Music Video: Conventional features

I have included a post on conventional features of a music video as it will help me make my own music video by showing me the guide lines for making a music video.

What is a convention?


A convention is a set of agreed, stipulated or generally accepted standards, norms, social norms, or criteria, often taking the form of a custom.




The Standard Music Video Model

• film, singer or band playing


• inserted images


• experimental arty film techniques

Variations on a theme


A standard music video can vary in many ways. For example, the artists could perform an on going story in their video, but they can also be performing the song at a music concert. They can have an alter ego cartoon character, or have an actor play themselves in the music video.

Visual Tradition in a Music Video

The 3 main forms of a visual music video are Performance, Narrative and Art clips.

The Performance clip is a video that shows the vocalist in one or more settings. Places like a rehearsal room, studio, shops, vehicles and walking down the street, which is common in rap videos.

There are 3 types of performance clip

• Song performance- most videos include this.
• Dance performance
• Instrumental performance- not very common.

• A concert clip on stage with an audience is so common it has its own category.

A Narrative clip in a music video is like a short silent movie which is easy to follow with the artists song playing in the background.

A pure narrative contains no lip-synchronisation.

And finally, a pure art clip contains no visual narrative or lip-synchronized singing. The difference between an art clip and an artistic video is the music, the music video uses popular music and the artistic video uses experimental music like electro.