Conventions of Music Video Genres

Pop: As Pop music is aimed at the mainstream audience - the majority population, it must be easy to view and understandable. They tend to be performance type videos.

- In terms of Mise-En-Scene, we see bright colours in the setting, lighting and costume.

- Close ups of the artist are used to show the happy emotions.
- Artist tends to be lip syncing the lyrics
- There are often dance sequences, relating to the performance style of music video
- Very stylised – costume is specifically chosen to make artists appearance enhanced

Indie/Rock: Tends to be narrative and performance. Narrative forms of music videos are often symbolic and do not literally follow the lyrics, often with underlying messages and metaphorical meanings.

- There is a variety of close ups to show the vocalist singing and other band mates performing, also wide shots of the whole band.

- The Mise-En-Scene of the video can vary significantly, depending upon the artist and the song. It can be bright, dark and sometimes black and white.
- Setting can often be in the studio, rehearsal spaces or even at actual performances of the band.
- Editing is usually fast paced depending on the music (rhythmic editing)
- Casual costume.

Hip Hop: No specific narrative, it is more about a party lifestyle with attractive women in revealing outfits and lots of expensive things such as cars, houses and gadgets. Reasons for this are due to the consumerism ideology behind the hip-hop and R&B genre, which is success and achievement of the 'American Dream'.

- As the setting is usually a party there is often lots of people dancing and alcohol is usually present.

- Close ups are used to show the artists assets like expensive jewellery and also to show them lip syncing
- Mostly wide and long shots are used so that you can see a lot of expensive things.

Micro Features

Sound

Sound is obviously a huge feature within a music video, due to the fact the sound is one of the senses concerned, combined with the visuals to represent either literal analysis of the lyrics, a more metaphorical and abstract analysis or a completely deranged analysis which contains some underlying message of the narrative. In a music video, we tend to hear the diegetic sound as we can often see performance which synchronise with the sound, yet abstract narratives represent a more non-diegetic sound style. 

Editing

Editing of a music video is the stylistic feature that is responsible for the coherency and overall structure of the music video, thus is vital for how the audience analyse the narrative of the video. It will depend on type of narrative that decides the editing style; for example, an abstract narrative is compromised predominantly of a montage, therefore will be montage edited. On the other hand, a narrative-styled music video will need to be understandable by the audience; therefore continuity is an important consideration for a believable narrative.

As I have chosen to do an abstract style narrative, I need to ensure that I use editing techniques conventional of this type of narrative, E.g.:
- Jump cutting
- Fading shots and other transition styles
- Montage editing
- Split screens

Mise-en-Scene

Mise en Scene is what is seen within the frame. Mise-en-Scene is costume, setting, props and lighting, effectively everything visual that the audience can see. The audience may perceive different moods from this feature, as well as producing different meanings without being literal. Mise-en-scene often compromises certain elements of cinematography, such as composition of certain individuals in the frame, known as the 'rule of thirds'. Costume can convey a specific emotion or mood in the video, considering colour or overall pattern included on the costume. Make-up (similarly in with to costume) can convey mood, as well as creating plausible illusions of bruising and cuts if needed and if necessary in the narrative. Lighting also has a similar effect. Setting is an important factor to consider in music videos, as certain setting locations work relating to the genre of the music video. My music video is in the indie/electronic genre; therefore it would be unusual to see settings conventional of a pop music video that is based around the desired lifestyle: large houses, sunny beaches etc.

Cinematography

Cinematography is always relevant to genre's codes and conventions. These differ yet as a generalised stylistic feature are important in directing the visuals and portraying messages to the audience. Cinematography is made up of framing, distance, movement and angles, all of which serve a specific purpose and connote different meanings. The importance of distance in cinematography is the difference between establishing a location with use of an extreme longshot or conveying emotion with a close up/extreme close up. Angles also have significance; low angle shots portray inferiority whereas high angle shots show domination.