Styles, Conventions and Techniques of the Music Video

Think about the following:

Colour
Location
Choreography & performance
narrative (story)
sexual/ violent content
The image of the musician
Representation (gender, class,age etc...)
Humour
Editing
Lighting

POP
Taylor Swift - bright contrast of colours (red heart,) location: beach, innocent early teenage, age: 22,

Hip Hop
Dr dre ft snoop - sexual nudity, representation of the lower class america, narrative of the past

Rock/heavy metal - shaking camera, strikes fear into the watcher



In concert and 'As live' footage
animation: stop motion and cel animation

Illustrative and interpretive.

An illustrative music video is one which will use the literal lyrics as a basis for the visuals. The visuals and the lyrics will have a strong bond.

Whereas an interpretive music video encourages the audience to speculate as to the deeper meaning of the song, by using a narrative which is not lifted literally from the lyrics, and the bond between the two will not be immediately obvious.


surrealist
Surrealism is an art movement which aims to break down the boundaries between fantasy, dreams and reality.




Pastiche & hommage
Pastiche or homage is where one media text (in this case a music video) references another in an affectionate way (as a tribute)



Conventions:

Lyric interpretation;
extending or consolidating song's meaning;
allusion- making reference to other things (pastiche/homage & parody)
links to other artists -
collaborations?

Visual effects

Due to their experimental nature and the freedom of expression allowed, music videos have often been the basis for experimenting with new visual effects

chroma key
green screen