Conventions of music videos

Goodwin states that typical conventions for music video are that; there is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. The visuals either illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics. He states that the music also has to have a relationnship with the visuals.

Particular music genres may have their own music video style and iconography for example, live performance in metal.

There is a demand on the part of the record company for lots of close ups of the artist and main singer. This is to promote the artist and boost record sales.

There is likely to be reference to voyeurism which is usually around women in order to attract males and visa versa.

There is likely to be intertextual references to other music videos or film. for example, Atreyu "her portrait in black" which features the film "Underworld" in it.

The typical conventions of the metal genre in music video is that they are normally based more around live performance.
The videos tend to involve dark lighting and uncommon mise en scene, which gives an alternate representation of war and other global issues which tend to be ignored in mainstream music.

Heavy metal is typically seen as an expression of anger and pain. However, it is simply a genre to aid alternative creativity and emotion.

As a result of this, the heavy metal genre has been continuously criticised for its conventions but despite this artists have still made profit and recognition for thier music and allow it to be promoted through music videos. The types of music video generally found have low key lighting or saturated colour. Other cinematography elements include a multitude of close-ups (of the band), mise en scene that reflects lyrical content; eg. in Rob Zombie's music video for Living Dead Girl there is a corpse-like phantom (played by Sheri Moon Zombie) who is a living dead girl.
Some elements that would typically be seen in a music video for the metal genre are;
*Dark lighting
*Shots of the artist performing
*Fast paced editing
*Special effects
*Vague narrative (if any)

This is a music video from a more mainstream artist and we are going to use this to compare it to our chosen genre (metal).


Lady Gaga-Paparazzi.




As you can see from the video, it has more of a narrative and the visuals clearly match the lyrics and this follows Goodwin's theory. For example, the song is about a famous person's private life being invaded by paparazzi and the visuals are of the artist having her privacy taken over by men with cameras.
Also, there are many close ups of the artist and a lot of voyeurism towards her to aid in selling the song.
It has some intertextual references for example, the narrative represents a film style. these mainstream videos and artists tend to convey theories such as Goodwin. This helps sell to the majority. However, our genre, doesn't necessarily follow these ideas but are able to sell just as well.

This is similar to our chosen song and its original video as the visuals mirror the lyrics to an extent. However, in most videos for our genre, the visuals do not compliment the lyrics and the main shots are of the artists performing. This does follow Goodwin's theory still because there are close ups of the artist to aid selling albums.
The video to "Paparazzi" is clearly different to videos which follow the metal genre because it is more mainstream and so targets a different audience type. Despite this, they can express Goodwin's theory also but fits into a different pattern which mainstream artists do not chose to do making the metal genre more unique and interesting.