Understanding Music Videos
Purpose of Music Videos
A music video is a video that someone has created for the person that has created some music and what to make a video for their music. The main purposes of music videos is to promote the bands/artists music and them also to make them song more popular to increase their income. When a band or artists make their songs and music then most of the time they will want a music video making for that song make it more popular and to make more money from it. But when they don't get a music video made for their song it's because might not have enough money to make one, no one wants to make a music video for their song or some other reason. Another purpose of music videos is to make people people see who the people are that made the music, what their style is and to see how they perform they are singing or dancing. So music videos help to show the bands or the artists image.
Types of Music videos
There is a lot of different music videos and different types of music videos that have been made for different types of music and different songs. The first music video ever produced was by Bob Dylan and his song was Subterranean Homesick Blues. This was produced on January 14th 1965.
There is a lot of different types if music videos that people use to make music videos. One type of music video is a Narrative Based Video. A narrative based video is a video that mainly consists of a story line relating to the lyrics of the song and the genre of the song as well. The narrative based video technique is a good technique to use when producing a music video and it will be good to use for engaging the audience. This type of video is often used for songs that are featured in films, and when they create a music video they use a lot of scenes for the film that it was featured in.
This is an example of a Narrative Based Music Video. This music video is Bruno Mars’ ‘It will rain’ video. This is the twilight breaking dawn soundtrack. This includes footage from the film being played through a projector in the video.
Another type of music video is performance based music video. The performance based music video is where it features the band/artist performing either to the camera or an audience. this is a popular technique rock bands use as there concerts are usually high energy and there is more interest for a viewer to watch the band perform as a whole rather than an artist on their own. The purpose of using performance based music videos is that they show what the artist/band is and what they look like so the audience will get a better understanding of who they are, what they are like, how they perform and what they look like.
The last type of music video is concept based music video. The concept based music videos are sometimes unusual they are based around one idea. They often concentrate on a specific editing technique.Usually a video does not consist totally of one concept. The purpose if using a concept based music video is that since the music video will only consist of one idea then it will be easy and simple for them to produce the music video.
Styles, Conventions and Techniques found within Music Videos
The styles of music videos are what makes each music video different from all of or must of the other music videos. The style of music videos mostly depends on what the type of music it is that is going to be used for the music video. For example if the type of music is fast paced and very energetic the music video won't consist of old people walking around living their life, it will consist of something like fast cars racing around somewhere and explosions. There is a lot of different styles found within music videos.
One style of music video is an animated music video. The animated music video is a music video that is completely animated with the music in the background. An animated music video takes more time to make then normal music videos so animated music videos are less common.
Another style of music video is surreal. A surreal style music video has weird and unexpected images in them making them memorable and sometimes fun. A surreal music video is made mainly so that people will always remember them because of how random and weird they are. So they become really popular and people will keep watching and talking about them.
An example of a music video with a surreal style is Mister Heavenly: 'Bronx Sniper'. This is a good example of a surreal music because this video has a lot of random and weird images in it.
The conventions of music videos are the different techniques used to construct meaning in them. These techniques can be divided into two types which are technical and symbolic. The technical techniques in the conventions if music videos is how meaning is conveyed using technical equipment e.g the way the way camera angles are used, different types of shots, sound either diegetic and non-diegetic sound, the pace and style of editing, and the genre. The symbolic techniques are ways of showing meanings beyond what you can see for example through, facial expressions, gestures and poses.
The main conventions that are in music videos are Allusion, this is the way something is filmed to look like something has happened, and in our head we think it has happened, but in reality it was just edited like that. For example car crash scenes in movies, using this method still Links to other artists in music videos is when there is a reference to another artist inside the music video, such as Elvis is the music video Bounce. Lyrical Interpretations are when in a music video the scene shows what the lyrics are saying, like Eminem’s, Stan. Most songs do have a deeper subtle meaning, which can be shown through the music video by extending a songs meaning.
The techniques of music videos is also a bit like the styles of music videos because the techniques of music videos is what separates music videos from each other by what techniques have been used to produce the music videos. The technique that has been used in the music videos also make them music videos unique. They also make music videos more interesting to watch they do this by using cool and interesting techniques in the music videos. For example if the technique used in a music video was cutting to the beat and you watch the same music video that doesn't use this technique then it will be less interesting to watch and more people would watch the music video that uses the technique.
One type of technique that has been used in music videos is cutting to the beat. The cutting to the beat technique is where you cut the scenes of the music video in time to the beat of the song. The cutting to the beat technique is a very good technique to use in music videos because it makes the music video look really good and by doing this technique it makes it look like you know a lot of techniques and skills when making music videos. Produces use this technique to make their music videos in make their videos look more interesting to other producers because by doing this technique it shows that are skilful at making music videos so they would want to work with them.
An example of cutting to the beat is The White Stripes The Hardest Button to Button. This is a good example of cutting to the beat because the music video cuts with the beat really good.
Another type of a music video technique is Chroma Key. The chroma key technique is a special effect technique for composting (layering) two images or video streams together based on colour hues (chroma range). This process is often called green-screen. This technique is also used in films as well as music videos. The chroma key technique is a very good technique to use in music videos because using it will allow you to use anything in the background of the video. For example if you want to do a music video and you want someone to be driving a car on a cool and exciting road but you can't afford to go there then you could use a chroma key to bring up the road as the background. So the chroma key technique is very useful and very helpful as well.
An example of a music video using chroma key is Michael Jackson Don't Stop Til You Get Enough. This is a good example of a Music Video using chroma key because it is the first music video that uses chroma key.
