TYPES OF MUSIC VIDEO
NARRATIVE
ALL TIME LOW - SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE
Narrative based music videos contain mostly footage that shows a storyline that runs throughout, or sometimes several storylines running parallel to eachother. Sometimes with actors and sometimes with the artist themselves, the story will either link to the lyrics of the song, or just the overall theme.
This music video is mostly narrative as follows the story of Alex (the lead singer) in a french fries costume being confused as everyone around him is scared. There are occasional shots of performance however 90% of the shots are narrative.
The audience find out about half way through the song that the reason why everyone is running away from Alex and/or is scared of him is because he is zombie. It then replays the whole video showing what really happened by using the same framing as before, except with the different reality. Personally, I feel this is a really clever narrative as you have to watch the whole video back to understand what happens - hooking in the audience.
There are three types of narrative:
Illustration - this is where the narrative in the music video very closely reflects the lyrical content of the song. For example “Love Story” by Taylor Swift
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Amplification - The narrative may be slightly influenced by the lyrical content however it uses different themes to compliment the songs 'feeling'.
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Magic Disjuncture - this is where the narrative holds very little relationship to the song and it quite arbitrary meaning random. For Example“Somebody that I used to know” by Gotye
PERFORMANCE
FALL OUT BOY - THNKS FR TH MMRS
Performance based videos show only the band/artist performing the song. It is the cheapest and easiest type of video to make, providing you can find a suitable location. A large variety of shots need to be used in quick succession in order to keep the vide ointeresting, as there is a risk it could look boring with only one performance.
This video goes behind the scenes of the making of a video, however it is more performance based. The band are performing on the stage for 60% of the video, the other 40% being narrative.
The band are in the typical formation on the stage. Patrick (the lead singer) at the front, Pete (the bass player) to the left, Joe (the guitarist) on the right and Andy (the drummer) at the back.
When the band are playing the song, they are very enthusiastic about their playing suggesting they are appoints about their music.
Performance could also be a choreographed one. This not only creates interest but also give the artist a new identity. Performance videos are cheaper in cost, no setting is required, one only needs a suitable place for filming. Performance videos adds to another promotional scheme, they temp the fans into buying ticket for their shows. Moreover there is a chance that a lot of people would come to see their performance live.
CONCEPTUAL
LOWER THAN ATLANTIS - WORDS DONT COME SO EASILY
Conceptual videos are based around a single concert or idea. This type of video is fairly unusual and are a lot hard to film, mostly being done with editing and Special FX, and would therefore be not only harder to do, but also more expensive. These types of videos also aren't very popular as they are not very easy to relate to, so very few videos are purely concept.
In this video, we see that there is no real meaning as to why there is a slime like substance in every shot. It is in burgers, poured over their heads, thrown up, everywhere.
They may have used these pastel slime like substances in the video due to aesthetics. It is very pleasing to watch (although to some, gruesome).
Concept music videos are often Symbolic - there is often lots of symbols to build up a meaning, lots of montage of clips and images, lighten is often used to suggest a mood, pace to represent emotions and meanings, pictures often support and contradict lyrical meanings. However the biggest disadvantage of such music videos could be that sometimes as by being too random they could not simply be understood by the audience moreover by not featuring the artist in it, however the artist wouldn’t be able to promote his identity.
