Task Two – Understand the styles and conventions of music videos
Andrew Goodwin had six key conventions for music videos, he had a book which outlined the six key conventions. This book was called Dancing in the Distraction Factory (1992). The following features of music videos:
Music Video demonstrate genre characteristics
Every genre of music features certain characteristics which feature in their music videos. For example girl bands have lots of choreography in their music videos such as Girls Aloud and Spice Girls. They are in the same genre which is pop, but they are two different groups with the same characteristics because they are in the same genre. This is mostly seen in the genre of pop.
Here are two examples of Girls Aloud and the Spice Girls, they both have dance sequences in their music videos.
Another example of this, indie rock. Bands like the Hives and The Foo Fighters. In their music videos, they would have one location, and they are not seen in any other location but the only one that they are placed in. And the band members would be seen playing their instruments, and the lead singer would be seen the most throughout the video, but there are a lot of cuts to see the other members.
Both of these music videos are great examples, these two bands both have their similarities as they both have lead singers, and it is based in one location and lastly it cuts to the different band members, as they mostly show the lead singer. This solidifies the characteristics of the indie rock music video. Apart from the Foo Fighters who are an indie rock band that do music videos around different places that show in their videos.
The last example is the Hip Hop/Rap music videos, with these type of music videos unlike the other genre characteristics that have been explained because, in the Hip Hop/Rap industry the artists talk about themselves and show where they come from while rapping or when they rap about something specific they would show it, but mostly its where they came from, their roots.
Both of these are examples of Hip Hop/Rap videos are different to the others, these are good examples, as the music videos show the artists in different locations, lip syncing their lyrics in different locations that are urban that can give a good theme for the music video.
