Conventions of Music Videos

Different types of shots used in music videos are used to create an emphasis on the artist, location and emotions. Close ups are used to get a sense of how the artist is feeling whilst singing the lyrics whereas long shots gives the viewer a sense as to where him/her or the band are at.

Camera movement is used to trace the performer(s) and follow their movement, the pace and timing of this helps to make the viewer feel involved and primarily makes the video more exciting.

Mise en scene can tell us as a viewer a lot about a song, this helps us to gain an understanding of the music. This includes things like clothing, lighting, colouring, props and settings. For example an artist could be dressed in black clothing, sitting in a room on his/her own and filmed in black and white. The dull colours would reflect the artists down mood in the song, this can also be supported by the type of lighting. It could also suggest that the artist is lonely or isolated because of being in an room without any company. Colour schemes tell us a lot in music videos, they can set the mood of the song and thus create a type of atmosphere. Typically indie/rock videos have dark colours and pop/hip-hop videos have more bright colours.

HipHop/Rap/RnB

In this genre of music we seem to get a reoccurring theme of women and money. Most of these music videos are set at parties or nightclubs and it shows the artist having a good time surrounded by women. Expensive items are also flaunted showing the wealth of the artist and this is also reflected in the lyrics of these songs, lines like 'money over bitches' are used. A lot of over-cranking is used in these music videos to create emphasis of the emotion and the location they are at. Again to show off the wealth and location long shots seem to be used often in this genre type. Bright colours in these videos are used to reflect then cheerful mood. The video below shows most of these aspects especially the idea of the video being set at a party.

Pop

Pop music is mostly associated with happiness, this is shown in the music videos through the mise en scene. Bright colours are often used and the artist is normally dancing around expressing their emotion. The lighting is nearly always high-key to reflect the upbeat music and mood. The editing is normally of a fast pace to create excitement and to please the target audience which tends to be the younger generation. The artist is normally singing in the video and there are lots of close-ups on his/her face to emphasise their joyous mood. Costumes can vary a little bit, sometimes the artist can be wearing quite extravagant clothing to make a statement like Katy Perry in 'California Girls'. Sometimes the artist can just be wearing clothing of the latest fashion and trends. Below is a current music video which has the bright colour scheme and which therefore suggests a happiness about it. The performer has a modern and up to date look about her as shown by her costume, hair and make-up.

Rock/Metal

This genre of music often has a depressing manner about it and this is reflected in the music videos with the low key lighting and dark colours. The bands often wear black clothing and sometimes even dark eye make up to show a sense of evil. Often the artists have dark clothes an black hair but a very pale face to show their lack of emotion. A band known to have a scary nature about them is Slipknot, they wear masks which put the viewer on edge. The pace of editing in this music genre is normally fast to go with the fast pace music and close-ups are used to show the instruments being played. The majority of these music videos are performance. Below is a music video by The Rasmus, the lead singer has the stereotypical rock look as I described above with the dark clothing and hair but white face. The video has consistent low-key lighting.

Choice of Song - 'I Found U'

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Choice of Song - 'Demons'

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Choice of Song

After assessment of our three final candidates we decided to eliminate 'The Great Unknown' leaving us with 'Demons' and 'I Found You'. We decided on this because we struggled to bring together any ideas for a song so mysterious.

With just two songs left now we decided to listen to both tracks over and over and put together brainstorms illustrating the ideas we were getting from the songs. This way we can put both brainstorms next to one another and see what song will be apt to work with.

Choice of Song

After listening to lots of Axwell and Fenech Soler material we narrowed our preferences down to three songs:

• Axwell - I Found You
• Fenech Soler - Demons
• Fenech Soler - The Great Unknown

When deciding on our final choice we had to consider many things, we started off by researching the popularity of the songs. We found that Axwell evidently had the most successful hit with 'I Found You' peaking at 6# in the UK charts. Fenech Soler's material isn't as popular because they're not as established as Axwell are. 'Demons' was 162# in the UK charts in 2011 and 'The Great Unknown' hasn't even been released as of yet. Reminding ourselves that we didn't want a song too well known we were put off slightly by Axwell's track. Then again the fact that 'The Great Unknown' wasn't even released suggests that it wasn't a very successful track off Fenech Soler's album so that wasn't looking too promising either. So at this stage 'Demons' is the favourite.

Next to assess were the lyrics of the songs. 'I Found You's' lyrics appeared to be fun to work with, the idea of an extreme hide and seek came into mind with the man being the seeker and eventually finding his dream girl. However, the fact that it was too well known still put us off. When we looked through the lyrics of 'Demons' there was also stuff to work with, lines such as 'I keep running and I don't know why' and 'Say no! I wanna let go!' we feel we can create things out of. '...and I don't know why' could suggest that the character in our video could be on some form of drugs. Lastly, 'The Great Unknown' is a very abstract song and is hard to find the meaning behind it and therefore ideas aren't easy to come by when listening to this song. Also the music isn't as fast paced as the other two which wasn't to our liking.

Lyrics | Fenech Soler lyrics - Demons lyrics

Choice of Song

As a team we decided that we can't choose a song which is too well known to the public as the most popular songs are already known for their videos. So therefore we have to find a song which is slightly less known and one which would grow on the public every time they hear it. This way we can try to convince the public that our video is the original music video to the song.

In terms of genre of music we didn't want too go for to much of a common sound but more of a diverse and different sort of music to engage the target audience. So we began looking at techno music - techno pop and techno indie in particular. Whilst doing research on this genre type we saw group names like Fenech Soler and Axwell keep propping up so we chose to look into those groups in more depth.

Eminem - Stan (Short Version) ft. Dido

This video is called 'Stan' by Eminem and it is from the genre of Hip Hop. The dark colour scheme with murky greens and grays is a typical characteristic of a Hip Hop music video, reflecting the serious meaning behind the music.

In the video we see 'Stan' writing a letter and we see and hear him rap it at the same time, thus matching the lyrics. Through the song Stan's words become more harsh and he becomes frustrated, this is also shown in the visuals as we see his face screw up.

Also more specifically there is a line where we see Stan with his little brother standing outsidein the snow waiting for Eminem to come out from his concert and we hear the lyrics, 'That's my little brother man, he's only six years old, We waited in the blistering cold for you, four hours and you just said, "No."' Another example is when we hear the line, 'I seen this one shit on the news a couple weeks ago that made me sick' and the visuals match these lyrics by showing a cut off the news.

There is no obvious relationship between the music and the visuals, like the cuts aren't necessarily on the beat and the pace of the editing doesn't change much. Arguably some would say that the pace of the editing picks up in the last scenes as Stan is driving his car, the pace of the music in this section is still the same pace as the rest however. To add drama to these violent scenes strobe lighting is put in, making it appear even more edgy.


Although what is noticeable is that we see Eminem when it's his part in the song and Dido when its the chorus and she sings. As the viewer we are encouraged to sympathise with Dido because she is the one who has to suffer with Stan's obsession with Eminem. To support this the colour schemes surrounding Dido in the video are all dominated by warm colours like yellow and orange. On the other hand Stan is often under low key lighting surrounded by grey and black colours, suggesting that he is the unfavourable character in the relationship.

Although Eminem doesn't feature in the video much himself the whole song is about a fan who is obsessed by him. This is how the record company are looking to sell the track, all listeners of the track are going to remember it for the video with the obsessed fan in. Eminem isn't actually filmed in the video until the end but his face features in it throughout, with posters of him on walls and clips of him playing at concerts.
I believe that the artist in this video is trying to send out a message to his fans, that he cares about his fans but that he doesn't support obsessive fans like Stan. This is expressed through the line, 'And what's this shit about us meant to be together? That type of shit'll make me not want us to meet each other'. I feel that he's trying to portray himself in a positive light as a star who has such a busy life but still makes time to contact his fans.