Investigating Music Video Brief

What is a music video?

A music video is a combination of images that accompany a song, as a way to; give a message, entertain the viewer, tell a story, or promote something.

In this video MJ is really, really sad because the people are killing his tree and animal pals.

[Earth Song - Michael Jackson]

In this video Wiz Khalifa and the Fast and Furious producers, capitalize on the death of Paul Walker by tugging the heartstrings of the viewer to promote the new upcoming film.

[Wiz Khalifa - See You Again ft. Charlie Puth]

Codes and Conventions

Narrative is a classic convention for music videos, a story will often accompany the music to entertain the viewer and give them something to watch and get immersed in whilst soaking in the music. Another reason to include narrative in a music video is to convey a message, and often the best way to give out a clear message is to have a story with a beginning, a middle, and a resolution.

Distribution, the main reason that music videos are made is so that they can be featured on mainstream music channels such as MTV, or shown on the internet on places like YouTube and Vevo to get more views.

Advertising. As aforementioned, the song ‘See You Again’ by Wiz Khalifa was written about Paul Walker’s death, but the video used a lot of clips from the ‘Fast and Furious’ films, including the upcoming film ‘Fast and Furious 7’ which was used to promote the film which was soon to be released.

Controversy, many music videos became famous because they were edgy and controversial, an example is The Prodigy’s ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ as it shows the destructive life of a woman whom most would assume to be a man until the end of the video where it’s revealed that she is in fact a woman.’

What are the pros and cons of making music videos?

Pros:

• It helps promote the artist and the music and reach more platforms other than just the radio
• It can give a clearer idea about the story behind a song’s lyrics and help give insight to what the songwriter was thinking
• Music Videos can send out very powerful messages

Cons:

• It obviously costs a lot more money to produce than just a song on it’s own
• It can take away from the lyrics, as some people would argue that ambiguity in song lyrics are important and that they should be up to interpretation, it’s very similar to how people complain about Books being converted into Films.