Codes and Conventions Of A Music Video (J.P)

The codes and conventions of a music video are a recipe that media producers follow in order to make a particular text. It can also be thought of as the grammar that enables a media text to make sense.

Conventions

Mise En Scene    -    Concert location

Setting                 -    Urban, stage setting, practise room

Costume              -    (genre), make up

Props                   -    Instruments

Lighting               -    High key lighting

                         

One big Convention of a music video is that the moving image needs to be conducted and edited in time with the actual music track, this convention has stemmed from the first music video to introduce this theory, the Bohemian Rhapsody. This convention applies to any genre and can be easily carried out with simple editing techniques such as cross cutting.

There are different types of music videos that suit different genres, there's a narrative styled video, which has a story behind it, this suits most types of music genres. Then there is a music video that just consists of the band and their lifestyle, this suits the rock genre more than most other genres of music. You can also get a dual narrative styled video, where you have shots of a narrative and then shots of the bands performance, they are merged together with crosscutting to create the two toned video.