Generic Conventions Of A Music Video

What Are The Generic Conventions Of A Music Video?

Music is split into different different kinds of genres. A music genre is defined as a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Here below is a list of music genres

• POP 
• Dance 
• R & B 
• Hip Hop/Rap 
• Rock 
• Punk 
• Country 
• Folk 
• Jazz 
• Electric 

and many more...

Characters

Characters within music videos are often a good indicator as to what type of genre the music is. Within pop songs the characters are often happy, doing stupid immature stuff that links to the lyrics of the song. Your stereotypical Rock video will see a crowd at a concert acting crazy and going wild.

Lighting

Lighting in the music videos is another great way of drawing the viewers in. The lighting will either be low, high or natural. Each of these types of lighting will create a different atmosphere/environment within the video. For example a natural light may be used within a video where the artists are in a natural environment such as a beach or the city. A type of music video where there would be low lighting is a rock band or heavy metal group performing at a concert for instance.

Camera

Camera shots within a music video usually jump a lot from shot to shot, to make it have more of an impact on the viewer the camera shots normally range from long shot, close ups and extreme close ups. An example of when these types of shots are used are when the artist or band is shown on screen a close up is usually used. An example of when an extreme close up is used is when someone within the video is lip synching the lyrics. Different camera movements are also used within music videos, from fast track shots to overhead shots to follow the performers or artist whilst they are dancing or moving around.

Editing

Editing is seen as both an artistic and technical process. The artistic part of creating a music video is the selection of what parts of the music video are going to be kept as well as how they are going to fit together. The technical aspect of creating a music video is the editing and copying all of the clips into one single video tape. 

There are two main types of video editing that can be used when creating a music video. These are 'Linear Editing' and 'Non-Linear Editing'. Linear editing is when the producer creates a video in one cut at a time or a series of clips put together to create the final product.