Ghetto Gospel - 2pac

Brief List of Conventions Used:

• Point of view shot, sirens, helicopters
• Conventional image and costume - baseball cap, hood up
• Establishing shot, urban
• Defocussing effect
• Hand held camera, realism
• Montage to build a character's profile - no dialogue
• No artist featured (Tupac is dead, Elton John not featured)
• Drugs
• Time continuem - starts and ends in the same place/time
• Temporal leaps - jumps around in time
• Graphic match - face to sun
• Pathetic fallacy - rain, dark
• Fade to black
• Series of establishing shots - church juxtaposes city
• Intimite camera work
• Serious issues addressed - poverty, gangs, drug abuse, death, religion peer pressure, crime

Not Afraid - Eminem

Brief List of Conventions Used:

• Sings (raps) into camera lens
• Artist featured
• Iconic costume
• Angry facial expressions and body language - suits genre
• Zooms in and out
• Intertextuality
• Urban surroundings
• Camera wobbles - disorientating
• Returns to first setting at the end

Telephone - Lady Gaga & Beyonce

Brief List of Conventions Used:

• Intertextuality - Thelma and Louise and Kill Bill
• Narrative - though not main focus, main focus is on effects
• Establishing shot - prison
• Low angle shot - makes prison fence appear more domineering, unescapable
• Font - 70s graphics - old style, yellow and pink, feminine, strong and bold, 'girl power'
• High angle shot - CCTV narrative
• Tittilation - lesbian erotic
• Iconic costume - old fashioned prisoner costume
• Point of view shots
• Breaks 30 degree rule
• Temporal spurts
• Realistic mise-en-scene - juxtaposes ellaborate costumes
• Phallic symbols (represents male genitalia)
• Breaks 180 degree rule
• Product placement
• Unrealistic camera work - visual trickery
• Close up emotion - more obvious moods displayed - there's no dialogue like in films
• Intimate/erotic camera work - high angle-cleavage, low angle-crotch
• Sense of performance
• Dancing
• Stills - fast jump cuts, like photographs
• Split screen
• Narrative characters join artists

In order to accumulate the best ideas of conventions to follow for my music video, I decided to analyse two more dated music videos and see which conventions are not used and the impact this has when watching the videos from the twenty-first century's perspective.

Stay - Shakespear's Sister

Breif List of Conventions Used:

• Never static, constant panning
• Looks into camera lens
• Slower cuts
• Two locations, though mostly in one
• Builds up speed with temporal flow
• Both narratives join
• Features artists
• Realistic
• Fades to black to end

Ironic - Alanis Morissette

Breif List of Conventions Used:

• Realistic
• Fast cuts (at beginning)
• Temporal relationship
• Diegetic sounds (cars)

From analysing the conventions used in this video the popular ones that are missing are apparent. It is clear to see why certain conventions have been introduced since the production of  Stay and Ironic. Using this, I must think to:

• Not make my music video so realistic that it becomes boring or too similar to film production
• Vary the length of cuts and vary the pace, preferably keeping it much faster then Stay or Ironic
• Use a variety of locations - focusing solely or mainly on one becomes boring and too realistic
• Make sure that each character is clearly defined to avoid confusion - the characters in Ironic's narrative are all very similar looking, this is best avoided

Toxicity - System of a Down
Brief List of Conventions:

• Features the band
• Performance on stage
• Breaks 180 degree rule
• In sync
• Black and white theme
• High angle shot of drums
• Never static, constant dolly use
• Some defocusing
• Variety of settings
• Close ups on instruments and artists
• Focus on musicality
• Low angle shots from audience/crowd
• Iconic costumes
• Zooms in and out
• Note: no narrative

When You're Gone - Avril Lavigne

Brief List of Conventions Used:

• Fade in from black
• Multiple narratives
• Musicality focus (piano)
• Artist featured
• Short, quick cuts
• Serious issue addressed - army theme
• Extreme close-ups
• Intimate camera work
• Performing into the camera
• Realistic
• Grey, brown, green colour scheme (army)
• Emotive body language
• Emotive facial expressions
• Artist joins the narrative's location (forest)
• Camera within the video

Cooler Than Me - Mike Posner

Brief List of Conventions Used:

• "Live" performance from the band
• Faded corners
• Artist featured
• Singing into camera
• Blurred, revolving effects
• Jump cuts
• Camera in the video
• Variety of locations
• Grayscale effect, black and white effect, coloured effect, added red effect
• Addresses a universal issue - materialism and alcoholism

Wicked Heart - Diana Vickers

Breif List of Conventions Used:

• Artist sings into the camera
• Variety of locations
• Heavy makeup
• Bright colours
• Quick cuts
• Static camera at times (broken convention)
• Zooms in and out
• All settings flash by quickly at the end
• Fade to black

I Believe In A Thing Called Love - Darkness

Brief List of Conventions Used:

• Artist+band performance
• Camera consistently moving - dolly work
• Musicality emphasised
• Begins in the same way that it ends - spaceship
• Added to song
• Nudity, erotic
• Match on lyrics and actions
• In sync
• One real location (broken convention)
• Multiple settings
• Original costume (broken convention)
• Camera moves side to side
• Rate of convergence matches song



Grace Kelly - Mika

Brief List of Conventions Used:

• Bright primary colours
• Slow camera movement (broken convention)
• Band performance
• Slower cuts (broken convention)
• Artist featured
• Iconic prop - umbrella
• Dancing involved
• One location, different rooms (unique)
• Sings into camera
• Temporal flow through lighting - ie. begins well lit - daylight, ends up dark with artificial lighting
• Fade to black

Wake Me Up When September Ends - Green Day

Brief List of Conventions Used:

• Opens with dialogue
• Sound bridge
• Extreme close up
• In and out of focus
• Contrapuntal (content codes, emotive music)
• Some diegetic sound
• Silhouettes
• Narrative and singer interlude
• Montage
• Chronological
• In sync
• "Live" performance
• Cinematic
• Realistic mise-en-scene
• Ideology: negative view on war- destroys relationships
• Intimate camera work

Before The Lights Go Out - Artcic Monkeys

Brief List of Conventions Used:

• Narrative
• Geographically ends where it begins
• Establishing shots
• Realistic
• Emotive, connection with characters
• 180 degree rule broken
• No dialogue
• Tracking
• Rapid cuts
• Variety of angles



Love The Way You Lie - Eminem ft Rihanna

Brief List of Conventions Used:

• In sync
• Montage used in replacement to dialogue
• Flashbacks (not chronological, no temporal continuity)
• Artists featured
• Narrative
• Extreme close ups - intimite camera work
• Sense of realism
• In and out of focus - spontaneous implied
• No stage/sense of performance (broken convention)
• Two worlds collide - artists and actors join
• Actors mime "I'm leaving you" "No you ain't!" (broken convention)
• Fire (also code for passion, love, desire, pain, destruction, anger)
• Addresses the issue of violence/abusive relationships
• Tittilation - actors become arroused by violence
• Point of view shots
• Rihanna sings looking into the camera
• Tilting
• Panning
• Iconic costume (Eminem)
• Tracking