What is a music video- Miss Miller

What is a music video

A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings.

What is the purpose of a music video

• Tell a story
• More publicity
• Understand song better
• Short narrative
• Attract particular target audience
• To identify an artist or a group
• To buy into the artists lifestyle
• Helps to show different conventions of a genre.

Styles of a music video

• Performance
• Narrative
• Concept 

My chosen music video

The music video i have chosen is "See you again" by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth. The song was made for the ending of Fast and Furious 7 to commemorate to death of Paul Walker. In the video we are taken back to relive Paul Walkers life in the film and outside of it.  Throughout the film we also see the artists singing along to the lyrics. The genre of the song is rap and hip hop. The purpose of the video is to make the audience connect with the artists and the film itself. 

The style of the music video is narrative and performance because the artist is trying to tell a story to the audience but at the same time we see clips of them performing to the camera. Performance based music videos normally show the artist performing in front of the camera or taking part within the video itself. Narrative based music videos tell a story to the audience to make them remember it and listen to the song more. 

Codes and conventions

In the video we see a lot of codes and conventions relating to the rap genre. Firstly, cars are constantly used throughout the sequence representing street racers and luxury vehicles. Guns are also shown in the video representing violence and unrest between gangs. Both of these things are stereotypical to the rap genre because we think of guns and cars when we think of rappers. Money is also shown in one of the scenes to represent the gang successfully achieving a bank robbery.

In hip hop videos we normally see people dancing in the background to the beat of the song being played. We can also sometimes see artists referring to objects in the video to link in with the song lyrics. This helps the audience understand the concept of the music video. It also makes them remember it better because certain parts of it stand out to them. The aim of the artist is to make the audience buy and listen to their song more by making there music video stand out to them.
This music video will stand out to Wiz Khalifa and fast and furious fans because they listen and watch previous products that have been made by the artist and film company.

Conclusion

From researching this blog I have learnt about codes and conventions associated with certain genres. I have also learnt how to analyse music videos in depth by clearly identifying certain codes and conventions. This has helped me understand the concept of music videos better.

From looking at different music videos in my research I think that they are very effective when promoting a song to the audience. It helps the audience understand the artist and song better by giving them an in site into the story behind there lives. Without music videos I think that less people will listen to different or new artists because they are not familiar with there genre of song. From this research I am swaying towards making my music video a hip hop video because there are loads of codes and conventions that i can include within my video.