Narrative, Performance and alternative based music videos

Narrative based music videos 

Here i have uploaded an example of a narrative based music video

A narrative based music video is video which follows a story line thus getting the name 'narrative. In narrative music videos there will typically be a main character which is often played by the main singer of the song. This character will often be fictional, made up for the sole purpose of creating a story within the music video. The character will typically have a problem or journey which will be accompanied by the lyrics of the song sung by the singer or band explaining to the audience either how the main character is thinking or what they are feeling. Due to the lyrics of the song helping to tell the story the character within the video is often silent, thus helping the audience to concentrate on the lyrics of the song telling the story. 

Above i have shown the music video 'swim good' by Frank Ocean, this video shows the main character within the video on a long journey across the country, the lyrics explain that he is broken from old relationships and past loves so the video of him on the journey represents him trying to get away from what happened before. Like with most narrative based videos the character within the story is silent allowing the audience to focus on the lyrics of the song.

Performance based music video 

Here i have uploaded an example of a performance based music video.

Here is the official music video of "Basket Case" performed by the band "Greenday" it is an example of a performance based music video. For a large portion of the video it shows clips of the band playing together, however whilst doing they are within a location and wearing costumes which are relevant to the lyrics and the video. I feel this works well as it allows the audience to see the band performing as if they were their. The video shows clips of the different band members performing different parts of the songs. With the majority of performance based music videos you will find that there is a lot of camera movement as well as wide range of camera angles used in order to keep the video entertaining and exciting. This influenced the making of our own music video as we wanted to ensure that the video was exciting and entertaining as well as being fast paced. By creating a performance based music video or using elements from them we are able to promote the band. This is because our audiences will be able see the band members as well as the band logo of the mouth and the band title.

Other Videos of the Same Genre 

As part of our research we decided to look into music videos of the same genre, after analyzing them it then gave us the opportunity to gather any ideas or conventions which we found and apply them to our own music video. 

 Heads will roll falls under a few different genres, the most common one of which is synthpop or also known as electropop or technopop. After researching this genre i found that there were many songs that i knew which i would not of previously of thought would fall within this genre. 

The song i have analyzed which falls into this genre is 'in for the kill' by a band called La Roux. after analysing the music video for this track i have noticed a few genre conventions which are common song synth pop music videos. One for the first conventions i noticed was that dark colors and backgrounds are often used, for example at the start of 'in for the kill' the interior of the car is very dark, however brighter more bold colors are used for lighting techniques to highlight detail. We want to use similar lighting techniques within our own music video. Another convention i noticed was that they almost always use either performance or narrative based music videos. We will use this convention in our own music video by using a mixture of these two types of music videos. 

Here is a print screen of 'in for the kill' for La Roux, this shows how they use both dark and bright colors to highlight details.

If we could do something different with this particular music video we would have more shots other than the narrative shots performed from within the car. We feel this would help to add to the story of the track and help tell this story to the audience as well as making the video more entertaining.