What is a music video?

The purpose of a music video is too create a more visually active version of the song to attract a bigger audience. A music video will keep the song fresh in the audience head as they will remember the visuals shown within the music video. Secondly, a music video will give the audience a better perspective of the artist seeing his/her lifestyle and way of living. The use of a music video will also convey the lyrics and the meaning behind the video so much clearer to the audience giving them a better understanding and better enjoyment when watching the video. A music video is a key tool to promoting the artist. In a music video the artist will show his lifestyle, wealth and success in the videos. This is too convey his lifestyle to the audience making them want he artist way of living. To finish off the artists record label will produce the video and market it to the appropriate target audience. 

A music video follows three different conventions. A music video will either have a narrative which means the music video will display some sort of story which is based along the lyrics. Performance based music videos usually follow dance and alternative pop sub genres. This convention of a music video usually displays large amounts of dancing as the song is best conveyed through a performance based video. The final convention is concept based music video. A concept based music video is when the artist is trying to convey a certain message top the audience. 

Wiz Khalifa

Their are four micro elements that are used to make a succesful conventional music video. These four elemens are Mise-En-Scene, lighting, editing styles and camera shots. Using these four elements the director of the music video can portray all of the themes of the song and also promote the artist at the same time like the rap artist Wiz Khalifa would only portray his wealth and social status. This will build a bigger relationship between himself and his target audience. 

Kanye West - All Of The Lights ft Rihanna, Kid Cudi

Kanye West and Kid Cudi are both rap artists within the music industry whereas Rihanna is a pop artist. However due to the large amount of mainstream artists these two music genre together in a song has become more and more common and is gaining more popularity with the average consistent viewer. The different codes and conventions of these artists will be conveyed through Mise en scene and the 4 different micro elements. 

The opening shots to this music video are in black and white to convey to the audience that this part of the music videos narrative is set in the past. It then cuts to a shot of a little girl walking out of a block of flats. The shot then jump cuts to a series of tracking shots of the little girl walking around the street. The streets are covered in snow and the shot looks very dull. This connotes how it is a cold and dark time for the little girl and that she may be struggling with something. However the girls costume conveys a different idea. She is well clothed and has lots of warm cloths on too cater for the bad weather. This tells the audience that she is well looked after but opens up the question of who is looking after her.

As the music video continues the tempo of the music starts to get faster. The tempo gets faster really quick and then you start to hear the first of the lyrics. In this part of the song every lyric that is heard is shown in the visuals in big bold colourful writing like disco lighting. This conforms to Goodwins theory of having a relationship with the lyrics and the visuals as every lyric was being shown in the shot when it was said by the artists Rihanna. This part of the music video is bright and colourful which will appeal to thew target audience more as they are at that age were they start going out and start to enjoy more of the club scene. When the first set of visuals are shown the main artists kanye west is shown standing in the middle of the alleyway. This part of the music video also conforms to goodwins theory as kanye west displays a relationship between the lyrics and visuals by holding his head.  

Knaye West is well renowned mainstream rap artist. Due to his high popularity and public awareness he conforms to richard dyers star theory. n all of his music videos he is clothed by his record label and told how to act and behave. Although Kanye west is a talented rap artist he lacks any originality due to the strong impact of his record label and what his target audience want to see. Throughout the music video their flashing lights everywhere. This is too match up with the song name and become more clear to the audience that tall of the lights is trying to convey from their fame as they are always in the spotlight. 


Generic conventions:

Girl band - Spice Girls
Rock - Nirvana
R'n'B - Neyo
Boy Band - One Direction
Pop - Lady GaGa
Rap - Lil Wayne
Grime - Dizzee Rascal
Garage - Craig David