Music Video Conventions

Generic Conventions found in music videos

Within music, there are several different genres of music and within these genres there are generic conventions upheld.
Throughout the genres, the conventions differ immensely.

Rock
The Rock genre stereotypically uses a heavy amount of close ups on singers, guitar shots, crowd shots and all things that present the band doing a live performances.
As well as this, there are often lots of shots playing their song in curious places, for example on a skyscraper rooftop, on the roof of a moving vehicle or on the top of a mountain.

Pop
The pop music genre often centres itself around a star image. This means that the video will usually use high amounts of close ups a mid-shots of the star of the video, making them the main theme of the music video. Furthermore, there is usually a mixture of some sort of narrative, and lip-syncing performance-style shots of the artists - often with some sort of dance routine etc.

Hip-hop / Rap
The Hip-hop or rap genres also uses the idea of a star idol as their main theme, however it is  usually set in more of a street-style setting, rather than a studio or performance style that a pop video might be. The videos usually involve some major iconography in the video, for example 'Brooklyn bridge' or the 'Eiffel tower' to show some sort of setting and location. Some generic icons seen in hip-hop and rap videos would be the use of cars, chains, money, the colour gold and a sexual view of women.

Indie
An indie music video is usually created using a low budget, and is therefore shot in public places such as parks, streets and fields / forests. This means that is quite normal to see extras in the back of shots of indie videos. As well as this, the videos use a combination of a strong-emotional narrative, and performance shots - often of just the singer on his own or with the band- to break up the story. The videos also often show a frequent use of abstract shots, therefore use a combination of less-frequently use shots such as the 'canted angle' shot or an extreme close up on a performers mouth etc.

'Drum n Bass'
 The drum and bass music genre uses high-paced and quick moving music, this means that there are often lots of fast cuts between shots to present this. As well as this, artists in this genre are often never seen in the music video (completely opposite of other music genres - they avoid advertising the face of the star) this means that the music videos are often almost entirely narrative based or a crowd at a live performance. Despite this, in this genre there is lots of freedom for featuring artists, which means a generic theme of drum and bass music videos is the role of other artists. This is most notably shown in the music video 'end credits' by Chase and Status Feat. Plan B.


Josh lawrence