Music video conventions...

A major convention used in the creation of any music video and possibly the most important one, is to edit the shots in time to the beat of the music, this is done to create the flow of the video to the music played.

Another convention of the music videos is that different genres have their own style of video to fit in with the genre of the song or artist.

Many music videos also feature a performance of the artist who's song it is which would include lip synching, movement and more. However not all do they could also show a narrative showing a story being played to the song, or an abstract video.

A two minute music video will contain twice as many camera shots and edits as a feature film.

Our music video pitch, for the song invaders must die by The Prodigy.

History of the Music Video

In the 1930's, T.V's started becoming common appearances in households, pubs and bars etc. When the T.V was introduced, the music industry took a big knock, and people lost a lot of interest in the music industry. To help battle this loss of interest, a soundie was introduced. Soundies came about in the 1940's and short music video's. They were played on jukeboxes in pubs and bars, and brought interest within the music video back alive. They covered all genres from Swing, hillbilly novelties to patriotic songs. They normally just consisted of the artist lip syncing to the song.

In the 1950's, the rise of the teenager began. A main part to play in the rise of the teenager was the king himself, Elvis Presley. Elvis' songs and short films targeted teenage girls. This craze became popular with the release of 'love me tender' Elvis' first staring role featuring his hit single 'love me tender'.

The 60's also came with the introduction of the beatles. The beatles, like Elvis Presley, main target audience where teenage girls. They also released a number of films, one being 'A Hard Days Night'. This began the rise of the rebellious teenagers, taking control over their ungrateful adults. Youth orientated films dominated the 60's and continued the rise of the teenagers.

Documentary films are something that were born in the 1970's. Documentary films are films that would follow a band showing a mixture of both their performances and interviews with band members, fans and people associated with the band. A famous example of the documentary film is 'Gimme Shelter'. This was documentary that followed The Rolling Stones US tour, featuring footage of their performances, but also showing footage of interviews with band members, such as Mick Jagger. Also in the documentary film 'Stones in the Park', also a Rolling Stones documentary, there was an interview with Hell's Angels who were actually used as security for that performance.

In 1975, music videos were changed forever with the release of Bohemian Rhapsody. Queens single went straight to number one on Top of the Pops and stayed in that position for 9 weeks. A huge risk was taking when this video was released, being 6 minutes long. The first music video longer then around 3/4 minutes. However the risk took of as everybody loved the video, being the main reason it stayed at the top of the charts for so long.

In 1983 came the release of 'Thriller' the Michael Jackson video to his song. The original song was only 4:37 seconds long, however his music video is a 14 minute long video directed by John Landis. The video differed from the song, almost making it a short film. This video changed pop culture and has been known to be called 'the watershed moment for the music industry'.

Invaders Must Die

We have chosen to do the song Invaders Must Die by The Prodigy. The prodigy make electronic dance music, and this song is a very upbeat dance electronic song. Therefore in our video we want to keep the the idea of an upbeat tempo, but also create a dark atmosphere for the audience when watching. This will be done using both abstract and narrative. There will be a narrative throughout the video, however abstract images and clips will be used in-between the narrative.

Production Tips

Whilst viewing previous years videos, as a group we took notes of the conventions used by the groups that scored the highest marks. The groups with the highest marks used a number of different conventions to get the highest marks available to them.

• Multiple angle shots- the groups that scored the highest marks used a range of different shots in there production, unlike the ones that used as few as 5 and scored the lowest mark.
• Careful choice of location- choice of setting is vital, as the location reinforces the genre of the song and artist.
• Costume- similarly to the location costume reinforces the genre of the production.
• Use of editing- editing will be vital as the production will be cut to the beat of the song to create a successful music video.
• Performance- the actors will also represent the genre of the production and the performance from them will enhance the production as a whole.

Music Video Evaluation

In process of research, we chose to watch previous years A-level music videos to understand what had worked well in the past, and not so well. Watching these will benefit us when producing our own music video as we now know certain aspects that will work well.

One particular video we watched, there was A-level group performing 'you can't hurry love' by Diana Ross. This was a poor example of a music video and as a group we gave this the lowest mark (level 1) available in the marking scheme. This video contained 5 different shots, showing the lack of effort put into the production of this video. No shot range, and 4 out of the 5 shots contained the same performance. Lip syncing was used in this video, however, it was not effective. The performer did not know the words to the song, therefore the lip syncing did not look good. There was no thought into mise-en-scene. Costumes were very plain, and was filmed in a house and school. This made it look un-professional. This is why we marked it as a Level 1.

A very good example of a music video was a performance of the song 'streets on fire' by Lupe Fiasco. Paradoxically to the previous video as a group we gave this the highest level possible (level 4), as we thought it marked all the criteria necessary to gain this mark. It started with a montage of historical events. This was edited well and gave a good effect to the video. Good establishing shots were then used of London. They went to great effort to achieve good shots. There was also good performance by the student, lip syncing was completed well and look very professional. It was completed to a good standard, looking very professional and a lot of effort was put in to the production.