Why have Music Videos?

There are three types of music videos; performance based, narrative based and concept based.

Performance based music videos feature the artist performing to camera or to an audience throughout most or all of the video, these are mainly used by rock bands because of the high energy and involves the audience as if the artist is performing solely to them individually. Close ups are used to create more intimacy and centering audience focus on the main artist. A good example of this is Foo Fighters – Best of You, this video is filmed around the main artist throughout and making him the constant center of the audience’s attention. Close ups of Dave Grohl makes the performance more personal, as if he is giving you your own individual concert. Occasionally the camera will zoom out and pan across the other band members playing their instruments, however their faces aren't shown and close ups aren't used helping to highlight the key importance of the lead singer.

Narrative based music videos feature the use of artist and/or actors attempting to tell a story linking to the lyrics and genre of the song. It is a good technique for engaging the audience, hooking them with a story line and quite often is used for songs that feature in films with scenes from that film cut into the video, helping to promote both the film and the artist. There are many good examples of this; Bruno Mars- It Will Rain (Twighlight Breaking Dawn soundtrack), Leona Lewis- I See You (Avatar soundtrack) and Macklemore ft. Ryan Lewis- WING$. 

The music video for WING$ tells a story of a young boy, which we are lead to believe is Macklemore when he was younger  -  the way cross cutting is used throughout the story line to Macklemore singing to the camera about his past. The story is based around the idea that we get our identity from brands and labels, and he tries to dissect our attachment to retail brands, he uses shoes as his main focus to represent people's retail desires. The video catches an audience's attention because of choice of actor and story line; we are made to feel sorry for the boy, but can also relate to being young and wanting the latest designer labels when in reality they aren't a necessity. A large number of close ups are used on the boy to show his adorability, his emotion which pulls at the audience's heart strings and brings our focus on Macklemore's reflection of his childhood. Also use of medium, high angle shots are used to highlight the young boy's vulnerability when not wearing the shoes and then low angle shots when he is wearing the shoes to express the power he feels and the importance we place on materialist objects. 

Concept based music videos are creatively based around one random, possibly unique idea, quite often they don't feature the artist and usually use just a single editing technique. These are very common within today's selection of music videos because they are eye-catching and memorable. The individuality of the music video is important, helping to gain more hype for the song and artist because if they are so different it causes people to talk about them and more generates views and attention around the artist. This works virally across social media. Good examples of these are Fatboy Slim- Weapon of Choice, The Avalanches- Frontier Psychiatrist and my favourite; Ok Go- Here It Goes Again. Although this video doesn't use any new, clever editing or camera work, the overall idea of the video is very powerful. However it is so unique and never been done before therefore plenty of hype built around it. The video is basically men dancing on treadmills in time with the music, it is such a small budget music video, yet so effective it gained incredible attention.