Post 22 - Forms and Conventions

In what ways will your music video or short film use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of existing music video or short film?

Conventions are the generally accepted ways of doing something. There are general conventions in any medium. Codes and conventions are used together in any study of genre. The reason for codes and conventions are that the audience can become familiar with a particular genre as they get used to recognising the different conventions within a genre. It provides a structure that the audience can understand. To ensure the lyrics of the song fit in with our expectations of the music. The forms and conventions that are followed in a music video usually depend on the genre of the music video. For example, videos for rap music will conventionally include storylines between a boy and a girl or feature scenes in a night club. The music genre chosen is very important when it comes to deciding on the conventions you follow and the conventions you break. 

Codes and conventions

Technical – how meaning is conveyed using

technical equipment

• the way camera angles are used
• different types of shots and movements
• diegetic vs. non-diegetic sound
• the pace and style of editing
• the genre

Symbolic techniques are ways of showing meanings beyond what you can see

• facial expressions
• gestures
• poses
• mis en scene.

Types of music video.

Performance
Performance videos mainly focuses on the artist or band just plainlyperforming either on their own or in front of a crowd. There is no storyline,just a collection of camera angles and movements of the band members. This is popular amongst rock artists videos and are often seen in pop style music videos. A good example of this is ‘Beyonce – Love on Top’ where the video shows the artist continuously performing the song from a variety of camera shots and angles.

Narrative
A Narrative music video follows a story line. There are two types ofnarrative: linear and fragmented. A linear narrative follows the standard storyline structure: beginning, middle, end. ‘Katy Perry – ’Thinking of you’ A fragmented narrative is one that doesn't BUT depicts the lyrics from the song.

Mixture
Mixture – is a combination of performance and narrative. The artists is featured in this style of music video with the narrative of the story acting as the “B-roll”. This is portrayed in ‘Kelly Clarkson’s’ video –‘Since you been gone’.

Conventions of Music Videos:

Camera Shots 

Music videos tend to include many long shots, close ups and mid shots. This is to create emphasis on the artist, location and emotions. Also, close ups are used not only to show emotions but to reflect the words of the song with the movement of the lips of the artist.

Camera Movement

The movement of the camera is used to follow and trace the artist or band. Camera movements include tilts, pans, tracking and crane shots.

Mise-en-scene

This refers to the arrangement of performers and props on stage or in a scene for a production of a music video or any other media text. Mise-en- scene puts importance on the representation of something. An example is, ‘Mad’ by Neyo. The mise-en scene involves him walking down a road alone, being in an isolated room. This reflects the isolation from his lover. Also, the props include hats and dark clothes which represent the down mood of the song. Similarly, the lighting is kept very dark as it is black and white; this connotes the angry and depressed mood. This is just one example of the mise en scene used to give an idea of how mise-en-scene works.

Editing

Jump cuts is the predominant editing technique used in music videos. This is because this allows a sudden change from one scene to another. Similarly, transitions such as fade and dissolve are very common in music videos as they create a different effect to cuts.

Lighting

Some music videos are black and white which help emphasise a particular mood and some videos have artificial lighting which put the artist/s in an enhanced look. 

Props

These are a vital in aiding to add to the scene and create significance on particular objects or people.

Costume

This goes with the scenes in the song and reflects the genre. Costume is an important factor because it has a slight influence on how the viewers will dress because they use some of the celebrities as role models 

Colour

Colours tend to set the mood of the song through creating an atmosphere. For example, dark colours are used more in rock songs such as Kings of Leon and bright colours are seen to be used more in hip hop and pop videos.

Sound

Mainly the vocals of the artist which links with the use of lip-syncing. Sometimes, the video starts or ends with a dialogue or other diegetic sounds which can make it into a mixture between music video and short film. 

How are you trying to conform/develop/challenge to forms and conventions?

Conforming

I'm planning on using many different angles and camera shots, including wides, close up, tilted and long. I also plan on using the Mise-en-scene to increase the isolation of the character by using her surroundings to make her seem more lonely. I am using colour to create atmosphere and mood, by using lighting and colours to make the happier times seem brighter and more colourful, the characters will be wearing bright, happy colours and the colouration will be bright and happy. In comparison to the modern day darkness and sadness portrayed by darker colours, filming at night time. The only time this is changed is when the contrast between the police car and the night sky is evident, in juxtaposition to the past sections. Another convention I am conforming to is one of the main conventions of camera movement. Slight slow motion is commonly used, and I am going to replicate this. I have chosen to do this, as it makes the video feel rather nostalgic and calming. My video is based on nostalgia and past events so this feel will improve the emotional attachment in my video. Finally, in music video, it is common to use narrative clips to interest and entrance the audience. In my video, there will be lip-syncing and commercial exhibitionism as well as a narrative plot over two videos.

Developing and Challenging

It is common in music videos, and most forms of media, to have a romantic relationship. This is how I've conformed to such conventions, as I am focusing on a romantic relationship. However, in mass media, the relationship is usually a negative one that is romanticised to make the audience think its okay. This is how many young people find themselves in toxic relationships as they are seemingly advertised by the media. This is something I think should be tackled to make young people realise that the media is romanticising issues and making these seem okay is in fact not ok. Although this is film, one example from my generation is the Twilight series, these films came out when I was 12 and portrayed an abusive relationship which young girls fantasised over for over 4 films. Edward seems perfect. He’s attentive, caring and, to him, Bella is the only girl in the world. We all want someone that makes us think we’re the most special, gorgeous person on the planet. Nothing wrong with that – except, in this case, it’s full on manipulation. He stalks her, he watches her sleep, and then, when things are getting complicated, he completely abandons her until she feels compelled to put herself in danger just to get his attention. Bella is no better. She’s a teenage girl who is going out of her way to keep a man’s attention on her, to the point where she jumps off cliffs and deliberately provokes possible rapists. Bella is the equivalent of the girl who threatens to commit suicide to keep her boyfriend from leaving her, and Edward feeds right into it. This is not the kind of relationship that should be fed to teenage girls who know no better. My video plans to change the stigma around abusive relationships and violence to show how any form of abuse is not okay. 

Most famous professional music videos often have adult actors, this is seen as professional and I am using adults in the form of police officers but my main characters are teenagers, going against the general convention. This is because my story revolves around teenage issues and since my artist is a friend, I want to use some of her lip-syncing so I can incorporate that into the video so it makes sense that she is the main character. It then doesn't look dodgy when she lip-syncs as its actually her voice.

What has inspired you to make your short film or music video? and how are you planning on integrating and therefore demonstrating this inspiration.

My music video idea has inspirations from some of my favourite music videos but also the songs that I am using, I wanted to create a music video for these songs that Elly has written, I personally love the songs and when I listened to them for the first time I had this idea form in my head of the story that the songs are telling us. Our main inspirations for the idea behind our music video come from already existing videos The first video which has affected the plot of my video is the music video, Bad things by Machine Gun Kelly and Camilla Cabello, also Robbers by the 1975. The plot lines for these videos are both based around a volatile relationship filled with arguing, yet intertwined with positive aspects of relationships. You can see there once was a joy filled relationship before everything went wrong, this is the most basic outline of my videos. The colours within each of these videos, the bold colours and dark tones contrasted with the lighter colours are something I wish to incorporate into my video.

The same idea is used in Shawn Mendes' video treat you better, written about another toxic relationship. The same dark and bold coloured lighting is used in this music video that I want to incorporate, the types of lighting I want to use bright happy colours in the past scenes where the characters are happy and use dark colours where its a negative scene where the characters are toxic and awful.

Two part music video inspiration

The piece of work that inspired me to create my two part music video is this trilogy of music videos that use one long plot line but with different songs that each develop the plot line further based on the songs used. I am to continue my video over two songs but use the songs to aid character development and story telling, in Ellys song 'High time' the song repeats the lyrics 'so pass me another cigarette' I'm going to film my characters smoking. Each song represents something in the video, for example the first song is about loneliness which is where I'm going to have one long tracking shot of her walking around at the party showing how she is alone in a room full of people.