Friday 27 June 2014

Codes And Conventions Of Music Videos

Music Videos can be categorised in terms of style.

These are:


  • Performance-Band/Artist playing
  • Narrative- Includes story
  • Mixture- Both performance and narrative based
  • Cameo- Band/ Artist features in the narrative but doesn't perform (Foo Fighters)
  • Animation- Digitally (flash)/ Stop-frame
There are a variety of shots and angles used in music videos:


  • A lot of CU's are used and also ECU's of lips, guitar, guitar strings being strummed
  • Crane shots- hovering over stage 
  • Low angles
  • Long shot and extreme long shot
  • Pan/ tilt- moving from different performers
  • Tracking shot
Editing and sound:


  • Music video's tend to use a lot of jump cutting
  • Editing is used to match the music
  • Split screens
  • Diegetic Sound
  • Change in level of sound
The mise-en-scene can vary greatly depending on the genre of music and the type of music video:

  • Props- Performance equipment/ band merchandise
  • Costume- Certain outfits
  • Location- Streets, Venue, Concert halls
  • Facial expressions


Monday 23 June 2014

Analysing A Music Video (1)




Christina Perri- A Thousand Years
A Thousand Years music video by Christina Perri was out in 2011, it is taken from the album The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn- part 1: original motion picture soundtrack. The song serves as the second single from the album.
I have chosen this music video as the song my friend Anna has written for me is very similar. This makes it easier for me as now I know what to look for in this genre.



I have roughly counted and there are about 17 close ups of the artist in the music video, this creates a connection between and the audience and the artist, as well as creating star iconography for the music video , through the visual reminder of who the artist is. the close ups at the beginning of the music video reveals her emotions and exposing herself to the audience with the light of the candle highlighting her facial features in the dark.

The genre is a narrative based music video, it includes footage that attempts to tell the story through moving images that matches the lyrics. the props and location and mise-en-scene also help to tell the story and have to match the codes and conventions of the genre.

I also have to be careful when making my music video as all music videos have examples of visuals complimenting the lyrics, example of it in this music video is "but watch you stand alone", shows a close up of the artist alone in the dark. "For a thousand years, I'll love you for a thousand more" whilst the artist is surrounded by a room full of candles which represent each year she has loved him.
Also there must be visuals complimenting the music. As the pace of the music increases throughout the pace of editing cuts increases as well so the visuals are cutting more frequently, also towars the end of the music video the music slows down and so does the movement of the camera, till right at the end it's almost slow motion and the music fades out.

Sunday 22 June 2014

Selected Production Brief

After close consideration, I have selected brief 1:

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, no longer than five minutes duration, together with:


  • A cover for its release as part of a digipack (CD/DVD package)
  • a magazine advertisement for the digipack (CD/DVD package)
The reason why I chose brief 1 is because I feel like I can show off my ideas and skills with the use of camera, mise-en-scene, sound and editing, as I have more of a rough idea what to do in my music video than the other two briefs. I believe that through this production it will particularly help me with my editing skills as I struggled the most with it in my AS title sequence.