The document discusses reasons for creating a ballad music video and conventions of the genre. It notes that ballad videos mainly involve an artist singing with simple production. This keeps the focus on the artist's performance and emotion. Successful examples like Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2U" use minimal costumes, settings and close-ups to amplify feeling. The genre appeals to older audiences seeking love and heartbreak. Overall, ballads can tell stories simply and afford creative angles while keeping viewers focused on lyrics.

1. WHY DO A BALLAD MUSIC VIDEO?

2. WE SHOULD DO A BALLAD MUSIC VIDEO
BECAUSE...
 Most ballad music videos are very simple and
mainly involve an artist singing for the majority of
the video. This means that we will only have to
recruit one actor to be in our video as most of it
will be focusing on them
 We can make the music video simple but a
effective by using explicit and implicit meanings
as most are about love so we can use love
connotations throughout our video.
 Most pop artists will produce a ballad music video
once in their career so even if we don’t directly
like the genre, we will most likely one ballad song
due to the artist.
 We can afford to be creative with camera angles
and narrative as some involve a love story
between two characters which we can be creative
with.

3. Conventions of a ballad
music video
•
•
•
•
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These are a few of the conventions that are
seen within a ballad music video.
For example, in ballad music video a
convention is that there are often two
characters with a love relationship that
develop throughout the video.
In ballad videos there is a higher
proportion of the artist performance with
often close ups and emotional facial
expressions.
The lighting is often soft and simple to
ensure it doesn’t distract the audience
away from the narrative or the artist
performance which is like the other aspects
of mise-en-scene.
Although I have listed the possible
problems that may occur when trying to
recreate this in our music video I have
then suggested ways around these to show
that we may not get to these problems if we
eliminate and think about them before.

4. SUCCESSFUL EXAMPLES
 Sinead O'Connor 'Nothing Compares to You'
Simple costume and
setting
Just plain black with
minimal make-up
Use of the same close up
camera angle throughout
the whole of the
performance section of
the video (the majority of
the video)
O'Connor's tears
toward the end were
unplanned making the
song and video much
more emotional
This video won many awards such as three moonmen at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards,Video of
the Year (O'Connor became the first female artist to be awarded with it), Best Female Video and Best
Post-Modern Video.

5. SIMILARLY...
The location evokes style
and romance. And
shooting early in the
morning allows you to
focus on Adele in this
lonely and emotional
space
Like Sinead
O'Connor's video, the
costume is very simple
and location is nothing
exotic
The video is
simply just the
artist walking the
streets of Paris
Whole video is shot
in black and white,
again to not
distract the
audiences attention
Because ballads usually have strong and emotional lyrics it allows the video to be simple and to
not be too distracting away from the lyrics. If there were to be loads of dancers and a
complicated narrative it would distract the audiences attention. Meaning doing a ballad has the
potential to be simple to produce.

6. TARGET AUDIENCE
•
Depending on the artist of the ballad, it will change the target audience for the song.
•
If we were to choose a more modern/pop artist such as Beyoncé or Jessie J, their ballads
would still appeal to the pop genre target audience as they are still up beat, where as if we
were to choose a typical ballad artist such as Mariah Carey, it will appeal to much older
woman or homosexual men with experience of love and break up

7. SUGGESTIONS OF BALLAD MUSIC VIDEOS
Lana Del Rey, Young and Beautiful
www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_1aF54DO60
Miley Cyrus, Wrecking Ball
www.youtube.com/watch?v=My2FRPA3Gf8
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YICuUtkjlg (directors Cut)
‘Hot summer nights, mid July
When you and I were forever wild
The crazy days, city lights’
‘It slowly turned, you let me
burn
And now, we're ashes on the
ground’
‘Will you still love me
When I'm no longer
young and beautiful?’
‘We clawed, we chained our
hearts in vain
We jumped never asking
why’