Research Into Similar Products: Conventions

Conventions of Music Videos

Each music videos follows certain conventions and other times, those conventions are broken or adapted to create the designed effect that suits the music and sends out the correct meaning.

Camera Shots

When it comes to camera shots, they all differ as the camera angle has to be adapted to the song and more importantly, the genre. Music videos usually contain long shots, close ups and mid shots to emphasize the critical role of the artist along with assigning importance to the location of the video as well as the emotions and feelings. The long and mid shots establish the location and enable the plot of the video to move on as well as help develop the message the video is sending out. Close ups on the other hand focus on the emotion of the artist as well as focuses on the movement of the artist to reflect the different feeling of the artist.

Camera Movement

Camera movements that appear the most regularly in music videos include tilts, pans tracking and crane shots. Tilts and pans differentiate the shots and evolve the way that the characters look in the video. Tracking is popular with videos that follow the character or artist throughout the day.

Mise-en-scene

The arrangement of props and characters in a certain location will create different messages that the audience will receive and so it is crucial that they are all organised in the desired way. Mise-en-scene helps represent something for example a group of people, an individual or even a place. For example, most rap/hip hop videos feature similar mise-en-scene. Drakes video for Worse Behaviour has him placed in front of two cars, rapping, there are two men leaning on the car. This represents the black culture and follows with the stereotype of some ethnicities following into crime and being prone to violence. 

Editing

The most important editing technique used in music videos is jump cuts. They help to move the plot of the video along with speed and sometimes add effect of desperation and fast motion. Jump cuts are so popular as they move from one scene to the next without major effect to remain simple. Fade and dissolve are less popular but they do help differentiate the video and add certain effects.