Forms and conventions refer to the recognisable format of media products which help us identify what kind of product we are consuming. These are things that an audience expects from a particular type of text and also from different types of genre.
Conventions in a music video make it easy for an audience to understand what type of text they are consuming and enable them to situate a song and artist within a musical genre.
As you can see, Taio Cruz music video has different conventions than a Taylor Swift video.
There exist technical and symbolic conventions in music videos that help us understand the text.
Technical Conventions:
These relate to styles of camera, editing and sound
Camera:
- Close ups and extreme close ups help to build recognition of artist (builds star image) and also to emphasize link with music and lyrics (show singer’s face/mouth singing, guitarists fingers playing, guitaring, etc.)
- Medium close ups and mis shots to show body language and costume of artists, this can demonstrate emotions and can connote values and attitudes.
- Tilts, pans and tracking shots to follow the artists as they move around a stage or set, to move from one band member to another emphasizing their relationship/collaborative effort
- Long shots and wide shots to show band in location and props
Editing:
- Closely synched with the song to mimic a live performance.
- Matched to pace of the song to emphasize tempo and emotion of music
- Cut in sync with beat to emphasize rhythm
- Discontinuity editing, jump cuts (as opposed to match cuts) to create high energy and sense of frenetic movement. Can also be divided into repetitive chapters to mimic the verse-chorus-verse structure
Symbolic Conventions:
These relate to mise en scene, lighting, costume, props, etc. They are highly generically specific and embody entirely different values and ideas and their symbolic appearances attempt to create their meanings for a target audience.
Lighting:
- Artificial lighting is extremely common and aften used to give the artist a glow of perfection (clear skin, tanned, etc.)
- Can help create a tone and atmosphere
Costume, hair and makeup:
- Take influence from different trends in society and can set new trends
- Can indicate membership to a subculture: a cultural group within a larger culture, often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture
Props:
- The instruments themselves are highly symbolic and fit into distinct categories that link to other bands that use similar instruments and have various connotations
Sets and Locations:
- Establish the domain of the artist, where they belong
- May also feature locations familiar to target audience to enable them to identify with artist
Colour:
- Can represent the moods of the artist, bright colours generally are feel good, dark colours down beat
- Neon colours: artificial environment, city, urban life
- Black and white can have connotations of ‘classy artists’
Performance:
- The direct address – unlike most media texts the performer looks straight into the camera and this gives a sense that they are communicating directly with the audience
- When combined with slower paced editing and CUs and MCUs, this gives a feeling of intimacy and closeness, like the song is being performed especially for you.
- Tends to have different connotations in different genres but overall a sense of the artists’ message being directly given to the audience.
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