Conventions of Music Videos

Conventions of Music Videos

Although our group is basing our videos on Soca music, we had decided to research conventions on all genres, that way, in our video we can add certain aspects of others to get a wider audience, as well as the fact that all video are similar in more than one way.

Mise-en-scene generally sets a representation via lighting, costumes, make up and location, this tends to create stereotypes and false accusations such as ‘Is the video connoting or encouraging sexy women?’ or ‘Is this how the media/producer/singer view gender?’ An example of this would be in KES the band – My girl, is this his outlook on women, or perhaps the director, or it is only in a dream?

Depending on the theme, the mise-en-scene for the music video will differ. For example, in music videos such as Breaking Benjamin – Diary of Jane, the video tends to have particularly dark lighting to fit the mood of the song along with dark colours of the singer and band. In opposition, the ‘Jane’ in which he sings about is surrounded in white, white clothes, white room and furniture etc, this could connote emotions as well as personality. Yet at the same time, both are rather clean looking, which tends to be used to attract the audience to the singer and band.

On the other hand Bigbang’s video, Lollipop, has an extreme use of bright colours, this also includes their costume, make up and location. The lighting is also bright, giving off a happy and hyper mood to the audience, which matches the song and genre. Similarly Eminem’s video ‘Just lose it’ has the same type of mise-en-scene as Bigbang, yet with some songs there are different aspects that contrast.E.g. : ‘when I’m gone’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wYNFfgrXTI&ob=av2e

Some argue that there are some typical conventions of genres such as HipHop videos are usually situated in a club or street with expensive cars, branded clothes and such, yet you also find that although rock videos are at the other end of the spectrum, they too use the same type of camera shots, semi-naked women, and important things to their stereotype eg guitars and animals.

With most music videos, there are usage of more than one shot, varying from close up’s of the singer’s face or other factors that relate to the song theme or lyrics much like in films. However there are some videos which use only one shot, like “”
The camera shots are used to create emphasis, such as establishing the location, the singer/band and also to match the beat or tempo of the song. This also refers to the camera movements, as they tend to follow the singer/band, even if there is no narrative.

The use of editing produces the music video in various ways, e.g. the video would be distasteful if it was all of the singer/band singing [however, there has been performance videos], so jump cuts are normally used to change of scene, perhaps the narrative of the video, or concept if there is no narrative. Some performances like choreographed dancing may be added to aid visualisation and to avoid repetition.

Effects may is used such as slow motion of the women or even men, this can also accentuate the lyrics or the song e.g. bridge, or even with the bass line like in JLS – Club is alive at the very beginning, effects like fading was used to equal the beat, slow motion of each members faces and slides to go to the next scene.

JLS – Club is alive: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w6cYoEu_P4&ob=av2n
Breaking Benjamin – Diary of Jane: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWaB4PXCwFU
Eminem – Just lose it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dcVOmEQzKA&ob=av3e