On Thursday, we were required to watch a selection of music videos from our own choice. But we were not allowed to use YouTube as the source to watch these videos, but the site we used to watch these videos was VEVO. Once we got onto VEVO, we then had to identify common features in music video. After identifying these, we then had to identify 6 key features (conventions) in these music videos and explain about them.
The image on the right is a picture of my notes that I took down of the 3 music videos that I watched.
After viewing these 3 music videos, I found 6 key features that occur in all 3 of them and they possibly occur in a huge selection of them.
1- The first key feature that I noticed was that there is always a shot on the artist/band that is singing the song. This happens because some people viewing the video may not have heard of the artist hence why there is always a shot of them. Another reason would be that the singers need to star in the video because the audience will get the impression of where the artist is and wonder where the singers of the song are.
2- Another key feature I noticed was the speed of the editing that gets used. An example of this would be that in a fast paced song, the speed of the editing is normally quicker than in a slow paced song where the speed of the edit may be quite slow and there might not be a lot of cuts. I also noticed that the editing of the song tends to go with the beat.
3- One other key feature that I noticed was the brightness levels, if the song is a sad or slow one, there are not going to be bright multi-coloured lights which will not set the mood of the song, the audience would expect the lighting to be quite dull and depressing. But if the song is one that a lot of people will enjoy and directed at teenagers, then it could possibly be set in a club with a lot of lights to set the mood of the song.
4- This next feature may not be included in some music videos but the ones that I watched had slow motion effects and flashbacks included. The slow motion effect may be used when 2 people are running that love each other and when they turn to each other, the slow motion effect shows the audience that these 2 people may be in love judging by their facial expressions. Also the flashback effect was used by Imagine Dragons in their song called Demons, in this song there were many flashbacks used to show the audience that these peoples demons were the bad things that happened to them in life before.
5- Another feature would be the costumes of all of the characters starring in the video, an example would be that in a hip-hop, the characters will be dressed in hoodie's, caps and will tend to look like "gangsters". But in a pop song for example the characters will tend to be dressed smart and appropriate. Also women tend to be dressed inappropriately as well.
6- The final feature in music videos would be that the video always suits the purpose if the song, the other 2 songs I looked at was Mark Ronsons I cant lose and John Newmans Love Me Again. In the Mark Ronson song, people may wonder why that song has that name but when they watch the video, they will see that it is set in a casino therefore the meaning of "I never lose" means that they never lose while gambling, but in the John Newman song, the video is about 2 people falling in love again therefore the name of the song.
