Music video conventions
In the music video culture and industry there are many different conventions that are followed and used, and can be easily identified once you know what these conventions are and become more and more common in new music videos that are being produced daily, whether it be by the A-list top chart sellers, or indie bands fighting for a place in the industry.A man known to label music video conventions and come up with conventions he feels that every music video ever made will follow and include at least on of his theories.
One of Andrew Goodwin's theories is
"A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, which illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics".
An example of where this is seen is in Jesse J's music video Price Tag featuring B.O.B. A lyric of the song says "its not about the money"... whilst these lyrics are being heard on screen is a money tree.The effect this theory has in this video is it makes you respect the lyrics more and what there meaning, and you can visualize and refer to what your seeing as well as hearing.
A second one of Goodwin's Theories is "Genre related style and iconography present". Within this theory he is saying he has recognized that there are any reoccurring themes either withing one artists video selection or within the same genre of music videos. He used JLS as an example, of always revealing their chests in their music videos. He said this was marketing strategy in order of giving them something to be remembered for famously doing.
One of my examples of this theory is American Rn B/Hip Hop/Pop artists. In the majority of music videos within this genre, there is usually almost at least one girl deemed as "Hot" by the media and today's society or many girls, either dressed in there small bikini's around a pool, or in their underwear or very revealing clothes.
Examples of this are;
"Mann- The mack ft Iyaz and Snoopdog"
"David Guetta- Where them girls at ft Flo rida and Nicki Minaj"
General Music Video Conventions
When it comes down to the convention of performance in music videos, there are many different conventions of ways performance can be portrayed. Here are a few:
"The performer is also the character in the music video"
Taylor swift in her music video 'You belong with me'. She is performing her son throughout the video, but she is also acting as the character in the video, portraying the story her song is about. The effect of this is that it makes the video more enjoyable to watch and shows the performer/artist as a different person, and also adds acting to their ability if pulled off well.
"Dance genre dance performance"In dance genre music videos, in nearly every single one of them you will see a choreographed dance routine to go with the music. The effect of this performance convention is that when the audience is viewing this music video it makes you want to get up and dance and build energy which is the aim of the genre of the song. In this particular example it also adds to the artists performance skills, by showing how good she can move/dance... and beyonce is well known for this.
Beyonce- Run the world (girls) is an example of this.
Montage is another convention in the history and future of music videos. An example of this is "Shakira -Waka Waka (time for Africa)".
The music video to this song is created from a variety of clips montaged together in different areas and places. The reason for this is all these different clips that have been montaged together are snap shots from world cups. This song was the 2010 world cup song when the world cup was hosted in Africa. There are scenes and different shots of the real football teams on action in the shot scoring goals celebrating, then it cuts to shots of children in Africa playing on a dusty dirty track with a football, to the public celebrating and showing their support for football. The use of the convention montage enables the music video to bring everyone together and show everything that the world cup involves and how communities and countries although they are competing can celebrate together.
Screen within screens is a convention seen in many music videos, including "Usher ft Will.i.am - OMG". The screen within screen in this video is used to introduce the artist into the video.
The screen seen in the video is an old fashioned television set, and the camera shots make you feel like you are going into this television set like your being involved in ushers performance and feel more there.
