Out of the Box Production
CODES & CONVENTIONS
CODES AND CONVENTIONS OF A MUSIC VIDEO
Codes and conventions of music videos are generally the style, camera, sound (both diegetic and non-diegetic), mise en scene, editing and stereotyping. However, depending on the genre and style of the video, these conventions can shift slightly. The reason we have codes and conventions in music videos is to create a foundation or structure that the audience can understand, as well as allowing them to familiarise themselves with a specific genre. Conventionally a video will last the length of a song, although more narrative videos will have added scenes to tell more of a story.
Moreover, is makes sure that a songs message and lyrics are represented in the video, so a heavy rock song will have relatable, stereotypical themes in the video, instead of something that would be completely unexpected (although every now and then a video will completely defy codes and conventions). Music videos can either follow conventions, which most do, or attempt to challenge hegemonic norms. Voyeurism of females is a common feature in music videos, especially the pop or hip-hop genre. This can be shown through clothing choices and camera angles/shots, such as close up of lips. Most music videos will conform to stereotypes as it is such an easy thing to do and most will just naturally fall that way. The two types of techniques used to contrast meaning in the codes and conventions of music videos are technical and symbolic.
Technical
Technical equipment can portray meaning through camera angles, shots, sounds, editing styles and the genre which can be used in a particular way to convey a particular meaning in the music video.
Symbolic
This is more mise en scene, such as facial expressions, body language and gestures. These more visual and more ambiguous features also convey meaning beyond what you can see.
Narrative
A narrative video is one that tells a story. It could be either linear or fragmented. A linear narrative will follow conventions of a story starting from beginning, to middle to end. A fragmented narrative is one that does not follow this order it could either be end to beginning, or more random. Most music videos will tell a narrative even if it is a little more abstract, as telling a story through the use of the lyrics and style of the song which is quite common. A story-based video will potentially have many props and locations, it will reflect the style of the song, so a sad emotional song will have a sad emotional storyline.
A very obvious example of a narrative video is ‘Knights of Cydonia’ – Muse. This video is very postmodern and ironic, but the sarcastic story is so obvious and over exaggerated. The cattle punk western style mixed with futuristic si-fi tells a story where a cowboy meets a woman and then a villain captures her, causing him to have to rescue her. It has a very standard linear story line that is set out like a film with credits at the end.
A performance video will consist of mainly the artist performing, however, many videos will have sections flaked into the video of the artist performing. Performance videos are good promotion for the artist or band and allow the audience to familiarize themselves with the artist. However, a video solely based on performance alone is not that popular as it is seen as boring from an audience point of view, so a video is more likely to mix a narrative and performance together.
An example of this is ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ – Guns N’ Roses. The video is in black and white and is simply the band performing the song in a ‘behind the scenes’ style. The video itself is has no complicated narrative, and meets all the conventions of a performance video such as close ups of people singing and playing instruments.
Mixture
This is a combination of both performance and narrative, which is so much more common in music videos as it has the best of both. It has a story to engage the audience and gives them the chance to connect with the video, as well as promoting and familiarising the artist as a brand and with the audience. This merging of two conventions to create another convention is popular and allows room for a video to have many elements to it to keep people entertained. An example is ‘Sugar, We’re Going Down’ – Fall Out Boy. The video’s narrative is of an outcast boy with antlers who falls for a girl, but her father disapproves, in the end it turns out the father is part animal as well. The performance aspect is Fall Out Boy singing and playing in a log cabin room. It follows the conventions, that the narrative is told and showed, whilst the band or artist perform in a separate or sometimes linked location. The shots cut to the beat between the band playing in time to the song and the narrative.
Cameo
A cameo is when another famous person, in a music video it is likely to be another artist, who features in a video, but does not actual perform. It is a clever and easy way a crating hype and talk for a video or song, by doing quite little. It is enjoyable for the audience as they can spot a cameo, potentially of someone they like, and this can be quite satisfying. Typically a cameo is done in a subtle way, it directly draws attention to the cameo, and makes it very clear, but it does not normally make it obvious in the video that there is a cameo (although some have done it, but it is generally done in an ironic way).
A perfect example, flooded with cameos is ‘B*tch I’m Madonna’ – Madonna Ft Nicki Minaj. The video itself is very colourful and is filled with people dancing and having a fun time. However, scattered throughout the video are small cameos from many different famous people such as Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, Rita Ora, Chris Rock, Kanye West and a couple more. The amount of cameos in this video is quite unique and will really attract an audience’s attention.
Camera
Camera movement, shots and angles are so important in a music video, the way in which a scene is shot is crucial to a music video. Typically a music video will have many different camera angles, shots and movements to create its own style. Moreover, conventionally, the camera will always be moving in some way, it could be zooming in, or a pan, track, dolly, etc. There will be still shots, most probably when the video needs to focus on something e.g. a face or a prop. The only exception for a completely still camera is if a video is shot entirely with green screen such as ‘Price Tag’ – Jessie J. The camera movements will be added in postproduction.
CAMERA SHOTS:
Extreme long shot: This can be taken from as much as a quarter of a mile away, and is generally used as a scene-setting, establishing shot. It normally shows an exterior, e.g. the outside of a building, or a landscape. There will be very little detail visible in the shot. It is meant to give a general impression rather than specific information.
Long Shot: This category includes the full shot showing the entire human body, with the head near the top of the frame and the feet near the bottom. While the focus is on characters, plenty of background detail still emerges.
Medium Shot: Contains a figure from the knees/waist up and is normally used for dialogue scenes, or to show some detail of action. This gives slightly more focus to the face, clothes and background. It is a very common shot to use.
Over the Shoulder Shot: Positions the camera behind one figure, revealing the other figure and part of the first figure's back, head and shoulder. Usually, the shot will be used in a conversation of characters in a video.
Close-Up: This shows very little background and concentrates on either a face, or a specific detail of mise en scène. Everything else is just a blur in the background. This shot magnifies the object and shows the importance of things, be it words written on a paper, or the expression on someone's face. It is a very important shot as it can convey a lot of emotion if it is a close up of someone’s face.
Extreme Close-Up: An extreme version of the close up, generally magnifying beyond what the human eye would experience in reality. An extreme close-up of a face, for instance, would show only the mouth or eyes, with no background detail. This is a very artful shot, and can be used for dramatic effect as well as being quite intimate and can be used to sexualise a person.
Group Shot: This will be a wide or long shot, but it will show a large group, possibly for a dance routine or for a band.
Point of View: The camera acts as though it is the eyes of the artist or character, it shows the view from the subject’s perspective.
Cut in: A shot will cut to some other part of the subject, e.g. their hands, feet, etc. This could be used for voyeurism of females to focus on parts of their body to seem sexual. It is also generally used for many other reasons.
Cut away: This will cut away to something other than the subject to show what is going on around them, it could be a eye-line match or just a break from the main action.
CAMERA ANGLES:
Eye-Level: This is a very neutral, standard view, as it acts as the real world angle that the audience is used to, it shows the subject how we would expect to see them in real life. As it is such a normal angle it is the most common angle in videos.
High Angle: A high angle shows the subject from above, so the camera is angled down towards the subject. This has the effect of diminishing the subject, making them appear less powerful, less significant or even submissive.
Low Angle: This serves as the opposite to the high angle and it shows the subject from a below point of view, giving the impression they are more superior or dominant.
Bird's Eye: The camera is angled directly above the subject or scene. It is a somewhat unnatural point of view and it is generally used to give a dramatic effective or a different perspective, as well as enabling the viewer to see things from a different vantage point. It is used in music videos however, it is less common than the other camera angles.
Slanted/Dutch Tilt: This is where the camera is purposely tilted to one side so the horizon is on an angle, creating an interesting and dramatic effect. The angle provides a different texture to the shots and is very popular in MTV-style video production, where unusual angles and lots of camera movement play a big part.
CAMERA MOVEMENTS:
The camera is directed to move to follow the action or the artist to show different things that are going on. In music videos the camera is nearly always moving and rarely stationary, so camera movements like pan and tracks can be used for all different types of shots. The camera could dolly zoom into someone’s face to show expression, or pan to show a shot or scenery or a room. Some videos will be solely dolly camera movement and follow people walking down the street. A good example of this is ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ – The Verve, the video is of the lead singer walking down a street and the camera just follows his movements, changing angle/potion every now and then.
Pan: The camera remains stationary but the camera is turned to follow something or ‘scan’ a shot. A panning shot is very common and will be used in most videos.
Dolly/Track: The camera is mounted onto a cart or wheels, which then travels along in a smooth motion.
Editing
Editing is done in postproduction, so once the filming is complete, a video will be edited together. In the editing stage, the colours can be made brighter or darker, affecting the tone and the mood which could be influenced by the genre. Many effects can be added, but unless a video is trying to parody something or be dramatic, all that will be done in editing is colour correction, cutting it together, speeding up or slowing things down, etc. The cuts can range from fades, to jump cuts, to cross cutting, parallel editing and any other cut that helps tell the story or make the performance look interesting. A simple straight cut is probably the most common, all videos will use it. If a video uses a green screen, then this is also done in the editing stage, conventionally a green screen will either be a block colour or have some sort of scenery or design. Examples of green screen editing can be seen in ‘Price Tag’ – Jessie J and ‘Kiss You’ – One Direction. The cutting together of a video can also change the tone, all straight, blunt cuts are a bit more abstract and odd and may be used in a more indie video, whereas a pop upbeat video will probably have more cutaways and lengthy shots.
Sound
This is defiantly the most important and influential stage, as the song will determine what the video looks like. This then starts to explain why rock music has a dark horror or performance iconography, where as a pop anthem will have a fun, dance routine filled music video. Sounds can be added into the video, such as in ‘Knights of Cydonia’ – Muse, added horse neighs are in the video to emphasise the intertextual western cliché. A convention within sound is to relate the visuals to the lyrics, which follows Andrew Goodwin’s theory. This is done just by having relatable image or by having the lyrics written on paper.
Mis - en- scene
This can range from the props, costumes, lighting, hair and makeup, location, basically anything that can be seen on the screen that is not camera, editing or sound. Mise en scene really defines the music video is in terms of style and genre.
Lighting
This can change the whole tone of a video, if it is bright it is seen as more upbeat but if it is dark it is viewed as more sad or scary. Lighting also comes into play to represent time such as night or day. Strobe or coloured lights can be used to emphasise a party. This is more common in hip-hop or pop videos. Light can also make a really cool effect to flare lighting, such as traffic or lights in the background to create or cool or soft effect depending on the videos overall look. TXT's -Magic video is an example of the use of various lighting techniques.
Props
The props add to a video, they can make things seem more thematic or to illustrate the narrative or just to be used in a fun and interesting way. A good example of good use of props to create a thematic, fantasy, dream world is ‘Neopolitan Dreams’ – Lisa Mitchell. The clever use of props in the video tells a story and is very unique and interesting for the audience.
Costumes/ Hair & Makeup
Costume can be a very noticeable factor in a video. A more indie video will probably go down the laid-back route i.e. t-shirt and jeans. However a more pop, or abstract song will be very adventurous in the clothing and makeup choices. Typically the conventions of an outfit can determined by the genre, style and brand. Someone like Lady Gaga is known for quirky, out-there outfits so her brand would call for strange clothing choices. Clothing and make-up can represent what the artist is trying to portray in their video, or to illustrate narrative.
Colour
Every video will noticeably play with colour, it could be that the video is shot in black and white, or have bright colours or not really alter the colours. A black and white video will conventionally be sad, dramatic or thought provoking. A brightly coloured video will typically be fun and exciting. Colour can also be used to represent different points in time, such as flashbacks.
Link below for more on Codes and conventions of music videos
REFERENCE
https://www.slideshare.net/Elliezambakides/codes-and-conventions-of-music-videos-60613624
