What is a music video?- Mrs Miller

What is a music video?

A music video is a short narrative or performance that is brought out with a song for artists to share a story or portray a particular theme. Each music video has different generic conventions of its genre for the audience to remember the song, to build a relationship with the artist. The main purpose of a music video is to sell the song and invoke a reaction so it leaves the audience remembering the song. It is also used to entertain audiences and give a narrative in order to sell CDs and DVDs to viewers to create a visual impact, increasing its chances of selling. Music videos are also used as promotional tools for the artist and it serves as a conduit to attention from a label, but more often it it is the main reason for CD sales or artist song downloads. 

There are three main styles of a music video that artists use to get across their songs to viewers, performance, narrative and concept. Performance based videos are music videos that feature the artist or band preforming and miming the song throughout the majority of the video. It is usually the easiest video to film given the setting, the shots involved in the video and it best used on a small budget as it doesn't require expensive props and conventions, depending on the genre. Performance based videos are best suited to the pop genre and for bands. 

A narrative based music video contains mostly footage of artists telling a story through a music video. It usually involves actors to tell the narrative and moving image that tends to suit the lyrics. Some songs that are used in movies tend to be narrative based videos and use necessary clips from the film in the video. Narrative videos are best used to describe the artist and relate with them as they send messages in their lyrics and videos that often they can associate with or their audience can. 

Concept videos are based around a single concept or idea and tend to portray a theme in the videos. These types of videos tend to be fairly unusual and directed and produced specifically to portray its genre and utilise a particular editing and filming technique. Concept videos now a days tend to be less popular as viewers prefer something more accessible and relatable. 

The artist I have chosen to analyse is Ne-Yo and the video for his song, Miss Independent. Produced in 2009, the video for Miss Independent was brought out for many purposes and is a performance based video with a narrative throughout. The genre of this music video is Pop/R&B and was produced and directed by Def Jam and Stargate. The music video itself get the audience to follow the artist himself Ne-Yo and watch him attempt to Impress a girl and sing to her. This is also primarily the main focus of the video, with every camera shot and clip witnessed focusing on him trying to win over the girl whilst dancing and singing in a performance to his song; It is therefore a performance and narrative based video. Some of the micro elements that support this are Mise-En-Scene and Ne-Yo's costume and props as we see him wearing a classy suit, expensive watch and earrings. This is used to support the genre conventions as it shows him as showing of his money and having an sense of classiness an elegance about him throughout the video. This also helps to support his narrative based video as he is attempting to impress the girl. Another micro element used in the video to support the R&B genre conventions is the cinematography and close ups of the girl who is portrayed as 'Miss Independent'. This shows her as being hard to impress, fit and takes care of herself which although is conventional to the R&B genre, it also challenges the genres conventions as we expect men to be dominating and more powerful an the tendency to objectify women in their R&B videos and lyrics. The R&B genre and in particular this music videos attracts to teenagers and younger adults as they have particular interests in the conventions of wealth, girls, classiness and because of this, are able to relate to the lyrics and narrative of the story.

From analysing this music video, I have learnt that R&B music videos despite three types of music videos that the genre can fall under, tend to have two different styles towards them, based on the artist himself and how they portray their music. One can be an show off, yet one cam be respectful and classy and both styles still portray R&B conventions and themes no matter what. The importance and effectiveness of music videos prove to be a successful factor in the song as it allows the artist to evidently show what he means by his lyrics and create an image for himself, the song and the genre of the music so it proves highly effective. It has influenced my decision in making my own music video as making an R&B video will prove difficult due to the high number of conventions and themes of the songs and most R&B videos, including Ne-Yo 'Miss Independent' use two different styles of videos. It would also mean a lot of performance elements in the video, something I feel I would benefit from using little off and more of a narrative or concept.