Morgan Clarke

LO 2: Music Video Research

What makes a music video?

Music videos help to demonstrate genre characteristics such as stage performance in metal videos and dance routines for boybands as well as relationships between the lyrics and the visuals of the video with either literal representations or implications (creating a relationship between the song and the visuals). Contemporary music videos also feature a lot of voyeuristic treatment of the female body, with a large focus on glorification etc.

Music videos are also defined by a variety of popular characteristics and tropes that feature throughout most if not all videos, regardless of their song’s genre or video’s narrative –

Lip-syncing: Probably one of the most well-known and common tropes of a music video, ‘lip syncing’, this involves either the lead singer, or the main protagonist of the narrative either throughout the song or the chorus, will at some point lip-sync along with the lyrics of the song. This helps give the impression that the person in the shot is singing the song, when in reality the music was pre-recorded in a studio booth.

Performance elements and narratives: These two feature prominently in contemporary music videos, performance element is usually a technique that is fragmented across the track, much like it would be in forms of literature such as poetry. This technique is also seen is music promos which will often suggest a storyline of show ‘non-linear’ (out of order) events, to the viewer, encouraging repeat viewings in order for them to fully grasp what is happening in the video (the ‘unreliable narrator’ of music video techniques), the repeat viewings help the viewer piece together missed information. However, whether the storyline is linear or not, a technique that is used throughout is shots of the band interspersed between the narrative, performing ‘live’ (whether that be in a studio or in scouted locations that fit with the narrative – such as abandoned warehouses, nightclubs, concerts etc.)

Close-ups: The most common shot in contemporary music videos, these are predominantly used to show the artist singing along to the track or even the main character of the videos narrative lip-syncing the music. These shots or more commonly seen in the chorus of songs and are used to show the lead or icon of the video to help sell the brand of the artist (used as advertising).

Potential awards for creating successful and innovative music videos

1# Close Up Techniques

Morgan Clarke

Examples and Analysis of Music Videos within My Band’s Genre Video #1 – Imagine Dragons – It’s Time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sENM2wA_FTg)

These screenshots demonstrate the use of two techniques that I have talked about earlier, those being both the lip-syncing and the close ups of the artists. These techniques have been used in order to help sell their – Imagine Dragons - image (the most prominent example being the photo in the bottom left – showing them all united as a group).

The close up shot of the instrument being played and the group’s more ragged look also gives the audience the feeling that they are not as concerned with their appearances, and that they are more focused on the music and performance rather than a popular and attractive image for their band.

The lip-synching shots also help to give the video the illusion that they are performing their music ‘live’, which helps it feel more authentic to the audience. The use of close-ups could also be used to help make the audience feel ‘closer’ to the artists, as they are constantly shown to be very close to the camera (/audience) which helps to keep the audience connected and invested in the narrative.

The grayscale used throughout the video also helps to compliment the songs sombre lyrics (“The path to heaven runs through miles of clouded hell right to the top” “Turning to rags…” “To ashes, to ashes”), and emphasises the conclusion of the narrative when they protagonists break through the clouds and the world is illuminated again.

Morgan Clarke

2# Group shots

The video also utilises a large amount of group shots (almost every other shot is of the band together), this is for a multitude of reasons. The first being that it helps convey to the audience that the band stand together and are united, both inside the narrative of the video (and outside of this separate story but as a group of performers, this subsequently helps the band’s public image).

The group shots also help to create some very interesting and unique visuals (such as the examples shown above), these visuals help keep the video interesting to look at. The majority of group shots keep the band in the centre of the frame to keep them as the main object of interest and draw audience focus.

The lighting in the video helps play upon the darker lyrics of the song, with computer generated backgrounds and a lot of silhouetted shots of the protagonists traversing a desolate landscape, which also helps to complement with the ending of the video where the characters illuminate the landscape, adding colours back into the shot which contrasts with former half of the video.

The use of silhouettes also helps to emphasize the details of the backgrounds used in the video, as the lack of detail in the foreground figures/characters brings our attention as an audience to the desolate and destroyed backgrounds. By using silhouettes the ‘wrongness’ of the situation in which our protagonists find themselves is amplified via the strong use of the darkness.

Morgan Clarke

3# Colour palettes and set design

The video utilises many long shots of the protagonists walking across the desolate landscape. The use of these shots helps make the characters feel small and powerless to their situation, and helps to drain the feeling of hope from the situation and the audience (as well as show off the visual design of the environments they’re traversing)– which once again helps to contrast the ending when the landscape is transformed and illuminated.

The colour palette used in the video also helps to drive forward the feeling of helplessness, sadness and dread that the set design is creating; the use of greys and blues is another choice by the creators of the video to keep the sombre feel of the video, as the colours invoke connotations of grief, mundanity and sadness (‘feeling blue’ is a very common expression for someone feeling unhappy – relating to the overuse of blues in this video).

The backgrounds often include very large (and destroyed/decaying) buildings and dead plant life to further drive home the point that the protagonists are small and insignificant in the video’s narrative, and their situation that they find themselves in is dire – thus all the destroyed manmade objects (boats; bridges etc.)