Pop, Indie and Rock music video conventions

Music Video Conventions- Pop

Music videos use lots of different conventions (mise-en-scene, camera angles, etc) to illustrate to the audience what music style the song is. Normally it is made so obvious through these features that you can tell what genre the song is even while there is no sound.  

Pop music videos use conventions to illustrate their genre such as:

- Voyeurism , in the treatment of females mainly but sometimes males to encourage the audience to look at the person in a sexual way. 

Examples of this can be seen in Cheryl Cole's music video for 'Under the Sun.'

The video uses lots of close up but quick shots or pans across her thighs, chest area and bum while wearing tight fitting, revealing clothes and heels. This suggests to the audience she is trying to be flirty and to look at her in a more sexual sense. 

Also in the second screen shot there is a low mid shot focusing on her thighs. Behind can be seen the legs of three school girls in their knee length skirts and high white socks. The sexuality of Cheryl's tight skirt and heels is made more obvious to the eye because of the innocence of the young girls costumes in the back drop.  

- Dance routines, pop video normally use very energetic, lively dance routines with lots of extra characters. Camera angles make sure they use lots of close up shots on the artist to make it clear to the audience who the actual artist is.

Beyonce's - 'Run the World' has lots of extras in the filming of the video as seen in the screen shot to the left. They perform together in a large group as it is more exciting for the audience to look at. However the costume used makes it apparent to the audience who the main singer is. Beyonce dresses in bright yellow, where as the backing dancers all wear the same black shorts and top combo. There are lots of different outfit changes through out the video but Beyonce always stands out so she can promote herself as an artist to the audience.  

Camera angles in the music video of 'Run the World' have a lot of variation. There are lots of panning shots and wide angle shots like in the screen shot above to show the setting of the video and all the dance routines. But as shown in the screen shot to the right there are plenty of close up shots of Beyonce to show to anyone watching the video who doesn't know her that she is in fact the artist of the song and to promote her as an artist to encourage people to listen to and buy her work.

Music Video Conventions- Indie

Indie music videos are not that different to pop videos. Pop videos seem to use in general a bright, candy coloured colour scheme where as indie videos use very natural, earthy colours. This can be seen to the right in the screen shot of Ben Howard's music video for 'Keep Your Head Up.' The colours used and the setting are very peaceful and tranquil and try to reflect nature.

 

Locations of Indie music videos normally include scenes filmed in beaches, parks, lakes, rivers, etc like seen in the screen shot to the left the artist collects water from a river. This gives it a more chilled feel to the music rather than a rock or pop video that normally have quite manic videos with a lot going on in them. 

 

 

Shots still include close ups of the artist playing an istrument, normally a guitar or singing so that they are promoted as an artist in the same way a pop artist is.



Music Video Conventions- Rock

From looking at Rock music videos from different artists they all seem to be very similar. They all include performances if they are in a band. Shown in the screen shots from Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway to Heaven.'

 

Perfromance is more apparent and important in a rock video compared to a pop or indie video. It promotes the band and shows more about what they can do.

The colour pallet in a Rock video is a lot darker and uses a lot of red and blacks. It makes it quite obvious to the audience before they've even listened to the song what genre it is going to be from.