I decided to decode the work of previous students who did their music video to ‘Message Man’ by 21 Pilots. I deconstructed the music video’s technical production skills; such as camera movement, variety of shot distances and composition. I also looked into the Music Video Convections; such as, Mes En Scene, lip syncing and varied shot transitions.

The narrative in this music video illustrated a tense chase where a boy was running through abandoned buildings and driving around trying to find him. While this video was mainly narrative there was still part performance where the boy who was running away was lip-syncing in dark and spooky locations to reflect how he is also hiding from the pair of boys trying to catch him. I found this music video was a high standard as it was visually pleasing and engaging, the editing made sense of the narrative as they had a fast pace of edit and many different quick transitions such as a whip pan. This fits perfectly with the narrative as the combination of a tense pursuit along side the fast pace of edit makes the video incising and exciting for the audience to watch.

While analyzing the success criteria of a music video I now understand the importance of the convections and using a mixed variety of all of them in order for my work to gain popularity. Using a variety of shot distances, angles, locations, transitions etc. is essential to keep your video engaging and enjoyable to watch. Which will determine the success of your work.

Doing this task and watching a number of different music videos helped me to understand how narratives are conveyed and the convections of music videos. In the process of deconstructing these videos I gained understanding of the importance of convections such as Mes En Scene. This is a very important convection as it determines which audience the video will appeal to. The use of  costume, make – up and settings will determine how the Star imagine is represented for your specific genre and target audience. After decoding these various music videos I learnt that narratives can be conveyed whilst performance is also shown in the video.

Going forward I have learnt the various convections to be contained in a music video in order to make it successful. I will make sure that the Mes En Scene reflects the genre well and that the Star Image in represented in a way to fit the vibe of the song and will entice my target audience. I have learnt that good lip syncing is very important for it too look professional and clean. I have also found that I don’t like music videos in the style of disjunctive as I found that when the narrative relates to the lyrics in some way the story is a lot easier to follow and is also more memorable to the audience.