Conventions of Music Videos

In our lesson, we created a mind map of the different conventions we had noticed in music videos. Here are our results:

• MTV Cutting
• Editing matches beat
• Tropes and Memes - challenging
• Multiple locations
• Multiple situations
• Multiple costumes
• Choreography
• Purpose: promote song/band
• Purpose: Sell product (shifting units)
• Purpose: iTunes (£2 videos)
• Symbolism
• Montage, anchored by music
• Lip sync
• In concert - live footage (more naturalistic)
• Pastiche - copy but not exact - style thieves
• Parody - mocking copy
• Homage - tribute
• Intertextuality
• Narrative/mini-movie approach - compressed narrative
• Interpretive abstract approach - surrealist
• Artificial performance (non-naturalistic) like musicals - pre-planned, spontaneous bursts of song
• Direct address by performer - breaking the fourth wall
• Act out story of the song
• Genre affects style