Music video conventions typically prioritize camera shots focused on the artist to make them recognizable. Camera movement helps keep viewers entertained and establishes scenes. Mis-en-scene, lighting, costumes, props, colors and sound effects are chosen to set the mood and match the music genre. In pop music videos, mis-en-scene often includes relatable clothing and settings while narrative videos tell stories through a variety of shots and angles. Editing helps craft the overall flow and presentation.

1. Conventions of Music
Videos
JACK ATTREE

2. Camera shots and movement
Shots
Typically in music videos there are a variety of shots and angles used – however, in some videos
there are some conventions which are followed. For instance, the majority of music videos
prioritise the focus and camera around the artist(s), this helps to make the video and artist
recognisable. The camera usually sets the scene too, therefore establishing shots and long shots
are helpful to do so – these are good when you’re trying to set the scene.
Movement
As stated above the camera usually moves around the artist and the main focus is them if they
are the ones presented in their video. This is helpful as if you didn’t know the song was
previously made by them you learn it is and you can put a face to their name. Tracking,
Crabbing, Craning and Tilting are only a few of the techniques used when filming a music video
which help keep the audience entertained.

3. Mis-en-scene in music videos
Mis-en-scene is one of the most important things which the producers need to think about
when creating a video, as one thing can change the whole mood and meaning of the video
completely. When it comes to us thinking about mis-en-scene, we need to be careful to ensure
anything in the frame of the camera is what we want, otherwise we will fail in the task of
creating a professional looking video and might even ruin the overall atmosphere in the video.
Mis-en-scene is different for every kind of music genre, and to me I think it is really helpful to
link it to the lyrics, mainly when you are creating a narrative style video but overall to have links
between the visuals and the lyrics to me makes the overall production seem professional.
Depending on what music genre you are looking at you will see different kinds of mis-en-scene
and different techniques – this is because mis-en-scene is more than just things in the
background of the video, it refers to the props, clothes and overall arrangement in the visual.
This means therefore, if you were watching a music video in the punk genre you might see a
theme of dark clothing and grunge looking scenery, whereas in a pop genre video you would be
more likely to see bright colours and lights – especially in a performance based video.

4. Editing
Editing in music videos is really important, and this is because it is one of the final steps before
publishing the video, and therefore if you have good shots and footage but a poorly edited video
your hard work of producing good footage would be wasted as the overall look would be
unprofessional.
There are many things we can do in the editing stage to change the overall appearance of the
video and the meaning. You can use things such as jump cuts in order to make the video seem
fast paced overall, and you can change the transitions between scenes, putting things like fade
to black in to show a change in time.
One thing which I found helpful when doing A-Level Media was ensuring I knew how to do
matching action correctly, therefore having someone be in the right place at the right time when
changing a camera angle, as if they are close to another person walking past and then 10
footsteps away in the change of one angle it wont look very professional. A black and white
video is very popular amongst songs which are considered sad or are based back in time,
therefore through editing you can do this.
‘Someone like you’ Adele,
and example of how black
and white filter is used to
create and overall mood

5. General conventions commonly used
There are many conventions commonly used amongst all music videos across all of the genres, these include:
Lighting – lighting is really important if you are trying to set an overall mood for the music video, for instance you would have darker
lighting if you are trying to create a sad overall feel to the video, or even if you wanted to create a music video which is slightly creepy and
mysterious, like you might see in the Rock Genre. When listening to dance songs you can see how the lights are colourful and bright,
creating the club/party feel, you can see that in a lot of videos.
Props - Props are important too, but mainly in the Narrative genre. These can help with the setting of the video and can therefore create
a feel, for instance if we saw something like a diary in a girls bedroom with love notes in we would presume that it would be about love –
and Taylor Swift comes to mind.
Sound - Normally, all you hear in music videos is the track, however there has been some videos which have a pause in them to hear
dialogue and you can sometimes hear the sound of a car engine or people cheering etc. This can be used for many reasons, some artists
do this to create the crowd/concert feel in their music video, whereas some just do it to add to the video, for instance ‘Justin Bieber- As
long as you love me’, in this video at the beginning and right in the middle there is a part where we him talking to his girlfriends dad and
then getting beaten up, this is to add to the Narrative side of the video.
Costumes – This is really important when you are trying to represent not only the artist but the mood as well, and the genre often has an
impact on this too. With Narrative based videos we usually see costumes based on the lyrics and what is happening in the video(Taylor
Swift- Love Story), and with performance we usually see something which fits with the performance and is meant for this purpose (Justin
Bieber – Sorry).
Colours – Colours are also important as they are usually responsible for the mood of the video and does have one of the biggest impacts,
like the filters in the editing process, and as I earlier mentioned the pop genre usually use bright colours and songs which are intended to
make people dance usually have flashing bright colours.

6. Conventions in the Pop Genre
Mis-en-scene in the pop genre is varied depending on what kind of video it is, there isn’t really a distinctive thing which you can see across all of pop music
videos. One thing I have noticed about Pop music is the artists when they appear in the video usually wear things which the audience are going to like or will talk
about. The videos I watch as a teenager who likes listening to pop music can relate to some of the clothes which feature in the videos. In performance videos like
‘Sorry’ by Justin Bieber, you can see the girls in denim shorts with caps on and a tartan shirt tied round their waist, and at the time this was something which a lot
of people were wearing or started to wear. In other videos like ‘Closer’ by The Chainsmokers, the clothes there look like the ones you would see in shops in high
streets, therefore relating to the audience a lot. One thing I have noticed is a lot of Pop Music Videos are based around the narrative category, and in situations
we find ourselves in all the time – like at a party and the video being based around love.
Camera is also important, but again there isn’t one thing which is particularly common across all of the videos, when we see Narrative videos like the one we are
creating we just see a variety of shots and angels which vary from quick and slow in order to keep us entertained and give us a sense of time. The camera is
usually focused around the main character, which is commonly the artist themselves but it does set the scene by long shots, wide shots and establishing shots.
Editing is something all videos do, you can use this to make the overall video run more smoothly, put a filter over the video to show some context and then use
things such as jump cuts etc. in order to present and portray something. Editing in pop music is helpful when creating a video as you can chop and change the
order of something if you are creating a performance based video as you can get a lot of shots and see what fits best where and narrow down all your footage to
get the best one. With narrative this is also the case because you can use editing to speed up the process of the story you are telling amongst other things to set
the scene etc.
Setting is usuallyin places which you can go to everyday as pop music is known to be quite relatable, sometimes you can see clips from concerts and studios
which makes the video inspire people to want them to go and see them live and when it’s in the studio the video becomes more personal to the viewer
Lighting completely depends on the meaning of the music video and what the song is about, therefore it is quite an open option for whoever is creating the
music video, however most poop music uses bright colours as the majority of the songs are upbeat and positive.