Archer's Analysis of Music Video's

Steve Archer writes the ‘5 things to look for when deciding a music video is any good’.

 1) The feeling and images that you get from a piece of music should be used as this creates a connection with the audience. The first thing to think about isn’t the literal meaning of the lyrics but the general atmosphere and feel of the actual music. You always need to start with the music. The lyrics don’t have to be taken to seriously however they are not to be ignored. Taking the main sentence and using that to create some kind of subject will give the lyrics a part to play.

 2)The is a narrative fuzz in songs that effects the way we create a music video and how it represents a meaning of a song. There is therfore usually only a hint of a story or drama. Music videos carry a role in advertising and therefore needs a repeatability. A music video needs the ability to be replayed on MTV as many times as possible in order to advertise the artist and the song, if the video has a complete narrative the consumer will not what to watch it over and over in the same way you can eventually get bored of a film or the same programme over and over.

 3)The music bussiness relies on the few big names to fund its activitys. The ‘meta-narrative’ of the star image has an important part to play in the music video. Developing the star image over time and story that surrounds them is very important.

 4)Music videos can support or promote a song in three ways.
 Illustration, amplification and disjuncture, you can use these to generilise the effects of the music videos. A music video can illustrate the lyrics or genre, providing and over literal set of images. It is the most straightforward technique where everything is based on the source of the song.

 5) including camera work, movement and angle, mis en scene, editing and sound.
The technical conventions can be summed up as follows: Speed- speed of the song visualised by camera movement
Camera Movement- motivated by running. dancing and walking
Fast-cutting and montage editing-the images moving so fast you cannot make out what they are so you need to see them more than once
Post-production- images being colourized, split screens etc. Intriguing things that give visual pleasure. Not all camera shots are about fast paced though, some need to be slow.
Meat!-The closeups of the singers face (the meat of the video) Beats!- The music video representing the beats through the use of cut
Lighting and colour- Used to emphasize key moments in the song, could also show a development of story
 Mise-en-scene-The setting for the music video is very important for the authenticity of the video.

Music video narrative from ksomel