conventions of a music video

Conventions of a music video vary due to the genre of the song. But in this blog post i am going to be writing about the trypical conventions of a music video starting with the: 

• Camera shots/ Movement: Music videos conventionally use long shots, close ups and mid shots. This is for the audience to establish the location used, what emotions are being represented and what role the artists takes during the song. Close ups are normally used in a music video signify the emotions and reflect the words in the music video and regularly used to identify the lip syncing. Conventionally the camera movement will be focused on the artist to gain full attention from the audience. camera movements regularly include tilts, pans, tracking shots and crane shots.

 
 

• Editing: When it comes to editing jump cuts are typically use. This is because this allows the song to move at various paces. For example if the cuts are fast the pace of the song should be fast unless they are intentionally being unconventional. Jump cuts also allows the music video to move from one location/scene to another. Other conventional editing techniques are fade (tends to be at the end of a music video) cross dissolve to establish two people have a relationship with in the music video. 
• Narrative structures: Stuctures also depend on the genre of the song for example a pop song would usually have a story line to follow where as a garage song might not be concept based.
• Costumes: Costumes are used to signify different characters in the music video and reflect the genre of the song. But the outfit they are wearing will potray what they are trying to represent. for example in katy perry's music video this would be conventional for pop songs because of the bright colours used. But in rap music videos you would expect to see them wearing big gold chains, baggy trousers and black clothing.

• Locations: The location in a music video is to connote where the artits is and  what they are doing. But locations also depend on the genre of the music video much like the costumes. For example if the loctaion was on a beach, a party.These things give a feel good vibe and would full under a hip-hop genre where as if it was in a dark basement this may fall under rock.