The Functions & Conventions of a Music Video

I studied a music video I found to be very 'music-video-ish' to help me understand and explain the functions and conventions of a music video. Here is a commentary I made on the video;

The Functions & Conventions of a Music Video by asmediaset5

The History of 'The Music Video'

The music video is a very detailed artform and style of production, but where did it all begin? Here's a video I made explaining where it all came from...

The Copyright Stuff...

So over the summer were given the task to ask permission to use some songs that we may want create a video for in A2, little did I know there would be a little more to it than expected;

So What's The Function Of A Music Video?

WHAT IS THE FUNCTION OF A MUSIC VIDEO?

That might sound like a bit of a silly question, however the function of a music video is almost essential  for promoting the artist and their work. Music Video's help reach out to a wider audience, which helps make their music spread across the world. 

How have music video's developed? - they help make money by product placement.

There's a few main points that need to be addressed when making a music video:

1. you need to consider what kind of image you want the artist to be portrayed in
2. you need to make sure that you keep the video interesting, possibly using product placement to help promote the artist
3. need to make the music video memorable

Here is an example of a music video that uses product placement, demonstrates Laura Mulvey's theory and Carol Vernallis' ideas on editing and camerawork in a music video.

The video i've chosen is 'Telephone' by Lady Gaga





This video demonstrates Laura Mulvey's theories because of the way Lady Gaga and Beyonce are dressed, however you could also say that the ladies in the video are in control, (i.e Beyonce and Lady Gaga killing men).

I feel like this video demonstrates the function of a music video because it uses product placement (the coke cans in her hair) and it also promotes her single. Also by featuring Beyonce in the video it helps promote her as well and makes people want to watch her videos and listen to her songs. It might also make the audience want to see if they have done anymore videos together.

This screenshot demonstrates Laura Mulvey's theory. The way the girls are posing/dancing and how they are dressed makes them look like sexual objects, grabbing the male audiences attention., however they are in a prison which contrasts with the fact that girls are innocent and shy. The costumes that they are wearing look dangerous and dark and aggressive which also contrasts with Laura Mulvey's idea. 

Getting Copyright Permission

Over the summer, i emailed Sony Music Entertainment and asked them for permission to use the songs of artists Ryan O'Shaughnessy and Imogen Heap.

I found out how to contact SME by firstly searching for the artists i was looking for:

Imogen Heap: 

Ryan O'Shaunghnessy:

Then once i'd found out that they were both signed to the same label, i researched how to contact them:

Unfortunately SME didn't get back to me, however here's a screenshot of the email i sent to them asking for copyright permission:

Looking Back..

Back in June this year, me and a few other media students remade the first 30 seconds of a chosen music video. We decided to choose 'I Want To Break Free' by Queen.

Not only did we remake part of the music video, we created a CD cover for the release of the single.

I learnt: 

• what a basetrack is
• how to edit a base track
• how to edit the music together with the video (that's one of the most important thing's when creating a music video)
• costume and design are also important. you wouldn't want too many costume changes because it could confuse the viewer, however you don't want no costume changes because then the video would look a bit boring if its the same outfit throughout.

It's very important to make sure that the lip syncing is spot on. If the singer is out of sync with the song then it ruins the concept of the video. I thought it would be difficult to edit together the song with the singers mouth however i found it quite simple and i'm glad i didn't find it complicated because now i feel confident that i could edit a music video without needing help. 

What I Did & Learnt Last Year

To start off – hey. I'm Khadeeja; the picture to the left is in fact a visual representation of me. So lets get down to business.


Last year in AS Media I earned a A which I worked my butt off for and this year will be no different. I was already quite proficient in the use of editing programs as I took media at GCSE and I also edit etc. in my free time because I’m weird and I love it. However, I learnt so much about the theoretical side of the industry and what goes on behind the camera that it makes me even more passionate about the upcoming year, so without further ado here is some of what I learnt...

What I learnt...

o   Rule of Thirds

o   180 degree rule

o   Film Value Chain

o   Media Consumption

o   Cross Media Convergence

o   Synergy

o   Shot Types

o   Technical areas

o   How to use Final Cut Pro

o   How to use Sound Pro

o   How to use a variety of media for presentation

o   How to use lighting systems

o   How to use split screen

o   How to create and use Foley sound

o   How to score a media piece

o   How to match sound to action

o   How to use filters (editing

o   How to identify good lighting & settings

o   How to use Base Tracks

(Click HERE to look at my blog from last year)

The three weeks...

After exams we came back to college for three weeks for returner lessons, in media we used the lessons to begin thinking about the A2 year. So before the summer began we created shot by shot remakes of 30 second clips from music videos of our choosing. The group I was with for the three weeks chose 'Hey ya' by Outkast, here is what we made;

The Video


3 WEEK PROJECT by asmediaset5

The DigiPack

Here is the Digipack I made to go along with it too;

The Function of a Music Video

The function of a music video is to simply promote the artist. the video does not necessarily have to have a narrative as long as it generates publicity. Some artists include a narrative in their music video but this is very rare as it doesn't convey the general conventions that a normal music video tends to include, so therefore doesn't really give the viewer the impression that its a proper music video.

An example of a music video which does have some relevance to the actual songs lyrics and name is Rizzle Kicks- Lost Generation. It has all the conventions of a typical music video which includes several different base tracks, a lot of jump cuts, slow motion effect, the artists making a lot of eye contact with the camera etc. Besides these technical conventions, it also portrays them well as its meant to be all fun and bubbly to appeal to their young teenage audience.

WELCOME to the AWESOME

Reports have been given that a super awesome and determined band of teenagers have formed to become the greatest A2 Media group that ever existed! They must be stopped before they rule over the earth! The team members are as follows;

If have information, please contact the CandI Media Department.

The gang of troublemakers only had this to say; 

"Hey, we're Group 21. We'd like to say that we will stop at nothing to make the best music video and accompanying coursework ever. That is All. Be afraid, Very afraid."