By Jack Whitehead

MUSIC VIDEO PURPOSE, STYLE CONVENTIONS AND TECHNIQUES

MUSIC VIDEOS• Music videos are a way of promoting a certain artist or band in various ways using different styles

and techniques to make them interesting and original.

• The main purposes are to;

To promote the artist(s).

To increase the songs popularity and income.

The music video can be an extended outlet to appeal to a larger audience, for example the Korean pop song Gangnam Style, which is well known for its dance and is the most viewed video on YouTube.

Synergy is where a music video is made alongside another product e.g. a film, a recent example is Adele singing the theme for Skyfall.

Producer strategies is where a music producer wants to change the image of an artist, a music video is an effective way of doing this, for example or Britney Spears’ song Hit Me Baby One More Time which turned her image from a sweet innocent young girl to a sexy independent woman

Artistic expansion is a way for an artist to do something artistic and different to appeal to a larger audience and show their creative side, like Gotye’s Somebody That I used To Know.

CONVENTIONS• Music videos are composed of different techniques to make them unique.

The main conventions are;

Allusion, this is the way something is filmed to look like something has happened, and in our head we think it has happened, but in reality it was just edited like that. For example car crash scenes in movies, using this method still

Links to other artists in music videos is when there is a reference to another artist inside the music video, such as Elvis is the music video Bounce.

Lyrical Interpretations are when in a music video the scene shows what the lyrics are saying, like Eminem’s, Stan.

Most songs do have a deeper subtle meaning, which can be shown through the music video by extending a songs meaning

THE STYLES• Music videos are practically all different but can follow a similar style.

These styles are;

Performance based styles are showing the artist performing like at a real gig, such as All Time Low’s song Weightless.

Music videos with a narrative tell a story to the viewer, for example Green Day’s song Wake Me Up When September Ends.

Music videos described as Surreal have weird and unexpected images in them making them memorable and sometimes fun.

Some music videos are also animated, such as The Killers’ song Miss Atomic Bomb.

Pastiche or parody are videos that aren’t entirely serious and are comedic.

TECHNIQUES• An array of different techniques can be used in music videos to affect the style

These techniques are;

Cutting to the beat is when a series of shots are edited to move with the music or a certain movement is performed along with the beat.

All kinds of effects can be used such as stop motion, like the music video for Fell In Love With A Girl by The White Stripes, CGI and the use of a green screen.

Miming and lip syncing performances are commonly used in a lot of music videos.

Camera movements can also be used in various ways such as making someone seem big and dominant and vice versa.

• Now I will look at a few different music videos from different genres.

The first song I am going to look at is called Weightless

by All Time Low.

The main purpose of this music video was to really get this band known as this was the video and song that made them popular, and on top of that it has cameos from other famous artists from the same industry in it like Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy and Mark Hoppus from Blink-182 at 3:02.

The different styles used are performance and impressionism because you get to see the band performing a lot and everyone just having an a great time and what it’s kind of like to be in their life, but this it’s also a comedic video with the effect of the text that appears around peoples head makes it entertaining to give the band a fun, young feel.

When the band are performing lip-syncing is used and so are camera angles that sweep across the band members but focuses on the main vocalist for example at 0:51, this is to see the members playing but to also focus on the looks of the band members.

• The second music video I am going to look at is a recent song Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus

Now this music video goes alongside the producer strategies technique that has been used on Miley Cyrus to really promote her but to also promote the director Terry Richardson at the end of the video. She quite simply wanted to break away from her old Disney appearance so she was made to look outrageous and wild to generate a media buzz to get herself known again.

Then she released this song which is fairly calm compared to her image in the media, with a lot of white colour and close up shots of her crying at the start of the video to make her seem innocent and almost vulnerable. Cutting to the beat is also used quite often such as at 3:08 and at 1:38

This video is also really surreal with shots of Miley riding a wrecking ball backwards and forwards and even naked, which will generate even further media buzz because it is so strange.

• The last music video I’m going to look at is Waking The Demon by Bullet For My Valentine.

The main purpose of this video is to not only promote the song and band but also the narrative, and how it could relate to some people. The video shows the story of a boy who is bullied presumably because of how he is ‘different’ and eventually the boy gets his own back by turning into a werewolf and killing the bully as shown at 3:34, literally ‘waking the demon’.

I think the band addressing bullying this way would relate to some fans of the band making that fan feel like the band know what they’re going through on a more personal level.

The 2 main styles of the video though are performance and narrative and the two switch between each other with scenes of the story and of the band miming the words to the song and playing instruments, with the main shots of the band being a close up of the lead vocalist staring into the camera and singing making it even more personal. It is also quite surreal also, you don’t really expect the boy to turn around and be a werewolf and that is one of the things that make the video so memorable.