Codes and Conventions of music Videos.

We looked at the various style of pop videos (as our music video falls under the category of pop) and the 3 main forms that they come in; Performance, Narrative and Image.
Performance speaks for itself; these videos in general consist of performances, usually based on a stage or something of a similar sort. Narrative (which we have used) is where the video tells the spectators a story either the one associating to the song or a distinct narrative is told. Image is when the video emphasises on the artist/s as the central concept.

There is a individual style of video for every type or genre of music. Some conventions even spread over into different genres. I looked at different genres of videos and the codes and conventions that go with them.

For example the conventions on average that go with Hip/Hop & Rap videos are; Sex, Money, Cars, Girls, Big Houses, Clubs, Bling and Alcohol, and are usually narrative or performance based videos. R 'n' B videos are quite glamorised, include a lot of voyeurism and bling and are mostly image-narrative based. Boy band videos are performance based and are continually flooded with clips of concerts, screaming girl fans and dance routines. Indie Band videos are on the whole on live stages and are fairly performance based. Heavy Metal videos are surrounded by mosh pits, dark clothing and blaring rockers and are all performance based.

My group watched the video for Nelly ‘Hot in here’. The video was hip-hop/ r 'n' b and was very stereotypical of the genre with the videos being flooded with girls, dancing, cars, bling & clubs and was very performance based, the reason why it is performance based is because there were girls dancing on tables and 'grinding' with men, and on tabletops as well, the girls are also very inadequately dressed. The video has a verse/chorus structure to it and uses a lot of common motifs such as tattoos on the rappers etc.

By Taslima Razia and Masuma