Conventions of a Music Video

The conventions of a music video will usually consist of Performance, Narrative, Mixture, Cameo, Animation, Props, Costumes, Locations, Hair and Makeup, Jump cuts and Shots. Some of these things arent always included together.


Narrative: The story that accompanys the music video, often the meaning behind the lyrics.

Mixture: A combination of performance and narrative.

Cameo: This is when the artist is shown as a character and is not the artists or singer of the band.

Animation: This when when everything in the music video is animated or has some form of animation included.

Props: Every music video will include props. These are done to help the narrative become clearer and the video to seem believable.

Performance: This is to show the artists or band performing their song to show that they made it.

Costume: There will always be costumes in a music video be it for the characters acting in the narrative but also for the band to reflect the messages of their music and the narrative.

Location: Every music video has a location, there could be more than one but most will take place in one location and this location will be different depending on the type of music. There are usually more than 3 locations which change on each verse.

Hair and Make up: This is used to enhance the look of the artists or band and even the characters in the narrative to help attract a particular type of audience.

Jump cuts: These are often put in to either match the beat of the song or for the singer to be lip synced in many locations.

Shots: The shots mainly used in pop videos would be close ups and medium shots of the artist, in rock videos would be wide medium and close shots of the band members, to show them lip syncing the song to show who played what instrument and who sung which lines of the song.