Conventions Of Music Videos

Music videos use a variety of techniques to make the video work. These are called conventions and are:

.Imagery which means the artist interoperate the lyrics with the action performed.
.Music videos usually cut to the beat.
.Graphic matches which means that the movement, shape or colour is continued through to the next shot for example in the first shot their may be the colour blue used then in the second shot there would be an image of the sea to link the two colours together.
.Continuity editing or montage editing- the use of shot reverse or eye line match. Or the use of a variety of imagery shots to create a montage.
.Abstract which is visual imagery which represents the mood, tone or feel. For example the colour red to indicate love and romance or opposed to anger and blood.

Key Features

•Music Videos demonstrate genre characteristics (eg stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band)
•There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting.)
•The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style.)
•There is frequently reference to the notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
•There is often intertextual reference (to films, TV programmes, other music videos, etc)

.PERFORMANCE!
.NARRATIVE!
.LYRICAL REPRESENTATION!
.LYRICAL INTERPREATION!