In concert/ live footage
A common format for a music video is live concert footage which gives the video an authentic feel. It is also a way of displaying the vast audiences artists bring and depicts the magnitude of the occasion.
An example of this can be found in the music video for Kings of Leon's 'Use Somebody' as seen below. This has the effect of placing the audience within the atmosphere of a live concert adding some authenticity to the video. It may even draw in potential fans to actually go to concert in the future if the footage they see entices them.
Narrative and interpretive
Most music videos will follow a common convention of depicting an interpretation of the lyrics in the song. Many of these do so with a narrative or story. This may sometimes be a literal interpretation, or may be a story that veers off with a less literal approach. An example of this can be seen with Devlin's remix of 'Watch Tower' that depicts a criminal on the run. Although the lyric do not denote this they do connotate towards criminal activity and prison with "watch tower". Below you can see the video. As people we are naturally captured by stories and so this has the effect of really capturing the audience's attention. It also helps convey certain emotions associated with the song by applying the song to a context and narrative that the audience can understand.
Surrealist/ Absurdist
These videos often have no relation or very little relation to the lyrics and are normally very odd and striking. An example of this is the video for Drake's 'Energy' which merges his face onto prominent people throughout, including Barrack Obama, Tom Cruise and Oprah. The video its self has no relation to the lyrics as in many surrealist videos however does show him in prominent positions. he idea behind it was probably to take advantage of other peoples fame in order to get view. Surreal videos help gain the audiences attention, as they often break certain conventions we notice them more, often finding them amusing. In this case the use of merging Drake's face with other famous artists made people talk and share the video. The swapping or merging of faces seems to have recently become a sort of phenomenon with many apps being created for this specific purpose. Using a seemingly public obsession of 'Face swapping' really caught the eye of the audience.
Impressionist
These videos attempt at capturing the emotions and tone of a song rather than the literal meaning of the lyrics. This makes them considered more artistic and they are often reflections of how the artist sees the world rather than how it really is. An example of such a video would be Kanye West's Bound 2 which features many landscape shots and surreal images in which the connotations are far more important then what is actually seen. The visuals are often very striking and the audience will be enticed by these visuals and will often interpret the video in different ways. Again the goal here is capture the audience's attention with striking visuals. this may result in a positive or negative reaction from the audience. For the video below many people were just confused.
Intertextual:
These are videos which reference other real life events, people or even other media texts. Synergy would be an example, such as a song being purposely made for a film. An example of this would be Eminem's Lose Yourself for the movie 8 Mile (2002, Curtis Hanson). The song features lyrics mentioning the main character and the music video features clips from the film its self as seen below. The audience will associate the artist who created the song with the film. This benefits all parties as it gives everyone involved positive exposure. Fans of the artist may go and see the film and fans of the film may begin listening to the artist.
Alluding to other events or people would also be an example. Another Eminem's Just Lose It for example alludes and parodies Michael Jackson and his appearance in the video. he also imitates him wearing famous outfits Michael used to wear and this is known as a pastiche, the parodying of another aritst style to poke fun at them. At the time it caused much controversy. The video can be seen below.
Animation
This is a music video that uses animation, digital or stop motion. An example would be Kanye West's Women so Heartless as seen below. Animation is often more stylised than other videos. The effect this has on the audience is that they often connote it with child hood cartoons. It also has the benefit of often looking cool and attractive.
Lip sync/miming
Many music videos will feature the artist singing the song. Obviously this isn't recorded live and instead they will lip sync to the rhythm of the song and then the song is edited on top of the footage. Although common in most genres it is particularly important in rap music as an artist's ability to rap the song successfully is a way in which they are judged. This can be seen with Eminem's Rap God, with a section in it in which he raps over 70 words in under 10 seconds. This doesn't have a huge effect on the audience however does make the video sometimes seem more polished and smooth. In this video in particular the use of lip syncing helps display Eminem's ability to rap, showcasing this to the audience and his fans will impress them.
Editing
Music videos are often edited in slightly different ways to traditional films and may even attempt to purposely diverge away from traditional editing as a way of setting them apart. The above Rap God music video in fact won the best music video award in 2014 at the MTV awards. The video contained many special effects for example a portal in which Eminem travels through, and also many interesting cuts as well as sped up motion of him. All of this was to give him 'God' like abilities as mentioned in the song name as well as the song its self being about his superior rapping ability.
The video also couples real life sets with green screen back drops which made for a very diverse video, and there isn't any chronology to most of what we see in contrast to what we would expect from a film. Interesting editing keeps the audience captivated and creates an extremely polished professional music video. For example the slowing down of the audio and video emphasises certain points. The use of portals is very eye catching and an effective way of changing the scene, and in general terms just looks cool.
Cutting to the beat.
A well known convention is that of cutting to the beat of the song. This technique really helps make the video look polished and emphasises the beats and images we hear. Rap God also does this well with the beat its self being rather complicated featuring many different sounds and also tempo changes. Eminem also uses his voice and the syllables in words he says to alter the beat and we often see the cutting of the video switch suddenly from being cut to the musical beat to that of his voice instead. This results in a very effective video and places emphasis on the amount of syllables he is able to pronounce and it is this that gives the song and video flow. Cutting to the beat has a huge effect of the feel of a music video. It makes the cuts far more purposeful, engaging the audience in both the video and the song. In tun this helps merge the two mediums in one.
Post Production effects
Again Rap god contains many of these, like the previously mentioned portals which he steps through. These visual effects are used to impress the audience and catch there attention. You will notice there are many quick cuts in this video and each shot isn't allocated a lot of time due to the high pace of the song. However the section with the portals is a longer shot and comes when the song is at a slower part. This is so the audience are able to really study the shot and the impressive effects being used.
Split screen
This is a common effect found in both film and music videos. It is often used as a way of showing two location at the same time, or even different perspectives focusing on the same place. An example is the video shown by Meese called Next In Line. Link: https://youtu.be/sxkHHxcJaR8
Split screen allows the audience to see two different perspectives at the same time. This is enjoyable to the audience as it gives them an ability they do not posses in real life, and also is an interesting way of giving the audience visual information.
Chroma Key
Chroma Key is what most refer to as green or blue screen effect, the method of shooting footage in front of a green or blue screen and removing the unwanted block area behind and the inserting a wanted image over it. An example can be seen in the music video for Ariana grande's Break Free music video as seen here in the full video and the screen shot below.
As seen in this screen shot the fore ground will have been shot in front of a green screen and then the rocks and sky in the back ground will have been inserted afterwards.This technique gives the video the ability to travel to far away destination and produce striking visuals that often are very interesting such as this alien planet. The audience in turn are transported into the setting of the video, and this odd setting captures the audience's attention and imagination.
Camera Movements
The way a video is shot can tell us a lot about it and the artist. Going back to the Eminem's Rap God we see lots of quick cuts and jerky camera movements that help suggest along with the song a level of mental disturbance which is a common theme throughout most of his music. In contrast using smoother movements such as pans, tracking shots, crab shots and tilts show movement and can create a certain level of flow and excitement. All of these shot types can be seen in Drake's Worst Behaviour video which can be seen below.
The video uses many of these slower paced tracking shots which are then cut when the beat kicks in to emphasise it. When thinking about how this effects the audience it is similar to cutting to the beat. It places emphasis on certain parts of the video and makes for an interesting striking flow. It can also effect the mood for example the antithesis of fast cuts and then long slow shots allows the audience to get into the pumped up feeling this song in particular is trying to create.
Camera angles and shot types
The camera angles and shot types used can also effect how a music video is received as well. For example we see the use of close up tracking shots in slow motion when looking at subjects that aren't drake for example the screen shot seen below.
However these shots are then contrasted with shots of drake walking which are further away to catch his quick movement and aren't in slow motion which makes the shot a more dynamic one as seen below. Again this contrast of shots helps emphasise the faster pace parts of the song and in turn this power emotion of being pumped up transcends onto the audience.
Mise-en-scene
In music videos this is often very striking due to the limited time the video needs to grab your attention and also to reinforce the mood and tone of the song. The Mise-en-scene can suggest different things in all sorts of ways. the actual objects them selves can suggest things and even the colours that feature can tell use a lot about the mood of the song or the subject featured in the video.
A good example of this is the video for The Killers' Shot at The Night which takes place in Las Vegas and tells the story of a maid who is bored of her mundane life. We see the contrast of mise-en-scene here used to great effect. At the beginning of the video we see her surrounded by bright warm colours as she works in a hotel however this is contrasted with shots of her own life which feature very dull colours to suggest her boredom and lack of fulfilment. This can be seen below.
We notice the warm surrounding here and the contrast of her outfit made up of bland colours. This really isolates her and shows she isn't a part of this luxury world.
This is emphasised more when we see her at her own home and again there is a use of extremely bland colours connoting her mundane life and her need for excitement.
Eventually she is taken into this world of luxury by a love interest and we can see how this is exacerbated through the mise-en-scene and the colour pallet.
As seen she is now wearing a bright yellow dress and is now apart of the bright vibrant mise-en-scene we see through out the video. All these subtle techniques suggest moods and feelings to the audience and can effect their mood as well. For example when watching the video we feel sorry for her as she is surrounded by all the glitz and glam of Vegas but isn't able to enjoy it and be apart of it. This feeling is increased when we see her alone in a very dull flat with only a cat. We then feel joy as she goes out and has a good time with a love interest and the warmer rich colours we saw at the start of the video that didn't include her now do, as she wears a bright yellow dress.
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