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In this exercise I learnt how to identify the key features and conventions of a music video and the purpose of them.

Music videos are messages to a targeted audience. They are supposed to entertain the audience so that they will want to watch the video again. However the main purpose of music videos are to promote artists and brands, but most of all to make money.

There are three different ways in which you can determine what the relationship between a song and a narrative is, which are:

• Illustration – the narrative in the video very closely echoes the lyrics and music
• Amplification – the narrative whilst inspired by the song adds a new element to complement the song
• Disjuncture – the narrative seems to hold a very little relationship to the song and seems quite random

In addition to this the actual video can be split into a narrative video which is a complete story line , or a performance video which is mostly lip syncing. It can also be a mixture of both.

• Narrative – having little to no performance, based on a story line
• Performance – mostly performing which can be done by lip syncing
• Both – the performance and narrative are completely separate

I have also learnt that music videos often have clashing themes so that it gives the music video a meaning and makes it more interesting for the audience.

Most general codes and conventions of a music video 

• The style (performance, concept, narrative)
• The camera
• The editing techniques (transitions, fast, slow)
• The sound effects (non diegetic, diegetic) Diegetic sound is a noise which has a source on-screen. They are noises which have not been edited in. Non-diegetic sound is a noise which does not have a source on-screen, they have been edited in
• Mise-en-scene (props, lighting, costume, hair, makeup, locations, setting, colours)

Below are the four videos that I studied