Forms + Conventions/Basic Theories

BASIC FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF A MUSIC VIDEO

Lyrics: establish a general feeling/mood/sense of subject rather than a meaning

Music: tempo often drives the editing

Genre: might be reflected in types of mise-en-scene, themes, performance, camera and editing styles

Camerawork: has an impact on meaning. Movement, angle and shot distance all play a part in the representation of the artist/band (close-ups dominate)

Editing: the most common form is fast-cut montage, rendering many of the images impossible to grasp on first viewing, so ensuring multiple viewing. Often enhancing the editing are digital effects, which play with the original images to offer different kinds of pleasure for the audience.

Intertextuality: not all audiences will spot a reference, which would not significantly detract from their pleasure in the text itself, but greater pleasure might be derived by those who recognise the reference. It also increases the audience’s engagement with, and attentiveness to the product.

Exhibitionism: The apparently more powerful independent female artists of recent years have added to the complexity of the politics of looking and gender/cultural debates, by being at once sexually provocative and apparently in control of, and inviting, a sexualised gaze.

Theories
ANDREW GOODWIN’S THEORY
- Visuals either illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics and music
- Genres often have their own music style/iconography
- Close-ups should always be included
- The artist/band might want to develop their own star iconography, which becomes their star image
- Voyeurism is a common theme within music videos
- Intertextual references are also popular

Goodwin argues that the female performer is frequently objectified principally for display purposes, often through a combination of camerawork and editing with fragmented body shots emphasising a sexualised treatment of the star.

STEVE ARCHER’S THEORY
- There needs to be a strong and coherent relationship between narrative and performance in music promos.
- Music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band
- A carefully choreographed dance might be part of the artist’s performance or an extra aspect of the video designed to aid visualisation and the ‘repeatability’ factor.

JOHN STEWART’S THEORY
- The music video has the aesthetics of a TV commercial, with lots of close-ups and lighting being used to focus on the star’s face.
- He sees visual reference in music video as coming from a range of sources, although the three most frequent are perhaps cinema, fashion and art photography.

Stewart’s description of the music video as ‘incorporating, raiding and reconstructing’ is essentially the essence of Intertextuality, using something with which the audience may be familiar, to generate both nostalgic associations and new meanings.
The video allows more access to the performer than a stage performance can. The mise-en-scene, in particular, can be used to emphasise an aspirational lifestyle.