Music Video Conventions

• Mise-en-scene is a key aspect within portraying the artist in a certain light to the audience. This is mainly done through the costume of the artist or band. This represents the artist in certain ways for example if they are dressed casually the audience will see them as laid back and relaxed. If they are wearing an extravagant costume the audience will see them as extroverted and unique. The mise-en-scene can also show what genre the music video is, if the artists have long hair and big guitars they will stereotypically a rock or heavy metal band.
  
• The use of cinematography can help to represent artists in a certain light in the way they are filmed through the use of different angles. Throughout music videos the use of angles are often used to create certain meanings to grab the audiences attention. Close up shots are used to highlight the artist so the audience can recognise them in the future. This helps promote the artist and the song if they are memorable to the audience.
  
• In music videos the editing matches the beat of the song. It is usually fast paced editing though it depends on the tempo of the song. Montage editing is usually used as the majority of artists switch between a performance and narrative in their videos.
  
• The lyrics of the song must match the style of the music video so they can compliment each other. This can help the audience understand the message of the song or vice versa.
  

There are three main types of music videos :

1 - Performance is when the artist literally just performs the song such as Best Friend by The Drums. This is usually used for small bands as it gets the song across easily without having to use a big budget.

2- Concept when the video is more artistic and uses unique and different ideas and stylistics to present the meaning of the song. These are normally done by more alternative artists such as Radiohead who often make concept videos. These are usually for bands with a bigger budget so they can experiment with different technique and effects to convey the themes of the song.

3- Narrative when the video tells a story throughout, usually tying in with the themes of the song. I think videos with a too strong narrative drag attention away from the song which is the main purpose of the video, simpler ones such as Leave Before the Lights Come On by The Artic Monkeys is a good example of a narrative video, as it has few characters and a simple story which matches the song.

My Chosen Song

I have chosen to create a video for Boogie Down by MGMT



Riding in your tank like you own it, oh
You keep on riding in your tank like you own it, uh
I said you know I wanna check out your components, uh
Girl, you know i wanna check out your components

Bombing up the place like you own it, oh
You keep on bombing up the place like you own it, oh
I said you got the good stuff baby, won't you flaunt it, oh yeah
You got the good stuff baby won't you flaunt it, gonna flaunt it.

Said It's cool, you're touching my hand
Yeah it's cool, its cool, where we riding too?
So come on sugar, you're touching my hand
Yeah it's cool it's cool, where we riding to?
So look out

I'm playing my guitar like I own it, oh
I keep on playing my guitar like I own it, yeah
I said you know you wanna check out my components, yeah
That's right you know you wanna check out my components

You're touching on my hand like you own it, oh
You keep on touching on my hand like you own it, uh
I said you got the good stuff baby won't you flaunt it, yeah
I said you got the good stuff baby won't you flaunt it
Gonna flaunt it, yeah

Said it's cool, you're touching my hand
Yeah it's cool
It's cool, where we riding to?
So come on sugar, touching my hand
Yeah it's cool, it's cool, where we riding to?
So come on
yeah come on
so where we riding to?
Yeah come on
so come on
I said, where we riding to?

MGMT are an alternative psychedelic pop rock band from New York started by Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser at college. From then on they have had mainstream success with their album Oracular Spectacular and this year have released their critically acclaimed second album Congratulations which steps away from the pop qualities of the previous album. The song I have chosen is an older one of their first EP which is more electronic than their recent material.

History of the Music Video

In 1894 sheet music publishers Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern hired electrician George Thomas and various performers to promote sales of their song 'The Little Lost Child'.Thomas projected a series of still images on a screen simultaneous to live performances. This would become a popular form of entertainment known as the illustrated song, the first step toward music video.

Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Although the origins of music videos go back much further, they gained popularity and reached a mass audience in the 1980s, when MTV based their format around the medium, and later with the launch of VH1. Now there are around 20 different music channels all constantly showing endless music videos from many genres of music.

In 1894 when sheet music publishers still ran the music business, Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern contacted various performers to promote sales of their song’ The Little Lost Child’. Thomas projected a series of still images on a screen simultaneously with live performances in what became a popular form of entertainment known as the illustrated song. This is thought to have been the first music video. Even today many music videos follow the format of live performances mixed with other images.

According to the Internet Accuracy Project, disk jockey-singer J. P. ‘The Big Bopper’ Richardson was the first to coin the phrase ‘music video’ in 1959. It is no coincidence that the rise of popular music was tied with the rise of television, as the format allowed for many rising stars to be exposed that previously would have been passed over by Hollywood.

In 1965, The Beatles began making promotional clips (then known as "filmed inserts") to broadcast in other countries (mainly the USA) so they could promote their record releases without having to make in-person appearances. On November 23, 1965 at Twickenham Film Studios, The Beatles videotaped 10 black & white promo films. The colour promotional clips for ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and ‘Penny Lane’ made in early 1967 took the promotional film format to a new level. They used techniques borrowed from underground and avant garde film, including reversed film and slow motion, dramatic lighting, unusual camera angles and color filtering added in post-production. This highlighted the fact that these videos were impossible for the group to perform live, their psychedelic mini-films showed the songs in an artistic way rather than trying to create a basic performance that other videos did at the time.

Between 1967 and 1973 promotional clips grew in importance and big bands such as The Rolling Stones and The Who were all making promotional music videos, one of the most memorable being Bob Dylan’s ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’.



In 1981, the U.S. MTV launched, airing the aptly named "Video Killed the Radio Star" and began an era of 24-hour-a-day music on television. With this new outlet for material, the music video would, by the mid-1980s, grow to play a central role in popular music. Many important acts of this period such as Adam and the Ants and Madonna owed a great deal of their success to the appeal of their videos. In this period, directors and the acts they worked with began to explore and expand the form and style of the genre, using more complex effects in their videos, mixing film and video, and adding a storyline or plot to the music video. Occasionally videos did not show the artist at all which was unconventional an example being David Bowie and Queen’s ‘Under Pressure’.

In 1983, the most successful and influential music video of all time was released - the 14-minute-long video for Michael Jackson's song ‘Thriller’. The video set new standards for production, having cost $500,000 to make. That video, along with earlier videos by Michael Jackson for his songs "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" were also was highly influential in getting music videos by African American artists played on MTV. In 1984, MTV also launched the MTV Video Music Awards, an annual awards event that would come to underscore MTV's importance in the music industry.

In 1985 the music video developed further with The Dire Straits song ‘Money for Nothing’ made pioneering use of computer animation, and helped make the song an international hit. Ironically, the song itself was a wry comment on the music-video phenomenon, sung from the point of view character both drawn to and repelled by the outlandish images and personalities that appeared on MTV. In 1986, Peter Gabriel's song ‘Sledgehammer’ used special effects and animation techniques which helped the song become a phenomenal success and win nine MTV Video Music Awards.

In 1992, MTV began listing directors with the artist and song credits. Directors such as Spike Jonze and Mark Romanek all got their start around this time and all brought a unique vision and style to the videos they directed.

2005 saw the release of the website YouTube, which made the viewing of online video faster and easier. MySpace followed with online videos as well in 2007. Such websites had a profound effect on the viewing of music videos, some artists began to see success as a result of videos seen mostly or entirely online. The band OK Go is a key example of this trend, having achieved fame through the video for their song ‘Here It Goes Again’ in 2006, which first became well-known online. Artists like Soulja Boy also achieved some level of fame primarily through videos released only online.

Brief and LIIAR

I will be producing a promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options

a website homepage for the band
a cover for its as part of a digipak
a magazine advertisement for the digipak

I have chosen to produce the music video, album cover for the digipak and magazine advertisement for the digipak.

Language- The language of the music video on a technical aspect are the conventions used. The conventions create a meaning that the audience understand and recognise for example shots changing edited to a beat is a convention of music videos and therefore the audience will recognise this. Music videos can fall into three different rough groups, performance, abstract and narrative. I will be choosing to create a narrative music video as performance can be dull and concept videos usually have no connotations behind the visuals. The language of the narrative is shown by using technical stylistics such as cinematography and mise-en-scene to create different effects and moods to suit the song the video is promoting.

Institution- These are the producers of the music video and the record company who produce and sell the artists work. The must engage with the audience to create a music video which they will want to watch.

Ideology- The music video will project certain characters with an ideology to the audience to consume. Different techniques should be used to create a certain mood and atmosphere which will also have some impact onto the audience. The ideology should also be the ideology of the band so they are represented correctly.

Audience- The audience of the music video will be anyone who consumes it, however the music video is created with a target audience in mind. Certain conventions will be used in the music video to appeal to the target audience. There are various ways to attract an audience such as the lifestyle, characters and the style of the video. There are two types of audience of ways for finding out the target audience, using demographics or psycho graphics. Demographics divides people by the careers they do but i think that this is irrelevant for finding a music video audience. I will be using psycho graphic research which looks at personality traits and behaviour to define my target audience.

Representation- The music video overall should represent the song as music videos are created to market the songs used in them. The video needs to fit the genre of the song and contain some images that have some reference to the lyrics although not all do. The video should stand out so it will stay in the audience's minds which will successfully market the song.The people in the video should represent a lifestyle that would appeal to the target audience which can be shown through voyeurism.