Codes and Conventions of

music videos
By Matthew McMillan
The purpose of a music video
● The purpose of a music video promotes a single and normally an album.
● Promotes the artist or band.
● Creates, adapts or reads into a star image.
● Entertains the audience.
● Sets the ‘meanings’ of a song by the use of images.
Basic Structure
● In 3-4 minutes a typical music video either focuses on performance or combines a mix of
performance, narrative and can include visual images such as computer graphics and
animation.
● It does this to promote the band or artist.
● Often contains elements like performances, narrative, thematic or symbolic.
● Can have all performances, a mix or all narrative.
Performance
● Many music videos include performance of the artist as part of the music video.
● Often contains shots of the artists performing.
● Can be like stage performance with shots of the artist + audience.
● Can be artists in ‘real life’ situations. E.g, walking and talking.
● Often includes loads of close ups of the artist and there can be particular visual style that goes with
the artist (a motif). E.g, particular clothing, actions, props and type of images.
● Often the artist can appear to perform in unusual places all lip synced, e.g, a field or a rooftop.

Ideal of spectacle

● Music videos may be considered to be examples of a spectacle.

● In this the performer is often looking directly at the viewer. This is called direct address where they
directly interact with the viewer.
Narrative
● Often the video tells a story, either that features in the lyrics or is suggested in the lyrics. E.g,
girl dumps boy.
● The narrative can be like a mini film with a beginning, middle and end or it can suggest some
links to a story.
● Because it is only 3-4 minutes it can be: very fast paced, lots of quick cuts.
● Used intertextually with film, TV and other videos.
● Mimic other film, TV genres. E.g, horror or sci-fi
● Sometimes the artist is part of a story, or an observer or completely different.
Thermetic
● There are lots of common themes in music videos depending of the genre of the music. For
example, heavy metal bands go for performance documented clips.
● Rap has lots of ‘street images’.
● Dance routines are common for many female artist performances.
Symbolic ‘connotations’
● Use of lots of symbols to build up meaning. E.g, graveyard has connotations of death.
● Lots of use of montage- lots of images to create meaning, sometimes often contradictory.
● Lighting often used to suggest mood.
● Fast paced- often only used a few seconds per shot to build up meanings.
● Shots can support or contradict the lyrics.
Other codes and conventions
● Visually stylish- ‘artistic’- mise en scene.
● Cutting related to the rhythm of the music (editing to the beat).
● Crosscutting between performance and images or story.
● Experimental use of the camera/ editing (hand held camera, distortion of colour.
● Often breaks the rules of continuity editing. Can use lots of jump cuts.