Conventions of Music Videos

There are alot of conventions of music videos, but only a few are used which depends on what type of music video it is. They all can be used but the four that are used the most are Camera shots, Camera movement, Mise-en-scene and Editing.

Camera angles and shots

Shots that are usually used in music videos are long shots, mid shots and close ups, the reason why they are the main ones are because they make the surroundings and the location they are in come to life, also helps feel the emotions within the artist and the meaning of the song. Long shots will obviously be to let us see the location in the music video, the location is important as it has to fit in with the storyline of the song and creates meanings of the song. Secondly, there is Mid shots, this is commonly used to show us the band/artist properly, it lets us see everything they do all the way through to the end of the video, they could be playing their instruments or playing someone or even just standing there. Lastly, close ups are mainly used on the singers, this is done because it lets the viewers feel the emotion in their face as they sing the song and it helps the emotion come out of it. An example could be Biffy Clyro - Folding Stars, in this music video includes all three camera shots. It has been done to let us see the emotion in Simon Neils face as he sings the song, it lets us know that the song is about someone that means alot to him and the location that is shown in the Long shots is very beautiful so this could reflect on how much this person means to him also.

As with the camera shots the same goes with camera angles, the four main ones are tilts, pans, tracking and crane shots.


Mise-en-scene
Mise-en scene is an expression used mainly for the meaning and the emotion within the song and music video. To do this well you would have to link them together and use a metaphor for this. It can be the storyline of the music video or the visual theme.

Editing
Finally, editing is used in every single music video. It can be cutting shots with each other and making sure there are no camera shots and movements that dont work together and it all looks clean cut. Editing techniques are always used in the videos, such as jump cutting as it would cut from one scene then quickly to another, which is a very simple but effective way of editing. Then there is techniques such as fading and dissolving these would be used in the same way as jump cutting but alot less simple as it wouldnt cut straight away to a different scene it would take abit longer. Chroma-key is sometimes used in music videos which is using a Green Screen to make the viewers think the people that are in the music video are in a location they are not which can create a meaning within the song.