Codes and conventions help contrast a meaning within a music video in which there are two types:
- Technical
- Technical techniques are used in terms of FILMING and EDITING
- Symbolic
- Symbolic techniques are used to show meaning, analyzing colours that are used and the meaning behind them for example. Such as red could either mean LOVE or HATE
Code and conventions are a way to create meaning in media, codes are visual devices which we expect to see in a music video such as a pop music video we would expect to see some kind of narrative of a love story or break up. Conventions is the story behind it, other known as a denotations again with the pop genre we would expect to see the artists wearing fashionable clothing as a way to act as a role model influencing their audience to wear the latest trends too. Codes and conventions are used in order to make a connection with the audience as they create some sense of familiarity due to each genre having different conventions. Every medium (form) has its own 'language' and its own codes and conventions.
The style of a music video differs depending on the genre as each genre has their different iconography and conventional features. It's also the representation, narrative, mise-en-scène, ending etc that create the style of a music video.
Cinematography
- Framing or Shot Length
- Extreme long shot
- Scene-setting
- Establishing shot
- Outside of a building, or a landscape
- Long shot
- Shows the image as approximately "life" size ie corresponding to the real distance between the audience and the screen in a cinema
- Medium shot
- Contains a figure from the knees/waist up
- Normally used for dialogue scenes
- Close ups
- This shows very little background, and concentrates on either a face, or a specific detail of mise-en-scène
- Extreme close ups
- Extreme version of the close up, generally magnifying beyond what the human eye would experience in reality
- Camera Angles
- Bird's eye view
- This shows a scene from directly overhead
- High angle
- The camera is elevated above the action using a crane to give a general overview
- High angles make the object photographed seem smaller and less significant
- Low angle
- Low angles help give a sense of confusion to a viewer, of powerlessness within the action of a scene
- Eye level
- A fairly neutral shot; the camera is positioned as though it is a human actually observing a scene
- Canted angle
- The camera is tilted to create confusion
- Camera Movement
- Pan
- The camera moves either left to right or right to left
- Tilt
- The camera tilts up or down
- Dolly shots
- Other known as tracking shots where the camera is on tracks creating a smooth stable shot
- Hand held shots
- This is where the camera is hand held or rigged up onto the camera-man's body making the scene have a natural walking bounce making the audience feel that they're in the scene
- Crane shot
- Like dolly shots but in the air, a crane or a jib s a large, heavy piece of equipment, but is a useful way of moving a camera - it can move up, down, left, right, swooping in on action or moving diagonally out of it
- Aerial shot
- Usually taken by a helicopter or a drone, to establish setting and movement
Editing
- Cutting
- Eye-line matches
- Cross fades
- Syncing the music to the video - lip syncing
- Fade from or to black or white
- Post editing, such as touching up the contrast or putting the video in black and white
Sound
In music videos the obvious sound will be the song itself and possible voice over or dialogue. The song is non-diegetic sounds as it has been edited over the filming. Diegetic sound will be dialogue which will often be in a narrative style music video.
Mise-en-scène
