Conventions of a Music Video

When creating music videos, a lot of thought are put into them and not just music. All music videos have to follow certain conventions, I researched five completely different music videos from various eras and I found that all the videos had people in the video either singing or dancing. Also, many things are happening and it is not just focused on the singers. It could be focusing on the environment around them, or certain aspects of the background. Each music video usually follows a story and the lyrics to the song will obviously follow this story.

To make the music videos more interesting and exciting for the target audience, various camera angles are used, whether they are long shots, mid shots or even wide shots every camera angle creates excitement. Furthermore, close ups are used throughout the videos and this makes the audience feel engaged and part of the video. All the movements are hyperbolic (exaggerated) which shows that the people within the video are enjoying themselves. Music videos always create popular and iconic dance moves.

This is a part of a music video of which these dance moves has become extremely popular around the world as they're quirky, catchy and eccentric.

Additionally, the music videos are set in a place that links with the story and the song. Some videos, usually the older ones had filtered colours over the top but now the backgrounds have distorted and vibrant colours and shapes to attract the audience.

This is a music video with the black colour filter over the whole video, this is used to portray emotion and mood.



This is a part of the music video which highlights the vibrant backgrounds.

All the people in the video wear costumes and they relate to the era, song and the personality of the singer.