Survey

Advert analysis

digi pack analysis

Music video analysis

Music videos for presentation

conventions of pop video

summarising music videos

The purpose of the music video 

- promotes a single and, normally, an album
- promotes the artist or the band
- creates, adapts or feeds into a 'star image'
- entertains the audience 
- set the 'meanings' of a song by the use of images

Music videos
- Performance 
- Narrative 
- Thematic 
- Symbolic

Performance

- Many music videos include performances of the artists as part of the video
- often contain shots of the artists performing
- Can be the artist in 'real life' situations e.g warming up. talking, fooling around
- Often includes lots of close ups of the artist and there can be a particular visual style that goes with the artist (a motif) e.g particular clothing, actions, props, type of images.
- often the artist can appear to perform in an unusual place- all lip-synced e.g a field, a rooftop

Idea of spectacle 

Music videos may be considered to be examples of spectacle 
- In this the performers are performing, often looking directly at the viewer. This is called 'direct address'', where they are directly interacting with the viewer.

In the case of men, this involves the look of the character towards the viewer. The male is seen to be addressing the viewer directly. 

The female figure is often an object of an erotic gaze, object of male desire which is a voyeuristic gaze. A voyeur is someone who looks at someone for pleasure. 

Narrative 

- often the video tells a story either that features in the lyrics or is suggested in the lyrics e.g girl dumps boy
- this narrative can be like a mini film, with a beginning, middle and end.
- can suggest to be linked to a story.
- very faced, lots of shots and cuts 
- use inter-texuality with films, tv and other videos
- mimic other film and tv genre e.g horror or sci-fi 

Thematic 
- there are lots of common themes in music videos 
- depends on the genre of music
- rap have lots of streets image 

Symbolic
- use of lots of symbols to build up meaning e.g graveyard... death
- lots of use of montage- lots of images to create meaning sometimes often contradictory 
- lighting often used to suggest mood 
- face paced - often only a few seconds per shot to build up meanings 
- pictures can support or contradict the lyrics 

some other codes and conventions 
- visually stylish- 'artistic'- Mise- en- scene 
- cutting related to the rhythm of the music 
- inter cutting between performance

Types of music videos 
- performance clips/ concentrate on stage performance of bands
- conceptual clips/ based around a theme or story.
- narrative/ mini film idea.
- non narrative/ often dream like, random thoughts around a loose heme e.g lost love, use lots of symbolism.