Forms and Conventions

Forms and conventions are enforced as they allow the audience to become accustomed with seeing certain things in the different genres. For example, they would expect to see scantily clad, or even topless, women dancing behind rappers in hip-hop videos and lots of dark, demonic and scary imagery in heavy metal videos. Another reason they are enforced is that they ensure an artist’s music video fits into its relevant genre well. Therefore, a music video must keep some conventions, even if the artist wants to challenge others, as straying too far away from the forms and conventions can confuse and alienate the audience and may also give the artist a bad reputation.

There are three main types of music video: performance, narrative and concept. The conventions of a performance video is that the band or artist performs, whether that is to the camera (like Red Hot Chili Peppers video for Tell Me Baby) or on stage in front of a crowd (like KISS’s video for Rock and Roll All Nite) or during a ‘rehearsal’ (like Guns ‘n’ Roses video for Sweet Child o’ Mine).


Narrative videos feature a story, which is often relative to the lyrics of the song, but are sometimes unrelated. These can feature ‘cameo’ performances from the band members themselves, such as Learn to Fly by Foo Fighters, where the members are playing different characters, but not performing. Lyrics generally affect the music video’s subject, particularly in narrative and concept videos. However, some videos do not reflect the subject matter and appear to be totally disconnected to the lyrics. But, it is generally the norm to have the video reflecting the lyrics.

Concept videos take a deeper look at the lyrics and explore things that are not immediately obvious to the listener, but are perhaps representative of feelings and emotions the artist had while writing the song. Parodies and intertextuality occur often in concept videos, such as references to famous films, television shows or even other videos. For example, the video for The Kill by 30 Seconds to Mars is a parody of Stanley Kubrick’s film The Shining, while Killswitch Engage’s video for their cover version of Dio’s Holy Diver is a parody of the original video.

These types of music videos often cross over into each other, so it is possible to have a performance video with a narrative sequence or a concept video with a performance sequence.

Both digital and stop frame animation can also be used to tell a story or represent certain concepts that the artist has and wants to show the audience. Often, the animation is mixed with live-action footage of the artist. Examples of this are Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer and G-Dragon’s A-Yo.

The tempo of the music can help determine the pace of the editing, the style of the video and the subject of the video. For a fast and hectic song, one would expect the video to fit the music perfectly, rather than the footage being slow and steady.

The camerawork is also important in establishing conventions. For example, performance videos generally have a lot of close ups of the artist and their instruments, with lots of shots of the same performance taken at different angles. This is called jump cutting.

Some narrative and concept videos are filmed in one shot to relay a story that is happening in a single setting for the duration of the song. For example, one of the versions of Super Junior’s video for the song It’s You consists solely of one shot, depicting the different members in cameo roles. Another version has this footage mixed in with performance shots of the group.

As a general rule, the sound in a music video is non-diagetic, as the artist mimes the song and the original track is played over it. However, sometimes speech is used between characters in a music video, such as in Aphex Twin’s video for Windowlicker.

In some music videos, diagetic sound is played over the track. In Richard Ashcroft’s video for Song for The Lovers, he is listening to the track on CD player, so you can hear diagetic sounds, such as him singing over the song and walking round his flat. This is a good way to create something interesting and challenge conventions, but not challenge them too much.

The mise-en-scene depends on the genre of the music video. Location is an important factor in this. A typical hip hop or R’n’B video would be set in a luxurious setting, such as a hotel in the Caribbean, with a large pool with girls in bikinis lounging around.

A typical setting for a rock video would be a darker place, perhaps an old, creepy castle or house. The costumes are often typical for the specific genres – gothic rockers wearing black with heavy make up, rappers wearing caps, vests and gold jewellery. The band’s merchandise and logo can sometimes be found in videos, as a way to reinforce the artist’s iconography.

Characters and body language depend also on the genre of the music. For a romantic pop song, you would not generally cast a scary looking, tattooed couple and for a heavy metal rock song, you wouldn’t generally cast an innocent, ‘normal’ looking girl or boy as your main character. If an artist, such as Leona Lewis, was making her music video, she would not perform in the same way Snoop Dogg would and vice versa.