Music Video Research - Editing and Conventions

Editing and camerawork are two of the most important aspects when creating a music video. To create a good music video, the editing must follow the pace of the song and make sure that key points in the song are highlighted by the video, all whilst keeping the video looking professional and clean.

A help website called about.com has outlined some of the key difficulties people have when filming a music video. These include such editing techniques as excessive zoom and excessive special effects. Although both of these can be used well, in many videos these will look amateurish and unfitting. Other points outlined in the article include the use of adding post-production sound effects and that a well-done simple idea can be better than a bad complex one. A quote from the article's author defines editing well:

"Your footage might be great, but it'll only become a great video through editing. To do a good job you'll need patience, time and more patience. You'll need to decide the 'feel' and pace of the video. Will it be made up of long sweeping shots, or quick sharp edits? Do you want to follow the mood of the song and edit to the music or do you want the video to contrast with the track?"

Many music videos include an introduction, a scene that occurs

before the song begins to play (or during a song intro). These intros can last from anything between 5 seconds and 2 minutes. Although this is usually done in narrative style videos to set the scene, it has also been done in performance style videos too such as in 'crushcrushcrush' by Paramore. Other songs where that have an intro include; Stop and Stare by One Republic, Maneater by Nelly Furtado and Stan by Eminem.

A main aspect of developing a music video is to make it clear who is privileged in each shot. For example when the listener can hear a guitar during a solo the guitarist should be privileged in the shot or even the only person in the shot. Close ups of the instruments are common for these types of shots as they can show the skill and manual dexterity of the musicians which fans like to see. Most of the time, however, the lead singer is privileged in shots. This is to emphasize the lyrics and to show the singer meaningfully singing the words as well

as to create and uphold their own iconography as mentioned in Andrew Goodwin's 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory'.

Also in Andrew Goodwin's book, he talks about the relationship between the music, lyrics and visuals that make up a music video. He explains that "There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals either illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics". This occurs in every single music video. An example of the visuals illustrating the lyrics is in a song called 'Toxic' by Britney Spears. It shows Britney dropping poison into a man's mouth as the words ''with a taste of poison paradise'' are heard in the lyrics. Another example is a Coldplay video for 'The Scientist'. It shows the lead singer walking in reverse which corresponds to the lyrics, ''lets go back to the start''. An example of the visuals contradicting the lyrics is in the song 'Good Riddance' by Greenday. The lyrics are sarcastic and although the singer says ''I hope you have the time of your life'', he doesn't mean it which is shown in the video.

The book explains how the continuous release of videos from an artist throughout their career can tell a story of the artist and how they developed, this was defined as a meta-narrative. It is important that artists maintain this meta-narrative or 'star persona' in order to keep their fans happy with consistent material. If a band/musician makes a big change in the music that they create, it can potentially cause them to lose fans (although also has the potential to gain fans).