Music Video Styles and Techniques

Music videos use a rage of styles and techniques and in this blog I will be going through them and showing some examples of how they are being used.

The first style am going to be talking about is animation; animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. An example of animation in a music video is this

(animation definition )
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=vss&defl=en&q=define:animation&sa=X&ei=ngvdTI6jDJOxhQeRx5DADQ&ved=0CBkQkAE

This video is a great example of an animation music video as from the start to end its animation. It is a very dynamic video as it had energy and there was always something going on. I think they used animation for this video because they could do things that they couldn’t do in real life as they were able to manipulate the whole city and recreate it as they liked. It’s also a way to make an amazing video without having to spend a hug budget as everything is computer generated. It also has another style which is narrative; it’s a story that is created in a constructive format with in this video they used animation. This is a good example of narrative as you see the story progresses along with the song it also followed the song and showed you visual adaptations of what the song was saying. the fact that they showed visual representation of certain word is good as if someone hears the song alone and they have seen the video when they hear some of the lyrics they will remember the video.

The other style that is used in videos is in concert or as live. this is where a band appears or is to be preforming on stage.A good example of a video which was done in concert is this

this is a good example of a in concert video as the video was done when the artist was preforming live in two venues in two days and they just cut between them and all the lighting was from stage lighting ; you can some times see that the artist goes dark goes because there is a lack of lights on him. I feel this is a great style to use for this song as its a lively and a jumpy track and the fact you saw real peoples reaction to it gives it more energy. they use a technique with in this video which makes it feel more like a music video and that is cutting to the beat. the fact it was beat edited makes it dynamic its a very exiting video. its also a great way to promote that the artist is a good showmen as people that see this video may want to experiences the energy for themselves.

The next style I will be talking about is impressionist, this is a style which sets a mood or a sense of something. its not narrative and is more experimental. bellow is an example which does this

this video sets a mood of sadness and emptiness, this is done by how they have set up big locations which is bare apart from the singers and the dancers. the way that the singers are dressed sets the mood as well because its bland. they use digital effect to create a mood as they desecrated the colour from the video and made it look dark and it makes the mood of sadness more apparent.they also used camera angels to make this video impressionist. when it came to close ups as theyshowed the distress on the singers face; so you saw a lot of close ups but in different angels but most of the angels were from above to make the singers look dominative compared to the location which is quite big. A technique which is used through out the whole video is miming.this is used effective as this makes you feel like the artist is singing to the audience.

this section is all about pastiches. pastiches is when an artists video looks at another style like 80s disco time or period drama . an example of this is a video by snoop dogg sensual seduction

this was a pastiches of the 80s disco years, you can see because the video features Snoop in retro eighties outfits holding a keytar while using a talkbox, this video had also had a direct homage to Prince's "When Doves Cry" video as you see snoop in the same set up and using the same effect of a mirrors screen. I think he did homage to prince as he was an icon of that time. They enhanced the look of the 80s by using chroma key;chroma key is when a video is shot against a green or blue screen to allow the background to be edited on post production. This was done purposely bad to take the piss out and to make apparent that this style is form the 80s. They used very bad camera movements like shaky cameras and crash zooms to make it look bad.

A styles sometimes can depend on the genre of the music.For every type/genre of music there is a different style of video.An example of a genre is hip hop

If you have a look at the video above you can see that this has the typical conventions of a hip hop video which are ;Girls, Money, Cars, Big Houses, Alcohol, Bling and performance based . the girls are also very scantily dressed. The video has a verse/chorus structure to it and uses a lot of common motifs such as tattoos on the rappers.the reason why hip hop has these conventions is because its a male dominated genre which is aiming to attract the male viewers rather then women. in contrast if you have a look at a R&B video which is below you can see a difference

R 'n' B videos are quite glamorised and narration based. the thing that makes the two genres different is that in hip hop it sexualises all the women on it and in R&B videos its different it makes a single women the main character and makes her accentual to the artist in the story.

Providing and withholding information

providing and withholding information is when you try make the narrative more dramatic by giving the audience more information or taking away information. a great example of the two is in 2 drams , one is murder she wrote in which at the start of ever show you see someone being killed or someone planning to kill someone and the dramatic question is will Jessica find out who did in .it also gives a dramatic irony because the audience knows who did it. the other show which does the opposite is diagnosis murder , in this show it doesn't show you who killed the person rather it just shows you the person dead and you have to find out along with the characters who did. they are both crime programs but the fact one provided you information creates a different emotion from the audience as it creates frustration because you know what happened. in contrast the other show withholding it keeps the audience on the edge of there seat.

Editing to rhythm

Editing to rhythm is when the length of time of a shot is manipulated. Most of the time the length of a shot can determine what effect it has and what mood it gives out. For example of you had a fast rhythm of shorter-length shots this would heighten the tension or action

as you see in this clip the fact that they used short shots ment you at the edge of your seat and you want to know whats going on.

on the other hand if you irregular rhythm as you can see in this starting sequence from pineapple express

it can create an uncertainty as the audience don't understand if the film is sinister or not.

Cutting to soundtrack

Editing to soundtrack is when the pace of the cuts are motivated by how fast the song is . what i mean by that is an editor when editing with soundtrack will let the sound be he guide .
a good example of this is a music video .



as you see this music video is fast because the soundtrack has a fast drum beat so the editor is using the drum beat as a guide for him so he knows how long to have each shot before the next.

Point of view shot

A pov shot is made from a camera position close to the line of sight of the character so it shows what the character is looking at.

as you see with this clip the pov shots are done as if the camera is the person , this technique is good because it makes you feel like you are apart of the film as if your in the possession of the character which means the audience identify with the character.A POV shot doesn’t have to be a strict point-of-view of a single character like the clip above ,sometimes they use a shot over the shoulder of the character

if you have a look 11 seconds in you see the character pushed to the wall and you can see the side of the head of the person who pushed him. this over the shoulder pov shot makes you feel your in the scene. unlike the first pov shot it doesn't put you in the possession of the character but rather puts you in the scene and makes you feel like your next to the characters

Transitions

transitions are a way to juxtapose a scene or shots. most of the time they use strait cuts to the next scene.sometimes certain transitions are used to suggest a tone or mood or the passing of time or a different part of the same story, the transitions that may suggest some of those things are dissolves ,l cuts and fades.

an example a film that used transitions is this

as you see they use more then one transition in this clip. you see 5:40 seconds in it uses a cut transition . this is to show the deference between the first scene and the one after that. the other transition that they use is a fade this is 6:42 in the clip , this is to show a passing of time as you see it nearing night and then after the transition its midday.

Montage

A montage is a technique which uses a series of shots usual short and edited together in a way which it compacts time space and information. in recent times it is used to show a time passing . an example of a film which used a montage in this way was rocky

as you see the montage is used hear to show the rise of the protagonist and showing him getting stronger and better , this technique of montage in this clip is used in a way to excite the audience as they see the change of the person.