Formal Conventions of Music Video

Sven Carlsson Theories
Sven Carlsson believes that there are two main types of music videos, performance and conceptual. Performance clips are where the video focuses mainly on the artist shows an singing and dancing. Conceptual clips are videos that are somehow connected to the song, usually has some kind of symbolism or meaning behind it.

Performance Clip
Performance clips are usually music videos with a dance performance or song performance or an instrumental performance by the artist. If we can see the artist in the clip then it is most likely a performance clip.

Commercial exhibitionist
The artist can be used as an commercial exhibitionist. This is when the artists image is used as an selling item, by looking sexy, or by there wealth, there fans see them and want to be look/be like them. 

 
For example in the Video of 'Suit & Tie' by Justin Timberlake at the very start of the video we see Timberlake in a room playing a grand piano, it is clearly a performance clip, then the lyrics start and we see him looking back at a woman waving her legs in the air on his bed, and another woman giving him a massage, then we see him pouring himself a glass of which looks like an expensive alcoholic drink, We then see Jay Z sitting on the coach smoking a Cigar. The alcohol and cigar make Jay Z and Timberlake look like wealthy people as generally cigars are associated with rich wealthy people.
Timberlake then slides onto stage and sings about wearing his 'Suit and Tie' he looks stylish and smart, his dance moves are smooth and looks good while doing them, the black white setting makes him look all the more stylish the song is also quite catchy. Audiences that want this image of wealth, girls and style would like this video and want to be like Justin Timberlake and Jay Z. 

Electronic shaman

Another type of performance clip is the electronic shaman this is when the artist is portrayed in a magical way as a character, usually set in an fantasy world and the artist is able to do things they cant in the real world, for example shape shifting. In Katy Perrys 'California Gurls' ft Snoop Dogg we see Snoop dog place a figure into the castle board game, then we go into a colorful fantasy world made of sweets and see Katy perry wearing a dress made of sweets singing, she comes across many challenges that Snoop Dogg creates for her by clapping and clicking his fingers which shows he has magical powers. In the end Snoop Dogg comes into the fantasy world and brings out his army of gummy bears from his castle to challenge the girls but gets defeated. None of this video is in the real world and all in an fantasy world.

Televised Bard
This is when the artist is telling the story of the music video, the lyrics are usually connected to the images we see the artist is almost like the narrator of a story. This Music Video by R. Kelly 'Trapped In The Closet Chapter 1' is the start of 22 part story of how things pan out after having an affair for the character he is playing in this music video, everything he goes through is sung by R-Kelly in the video as we see he is lip syncing. The audience may enjoy the story and may be able to relate to it in a few ways.

Conceptual clips

Narrative Clip

A narrative clip is a music video in which the artist is just singing and not seen in the video, he or she is the narrator of the video and the lyrics link to the Video.
An example of a narrative clip is 2Pac-'Ghetto Gospal', a song about a drug dealing black man that gets shot on the streets, and his story, it goes through his life, how he had a wife and kid that he loved but in the end he gets shot by a rival gang. The video ends with a quote 'remember to keep yourself alive, there is nothing more important then that'. The reason 2pac made this music video would have been to target young black man that are stuck in this gang culture and make them realise that this could happen to them. The story is easy to follow for anyone and is quite emotional so makes an emotional impact on the audience.



Art Clip
 
An art clip is usually a music video that is quite abstract and creative, visuals are important in an art clip. There is usually no lip syncing in an art clip.  In this video by Coldplay called 'Atlas' the images we see are telling a story using animations we see artistic images come to life, the video has lots of striking images that look interesting. The audience would enjoy the creativity of the visuals.

Andrew Goodwin Theories
Andrew Goodwins theory says that there are four key aspects of a music video; thought beats, narrative and performance , the star image, relation of visuals to song of a music video.

Thought beats
This is how we see the sound in our head, the structure of the song, for example music videos would have different scenes/images for the verse and different images for the chorus. The voice of the artist is also a very important part of the music video as the artist voice is unique to that artist only and can form identification and trade marks that work with the stars image.

In this music video we see Eminem rapping the verses later on joined by Dr.Dre, and we see Skylar Grey in a kind of spirit form floating in the air, singing the chorus every time. When we hear the verses we picture Eminem shouting at Dr. Dre to wake up from his coma and when we hear the chorus we picture Skylar Greys ghostly spirit form singing.


Narrative & performance
Goodwin says that the audience tend to make up there own ideas of what the song is about as audiences only partly understand what the songs are about. Through narrative and performance of the artist, the audience stays interested in the video, however lip syncing and mimed actions are still the main parts that make the audience feel that this music video is real.


Star Image

A stars image is how the audience identifies the star,the audience would link certain clothing or dance moves with different stars, so its vital for the star to do wear or do certain moves in there music video as that is how the audiences identifies them.

In smooth criminal we see Michael Jackson's iconic Moonwalk, his famous dance move called the moonwalk, it was first seen by the world 30 years ago at the end of his performance of "Billie Jean" at the Motown 25th Anniversary special. The audience was blown away by it and Michael became known for the Moonwalk.

Lady Gaga, is known for the way dresses, audiences are attracted to her by the 'weird' sense of style, they want to see her new music videos to see what crazy outfit shes going to wear next. This is a picture of her wearing a dress made of meat at the 2010 MTV Video Music  Awards

Relation of Visuals to Song
Most music videos illustrate the meaning of the lyrics by using images to do with the words.
Other music videos amplify the meaning, by repeating lyrics and images and drumming them into our vision.
Some videos ignore the meaning of the song, where the lyrics may have nothing to do with the images being presented in the video, this is called disjuncture.




The Script-The Man Who Can't Be Moved, is a good example of illustration, as he sings about 'see me on the news' and the news reporter is showing him on news, the video shows what the lyrics are saying by showing him as 'The man who cant be moved'.

Deborah Holdstein

Holdstein has two main theories the first called the 'Star' is very much the same as
Sven Carlssons,Televised Bard, Commercial exhibitionist and the Electronic shaman.
Her other theory is that music videos have specific themes, political, religious, romance etc

 

In this music video, John Newman- Let me love you again, the running theme is Forbidden love, as they were part of two different groups there love was forbidden by the members/family so they had to run away, however they ended up getting hit by a van where we assume they died, which shows there love was forbidden, as even after escaping they weren't able to be together.