Research into relevant music genre

Most successful music videos on YouTube

• Crank Dat - Soulja boy

• Single ladies – Beyonce

• Thriller – Michael Jackson

• Touch my body – Mariah Carey

• Apologize – timberland

• Girlfriend – Avril Lavigne

• Bleeding love – Leona Lewis

• With you – Chris brown

• No one – Alicia keys

Most profitable pop music

• Beatles – 600 million

• Michael Jackson – 300-400 million

• Madonna – 275-300

• Elton John – 250-300 million

• Mariah Carey – 175-200 million

• Celine Dion – 175-200 million

• Whitney Houston – 170-200 million

• ABBA – 100-200 million

• Rihanna – 150 million

• Billy Joel – 150 million

• Frank Sinatra - 150 million

• Barbra Streisand – 145 millon

The most influential music videos

• The Beatles: “Strawberry Fields Forever” (Director: Peter Goldman, 1967)

• Michael Jackson: “Thriller” (Director: John Landis, 1983)

• Peter Gabriel: “Sledgehammer” (Director: Steven R Johnson, 1986)

• Björk: “All Is Full of Love” (Director: Chris Cunningham, 1998)

• The White Stripes: “Fell in Love with a Girl” (Director: Michel Gondry, 2001)

• Alex Gopher: “The Child” (Director: Antoine Bardou-Jacquet, 1999)

• Ok Go: “Here It Goes Again” (Director: Trish Sie, 2006)

• Britney Spears, "...Baby One More Time"

Convention of a music video

Shot and movement typesCreating emphasises on the artist, locations and emotions.

Long shot: Shows location and artist outfit.

Close ups: Show emotions – reflect the words through lip syncing

Mid shots:

Movement of camera traces the artist or band, - tilt, pan, tracking, crane.

Sound and lighting

Sound is mainly vocals or the song; however in some cases like ‘Thriller’ by Michael Jackson you can turn a music video into a short film by adding dialogue and a narrative before the music.

You can use your lighting creatively like in ‘the way’ by Ariana Grande music video which used a projector that were showing videos clips of the artists as lights.

White light from behind this gets used quite a lot to create the effect of a dream like state.

Also with current music videos lighting is getting darker and darker along side the make-up and costume.

Props and set• Props are used to aid the scene by creating significance on particular objects or people.

• Some use of set is the artist pretending to record the song in a recording booth, to connect the audience to the song.

• In a few music videos artists tend to create a fake bedroom so the song seems personal to the artist.

• Many artist use a piano as a prop to a create connection from the song to the artist through the music video.

Costume and make upMake up tends to be quite dramatic with dark eyes make up and bright red lips. This shows the artist to be seductive as they are wearing dark make up. As welll as dark make-up, artists tend to wear a lot of black in their music videos which again shows them as being seductive, dangerous and opposite of pure.

Actors

Most artists preform in their music videos so it seems like they are actually singing it however you don’t half to’ Ed Sheeran got Rupert Grint to preform in his music video and he only had a cameo in it.

EditingThe predominant editing technique used in music videos is a jump cut, as it allows for the sudden change for a scene to another. Transitions like fade and dissolve are also used quite regularly in music videos. Using flash back shots with a different framing and old television effect are also being used more regularly with in music videos. Editors also tend to change tints of things whilst editing; sky, eyes, skin or even the lighting in the room.