Styles, Conventions & Techniques

Style, Conventions & Techniques

Styles & Conventions

In-concert and ‘as live’ Footage

The styles and conventions that come with music videos can be vastly different from one another and can change depending on the artist, how mainstream they are, what type of song it is and if they are from a popular music genre. One type of music video is the “in-concert” (or Live footage) video which is footage of the artist from live concerts and performances put together to make a video. This was one of the first type of music videos used to be a backup at concerts if the acts couldn’t make it for whatever reason; an example of an in-concert video would be “Taylor Swift’s” music video to her song “Fearless”.

"Fearless" - "Taylor Swift" (2010) this music video is completely made up from stock footage from the artists tour performing the song

Narrative and Interpretive

One of the most common music video types is the “Narrative and Interpretive”, which are video’s that try and tell a story that goes along with the lyrics of the song. So if you look at the music video “Na Na Na” by “My Chemical Romance” it is a story about the end of the world and certain people surviving it. Another one is the music video by “Keane” called “Bedshaped” which is an animated music video (more precisely stop-motion) which tells the story of a homeless character who is afraid to return to society through his fear of people.

This music video is the story of the song "Bedshaped" by Keane and bellow that is a picture from the music video by "My Chemical Romance" showing characters within the story and even giving them personality.

Surrealist/absurdist

One of the more niche types of music videos that don’t get shown as much to the general public are Surrealist/Absurdist music videos. These are more associated with smaller groups or singers who have smaller budgets for their videos and are trying to be creative and through that, they have created some weird and wonderful music videos. An example of this is “Florence and the Machine” “Dog days are over” which uses very unusual costumes, make up and set pieces, even though if you listen to the song by itself, it doesn’t sound unusual (sometimes videos are made surreal to make a point or statement) .


 

This is a still from the music video "The Dog Day's are over" which shows just how strange looking the video is just from the make up and costume. This kind of thing is seen in many different videos of the same style

Impressionist

Another more well-known type of music video that we are used to seeing are “Impressionist” videos which very simply are videos that try and get an emotional reaction out of you. They can look for an excited reaction, which are usually associated with big budget music videos that have big musical artists but some of the mainstream songs associated with impressionist videos are emotional ones setting a tone, which a lot of the time is sad; an example is “Christina Perri’s” video for her song “Jar of hearts”.

The tone for this music video is bleak and moody which is exactly the emotion it is trying to get you to feel as it is a sad song; it has a very cold feel to it that seems to be around the artist which, if you listen to the lyrics, is also how she feels in the song. This is all the entire point of this type of music and this style of music video.
  
Intertextual

Intertextual is the widest range type of music videos, often containing references to other things which a lot of the time are films and people; this different types are “Synergy”, “Allusion”, “Pastiche”, “Parody” and “Homage”; all of these types of videos are a way of referencing to other music videos, films and world events. A Synergy video will use real footage from whatever the song is about which is a lot of the time the soundtrack to a film; an example of this is “Adele’s” “Skyfall” for the James Bond film of the same title. Allusion is when a video alludes to events, people, statements or other media pieces; “Taylor Swift’s” music video to her song “Love Story” which is an Allusion of the “Shakespeare” story “Romeo & Juliet”. Pastiche is similar to Allusion but focuses more on a gentle imitation of somebody else’s style and is almost a mix between parody and homage; one example is the music video “Walk” by the “Foo fighters” who did it in the style of the 1993 film “Falling Down”. Parody is music which directly takes the mick out of an original text; one of the most well-known artists for this is “Weird Al’ Yankovic” who’s videos are a directly mocking others, like his song “Like a surgeon” which was a parody of “Madonna’s” music video “Like a Virgin. Homage is the most subtle and most used of all of them and is when an artist uses something (usually a visual aid) and doesn’t quite copy it but does their own take on it. Like the music video “Otherside” by “Red Hot Chili Peppers” is a direct homage to the “Fritz Lang” 1927 film “Metropolis”.

Synergy

This music video by "Adele" contains footage from the film "Skyfall" wich was put together to create the music video.

Allusion

This video uses setting and costume to put it into the period peice that it is and the song then brings it into the Romeo & Juliet allusion.

Pastiche

This video for the song "Walk" by "The Foo Fighters" is a pastiche to the film "Falling Down" which is seen in the story, clothing and what not. This paricular video does boarder on parody but because it is not using the style and story to make fun out of it, it becomes a pastiche.

Parody

This video is an obvious parody of the "Maddona" song "Like a Virgin" just through it's use of lyrics. Taking the tune and a ryming chorus it directly mocks the origional material through and through.

Homage

This video called "Otherside" is a very well done homage to a Sci-Fi classic called "metropolis" directed by Fritz Lang from 1927. It takes the films settings and set designs to give it a chilling feeling that really homages the film.










                                                                  Still from "Metropolis"
Still from "Red Hot Chili Peppers" "Otherside"

Animation

Animation music videos are not actually that common as much as they used to, but still appear occasionally; when they do appear, they are usually in the form of stop-motion animation, much like the video mentioned earlier “Bedshaped” by “Keane”, another example of a stop-motion video is “Fell in Love With a Girl” by “White Stripes”. A music video that uses animation but not stop motion is “The Gorillaz” “Clint Eastwood”.

"Gorillaz"-"Clint Eastwood"

Techniques

Lip-synch

When a music video is being filmed, the artist is required to lip synch to their song and this requires playback. The artist will have their song played while they mouth the words; this is not as straight forward as it sounds, the audio will be changed in speed, tempo, certain instruments and so on if certain effects are wanted to be applied to the music video. If the video has a scene in slow-motion, the playback of the song will be played fast, so when the video is slowed down, the audio is in time with the lip-synching.

This music video called "Run" by "Snow Patrol" has a lot of sequences in slow motion that required lip-synching, even from the opening.

Editing

The editing of a music video is just as important as it is for a film, requiring the same ideas of film, like continuity, match on action and so on. There is even awards given out for “best editing”, most well-known award giver is MTV.

Cutting the Beat

Cutting shots to the beat of the music is a common practise in many music videos, but the use of it will vary depending on the type of music that it is. For instance, in a slow moving emotional song by say, “The Fray”, it will cut on a beat but not on every beat; if on the other hand you have a song by “SKRILLEX” then the cutting would be a lot quicker and would hit nearly every beat.

"Make it Big" video demonstrationg the use of editing.

Post-production effects

A lot of videos have visual, sound and other effects added to them during the post-production of the video to give them an enhanced feeling and to make it look that much better. Different effects are given to different types of music and only certain effects are suited to certain types of music videos. The better a music video looks, the higher the chance you have of attracting a wider range of an audience.

Example of Effect: Split screen

The split screen effect is usually put into effect so you can see two separate events happening at the exact same time; this was a more common practise for film but has more recently been more evident in music videos. This used to be done by projecting more than one image onto one screen, but this has now been taken over by the age of computers. An example of the use of split screen is seen in the “Michael Jackson” music video to “Billie Jean”.

This captured image from "Billie Jean" is displaying split screen in a music video.

Example of Effect: Chroma key

This is when a scene is filmed in front of a green or blue screen, enabling whatever is in front of the screen to be kept on camera, and the background is removed and changed into whatever they want it to be. This can be seen in the music video “Bonkers” by “Dizzee Rascal”, which a lot of the background you can clearly see was filmed in front of a green or blue screen.

Camera Movement & Camera angles and shot types

As music videos have become more and more dependent on the use of exciting camera angles which were not used much in the early days of music videos that just used eye level medium shots and close ups. Today, a wide variety of angles can be seen in a wide variety of music videos; the video to “I’m on a Boat” by “The Lonely Island” has a lot of different shots during the whole thing, including angles, distance, and the type of camera movement to tracking, birds eye, hand held, steady hand and so on.

Mise-en-scene

The mise-en-scene is how the scene has been set up and what is in it; this includes props, people and location. The mise-en-scene is designed to set the mood for the music video and is there to suit the song; if there is a sad song, there might be rain (which is known as a pathetic fallacy); again with the music video by “The Lonely Island”, it suited the songs mood and pace.