Task Two - Understand the styles and conventions of music videos

Andrew Goodwin Six Key Conventions

• Music videos are supposed to show the viewers genre characteristics.
• There has to be a relationship between between the lyrics that are being sung and its visuals, either in an illustrative way, an amplifying way and in a contradicting way.
• There has to be a relationship between the music and its visuals, either in an illustrative way, an amplifying way and in a contradicting way.
• There should be a lot of close up shots of the artist so that he/she can get ideas for their upcoming work.
• Frequently there is a lot of motion of looking such as screens looking at screens and a lot of female bodies being shown.
• On some music videos there can be intertexual references from films if the song has been featured in a film

Once Goodwin came up with these six theories, he then went ahead and published them into his book well known as 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory'.

When it comes to having a music video, they have to fall in to a specific type of category. These categories include:

• Parody
• Pastiche
• Performance
• Intertextual
• Live / Concert
• Cinematic
• Abstract

Narrative

First up we have a narrative music video, this is where the music video and its lyrics tells his or hers audience a little story either about them or something in general. A good example of this tends to be Eminem, in a lot of his songs and music videos he tells a story. In this particular  rap called "Not Affraid"that he created he uses many different references but the main focus here is that he is telling people how he has managed to change his life around. Before he use to feel really down and then got addicted to drugs (this was shown when they were filming when he was on the ground), but he then changes his lyrics to a positive feel which is then shown him standing on a high ground above the town. I think that this song suits well with the category that it is in because of the fact that you have to use inference to understand his story which will then make you understand his story.


Animation

We then have an animation music video, this type of music video has to show a use of animation from stop motion right the way to computer animation, this has to be shown visually. A example that I have found a song called "Opposites Attract" by Paula Abdul, This song was one of the best animation music videos out there when this was first released, As you can see in the video it shows a real human (the lead singer) and she would sing the whole song pretending that the animated cat is there, Once the music video is completed to a standard that the director wants it will be down to the editor to keep that standard. In the music video it differs between a real life background and an animated background. With this I think that this would suit this category perfectly.

Parody



Next up we have a parody of the song created by Macklemore and this is called Thrift Shop, whenever there is a catchy song that has been released there is a high chance that people are going to create a parody of these songs. The whole point of a parody video is so that people can copy an original video and then make it their own by making it funny and interesting. In this one we have the same song yet the lyrics are different and it has been changed to The Pet Shop, if you are able to to make a funny video and change up the lyrics that match the original song and is known as a parody.




Pastiche




Finally we have a pastiche, this type of music video is where the musician and director come to an agreement and choose a set date and time which could either bin in the past, present or future. A lot of the time music videos tend to go back in time, like the example shown above. Skirllex went back in time to the 1900's to the rock and roll times and made his song fit around that time.