conventions of music videos

styles of music video:
Performance- This is were the band or artist are performing in the music video.

Narrative- This includes a story, it gives the audience a visual message or just visual amusement.

Abstract- this is a mixture of the two above, but can also just be visually stunning to the eye but not have a clear storyline.


Camera movements
The camera in music videos is always moving and flowing, the camera is hardly ever stationary, when the camera is stationary it is usually to focus on the artist/band performing.

 The framing of shots of the artist is usually close-ups of the artist performing crossed between mid-shots and long shots usually of the artist doing something other than performing.

Mise-en-scene

Music videos have many different types of Mise-en-scene depending on the music video its self.
For an abstract music video the mise-en-scene would be things that the audience may not associate with the music and/or lyrics. The lyrics of a music video can influence the video giving the audience visual cues to the meaning of lyrics. for a performance music video, the artist/ band will be shown to the audience and will usually put on a performance for the video. Narrative music videos will usually feature a mise-en-scene that many people would see as ordinary although this does not always have to be the case (an example of this would be Gorillaz music videos which usually follow a narrative but do not always apply a typical mise-en-scene that audiences can recognise).

Sound

Music videos usually only have the song of the artist playing in the video and nothing else, however they can feature diagetic sound in the video (an example of this would be Lady GaGa's Telephone music video in which diagetic sound is played in place of and along with the non diagetic music).

The music in music videos can line up with the mise-en-scene to give audiences a visual cue of what the lyrics are about and the narrative and/or context of the music video.