, breaking continuity editing rules, use of lighting, close-ups of artists, lip syncing, narrative structure, length of music videos, and use of special effects. 2) It analyzes how the conventions were used or challenged in the author's own music video and provides examples from other artists' music videos to illustrate the conventions. 3) The purpose of using or challenging conventions is discussed as a way to make artists stand out, sell their star image, keep audiences interested, and make music videos easier to produce.

1. Evaluation Task 1
MV ConventionsHolly Partridge

2. Artistic Camerawork
Artistic Camerawork makes the artist stand out giving
the audience a clear view of the artist.
This gives the artist a star image, which is key in the sale of their
music. This also helps the audience follow the storyline, if the music
video contains a narrative element.
Artistic
camerawork is
shown in our
video through the
use of mid shots
of both our
singers, which
portrays the star
image of the
artist. We also
used tracking
shots however we
cut them out in
post-production.
By showing both of
our singers side by
side we challenged
the conventions as
normally you will
see a main singer
with the other
singer behind (as
seen below in the
Spice Girl’s and
Haim’s MV.
However The
Veronicas also
challenge this
conventions as they
are seen side by
side (bottom, left).

3. Breaking the rules of continuity editing
Breaking the rules of continuity provides a difference from other artists, which sells the star image of the
artist.
We used this convention in order to sell the star image of our artist, which is seen in our music video through our
jump cuts that are seen throughout the video. For example, during the video we have a jump cut that goes from a
wide shot of the girls to a shot of their mid-sections, which is shown in the screenshots above.
This convention is shown in a real media text, Sky Ferreria’s “You’re not the one”. This is shown by the above screenshots,
where jump cuts are used to cut from Sky to a girl’s body, to Sky with a boy (above, left to right).

4. Conspicuous use of lighting
The conspicuous use of lighting creates a different message from our genre of music, as we used it to create a
female youth culture within the genre of our song, Pop Rock.
This shown in our MV throughout, but mostly in both prison scenes, where we used both dark lighting and red lighting.
This is shown in the screenshots above.
Although this challenges the conventional lighting usually used in MV of the pop rock genre, it is seen to be used by a
number of artists. For example: Haim (above, left); Sky Ferreria (above, center) and Rihanna (above, right).

5. Importance of artist CU
The artist close up is used to sell the star image, which in turn makes the audience buy into the star.
Throughout our music
video we have used close
ups of both the artists,
and therefore using the
convention. However we
have challenged the
convention as we use
close ups of both girls
whereas normally they
focus primarily on the
lead singer.
Below are examples of where
real artists have challenged and
used the convention. In Lana
Del Rey’s MV “Young and
Beautiful” she uses the
convention as a close up of her
features throughout the MV
(below, right). However in Sky
Ferreria’s MV “Everything is
embarrassing” there are no
close ups of her, only mid or
wide shots.

6. Lip Sync
Lip Sync is a convention used in all music videos unless it is a live performance.
Lip syncing is done as it gives the audience a highly quality of the song. It also makes it easier
for the industry to make MVs.
Lip syncing is seen in our MV throughout, unless we were shooting a narrative scene, as it made it easy to edit the
video as well as easier on the day of the shoot. Below are two examples of where the artist lip syncs the song in a MV
unless there is a narrative scene. On the left in Sky Ferreria’s MV “You’re not the one” and on the right is Taylor Swift’s
“Blank Space”.
NARRATIVE
NARRATIVE
LIP SYNCLIP SYNC

7. Length of MV
The length of a MV tend to be 2.40mins - 3.30mins. This
is done to keep the audience interested.
Our music video slighting
challenges the convention as it
is 2.13mins long (below, left),
however it keeps the audience
interested and means that it
can be watched more than
once without the audience
losing interest.
Sky Ferreria’s “Red Lips” (left)
follows the convention, being
2.48mins. Taylor Swift’s “Blank
Space” slightly challenges the
convention being 4.32mins
(above, center) however the
narrative is fairly long.
Above and right
are examples of
the convention
from real media
texts.
Lana Del Rey’s “Ride” challenges the
convention, being 10mins long, however there
is a speech at the beginning which keeps the
audience interested (above right).

8. Narrative Structure
A narrative structure is used to keep the audience interested and to
sell the star image of the artist.
In our MV we used the convention and used the projections and the prison setting to tell the narrative story. Our
narrative was that the girls were in prison as one of them had murdered her boyfriend and suffered from
schizophrenia. This gave an effect of female youth culture as well as the exploration of mental illnesses.
Having a narrative in a MV is used mostly in the pop genre and in huge selling singles, with artists such as Beyonce,
Kayne West, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift etc. Above you can see screenshots from the narratives of Justin Bieber’s “As
long as you love me” (above, center) and Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” (above, left). It is less common in
smaller, indie artists e.g. Sky Ferreria’s “Everything is embarrassing” (above, left).

9. Use of special effects
Special effects are used to keep the audience interested and to make the
artist stand out from other artists.
In our MV we used many special effects such as the projection of the newspaper clippings (below, left); the
duplication of Flora in the prison scene (below, center) and the projection of the girls performing (below, right).
Below are examples of when artists have and haven’t used special effects in their MVs. Below left is a
screenshot Missy Elliots “We Run This”, where she used the convention and went on to win MTV’s best
music video of the year. Below left is Adele’s someone like you, which challenges the convention.
However Adele is a singer- songwriter whose voice is so powerful that she does not need any special
effects.