What is a music video - Miss Miller

Music Video Purposes

A music video is a visual aid created to be played alongside certain songs in order to accompany them in helping with promotion of the song itself and benefits to the audience.

For the institution the main use and benefit of a music video is its promotional values. As a song is released usually it is done so simultaneously with the music video. This is done specifically for marketing benefits. Music videos can be accessed mostly for free on various different platforms around the world, most frequently through YouTube. This accessibility often means that the song is viewed and listened to on a large scale meaning that an institution can increase its popularity, selling more records and making more revenue. Additionally, a commodity that also helps build a hype around a music video or song is social networks. The increase in the usage of social networks allows artists to go viral as songs or videos are shared globally, again allowing an institution to appeal to a wider audience and furthermore sell more records.

Another key purpose of the music video is for an artist to develop an image for themselves. They can show their personality through a series of videos in link with their songs, they can develop an image for themselves in order to sell themselves to an audience or more importantly they can show there level of performance, linking themselves to the genre through dances and plots. This helps them appeal to their target audience through making themselves accessible to viewers on a personal level. Attracting a target audience is also a vital purpose for a music video as it helps create a large fan base of which promotes the film through word of mouth and means that more people are likely to buy tracks from the artist or pay to watch and listen to them.

What can be seen as the most important benefit and purpose of a music video is its ability to help create a theme, meaning or narrative behind a song. The video accompanying a song often clarifies what the song is about r what it represents. The music video is a key way of portraying the story behind the lyrics within a song from it either having a deep meaningful theme to it developing comic element. Allowing the audience to see the meaning behind a certain song or artist can allow the to furthermore understand it; this can result in them relating to the artist or song which leads to more overall entertainment and engagement for the audience. It additionally has great benefits to the institution as well as it creates a marketable element to the song, adding to the fan base and allowing them to sell more tracks and make furthermore revenue from the song or artist.

There are three different styles of music videos that differ within the various music genres; this consists of performance, narrative and concept. Performance consists of the artists either singing, dancing or playing an instrument in order to show their talent within the video. Narrative shows a story behind the song, emphasising what the song is about and developing a greater understanding of the song. Finally, concept shows a theme to the song or an idea seen portrayed throughout the video. These styles are incorporated into every music video.

Music Video Analysis

The music video that I have selected to analyse is the 'Party Rock anthem' song by 'LMFAO'. It is from the dance music genre and is aimed at younger adults from both genders. It is seen to comply to the conventions of the dance genre and typical music videos as a whole.

There are many conventions and purposes seen throughout the video:

One purpose is to comply to the theme of a fun  party lifestyle in order to meet the conventions of the stereotypical dance genre. This is seen to be achieved through the use of plot; the song itself is made out to have created a party fever taking over the world with 'shuffling' zombies. This results in the video showing large party like phenomena on the urban streets. A shot that clearly shows this party theme running throughout the clip is seen at the start of the video. It is a low angle showing a man dressed in bright colours with urban clothing and glasses jumping on the top of a car and shouting "party rock!". This reckless behaviour, plus links to the city and an urban theme adds the party lifestyle and appeals to fans of the dance genre which typically shows party themed fun.

The artists also aim to create a narrative running alongside the song itself, this is done to meet the conventions of the typical music video by adding the narrative style to the clip. This is mostly achieved by plot; the idea is that the song itself has creating a party fever throughout the world and that people can't stop 'shuffling' to the music. The two artists have to survive the comical apocalypse through joining in with the addicting partying and dancing.  This is mainly done to maintain the viewers attention as they want to see the outcome of the video and witness the effect of the addicting 'party rock anthem'. An outline of the plot is clarified towards the start of the sequence through sound and specifically diegetic dialogue. A man trying to survive the 'shuffling' apocalypse warns the two artists by saying " ever since that song came out they been 'shuffling'. By saying this he is relating to the shuffling zombies and his panicked voice shows the danger of song and the addicting shuffling. This is done to create a comic element to the clip and present the party theme creating fun, amusing entertainment for the younger teenage target audience. This use of narrative is often done to create a meaning to the song, in this case it shows the light hearted effect of the song being easy to party to.

The two main artists also aim to show their own personalities within the video, emphasising their fun party lifestyle, their light hearted sense of humour and their performance element with dances running throughout the video. The comic element of the video created through the absurd and eccentric plot demonstrates their light hearted sense of humour of which an audience can relate to due to them seen not to take themselves seriously and to enjoy their party lifestyle. However a factor of the video that is also used to show the artists image and personality is the use of mise en scene and specifically costume. The characters within the clip are all seen wearing bright colours and modern clothing with quirky patterns on them, similar to the artists themselves. This presents them as being outgoing and fun; it shows them as being trend setters and elaborates upon the theme of a party lifestyle. This is a convention of the dance genre and is done to furthermore relate to its target audience as teenagers are often seen to follow this relaxed, fun party lifestyle.

This research is highly beneficial to the creation of my own music video. The video I analysed helped greatly as it gave a clear indication of how to connect with a selected target audience through the use of plot and characterisation. It also clarified how to effectively use the various styles often seen in a music video to great effect, building an image and a narrative around a certain song and artist. Music videos are vital additions to songs. They benefit the artist as they can express an image to an audience building up a larger fan base, it helps the institution due to them being a large marketing platform, plus it benefits the audience as they can see the themes and ideas behind a song increasing the overall entertainment. Finally, the analysis of my selected video has also had some influence upon the genre that I may like to focus upon for my music video; I felt that the dance genre had a lot of flexibility with the various styles and themes that you could include, therefore pushing me towards picking a song from this selected genre.