Conventions

Conventions of a promo

In a music promo there are lots of important factors that need to be considered throughout production. Some of these factors become established conventions and end up being used through many different videos and genres.

·         Dance-long associated with music dance can fit perfectly into almost any video. The video which has long been said to use dance to its best effect is Michael Jackson’s thriller this is a good example of when a trademark has been made for a song as most everyone can associate the dance with the song. It’s with a technique such as this that a song can become famous through its music promo.

·         Rhythm-even outside of a dance most things that happen in music video are controlled by rhythm. A performer’s movement on stage or in a performance piece are denoted by the beats and rhythm in the song. Rhythm also affects editing and shot composition for instance cuts and fades that sync up with the music.

·         Narrative-most all videos use a narrative relating to the song this is most popular among song’s about relationships such as the scientist by the alternative rock band Coldplay.

·         Performance-most videos feature shots of the group or artist actually performing the song. This is prominent in rock videos and usually occurs in certain places in the song such as during guitar solos or certain bits of singing.

·         Flashy editing and effects-many videos also use certain strange effects in order to amaze audiences. This is used to great effect by songs like bohemian rhapsody by queen who used strange camera effects to create a strange and foreign feel for the audience. Another more modern example of this might be the video blue by Eiffel 65 that used futuristic CGI animation to create something new and interesting.

Of course many of these set conventions are changed from genre to genre.

	dance	rhythm	narrative	Flashy editing and effects	Performance
Pop	In pop dance is one of the most commonly used conventions. This is due to the fact that most pop easy to dance to and most pop musicians not playing instruments and merely singing allowing them to do more than perform in videos	Pop music is very reliant on good rhythm and this plays a big role in the music video. In a pop promo the rhythm affects the use of editing as well as most of the other conventions such as the dance, narrative and performance.	The convention of narrative is used in many pop videos but a lot of them reject it depending on their particular style. For instance newer pop artists have a tendency to stray from performance and narrative in favour of spectacle. However most other artists tend to use narrative to tell a story through the song especially if a story comes through in the lyrics.	Pop artist love to use special effects in music videos. Lady gaga for instance is fond of using picture alteration(the effect used to make her eyes bigger in bad romance) and strange costume to create strange effects.	Since most pop musicians focus more on lyrics and some don’t play instruments at all performance has always been less important in a video than perhaps dance or spectacle. Most performance based pop music videos feature their artists singing to the camera whilst more interesting things happen in the background.
Rock	Rock does not use dance as heavily as pop although it can be used most rock promos tend to focus on the band and the music they play.	Rock is also a genre that relies heavily on rhythm for cues within the music video. However since there is less dance and more performance the rhythm is mostly used to provide cues for the editing staff rather than the actual artists.	Rock does not make as much use of narrative preferring to use spectacle and performance pieces to grab an audiences attention.	The editing in rock music is very in sync with the song particularly for certain instances such as guitar riffs and important lyrical junctures.	Rock videos focus heavily on performance wanting to show the talent of their artists as well as creating an interesting spectacle for the viewer.
Heavy metal	Heavy metal uses almost no dance at all in it’s videos due to it being a primarily very dark and edgy genre which tries to avoid things that carry connotations of happiness.	Although rhythm does affect metal again it does not affect the themes or the artists themselves and serves as a series of musical cues to edit the cuts and effects by.	In heavy metal narrative can be hugely important as most heavy metal songs describe a story. Also some death metal bands have been known to do songs for the sole purpose of constructing a narrative video on them. Examples of this include the songs “bloodrocuted” and “”thunderhorse” by the virtual band Dethklok.	Heavy metal uses and editing style similar to that of rock but is increasingly fond of big special effects such as the use of CGI to create images that interweave with the lyrics and rhythm of the song.	In heavy metal as in rock performance is incredibly important. Performance is used frequently to show the band in the light of being performers for the audience rather than artists.
techno	Many techno bands use lots of dance due to the nature of their music being very party friendly. Techno is a genre that lends itself to dance due to having a lot of energy in the songs as well as focusing mainly on the sound and not on words as most techno songs contain very few.	Techno is a genre almost completely focused on rhythm and this is evident in techno music promos which are very fast paced and sync up perfectly with the song.	Although it can be used most techno concentrates on the aspects of dance and song than on rhythm as most techno song lyrics have no meaning or narrative interwoven into them.	Due to being a genre with its foundations firmly laid in the realms of computers, technology and looking to the future techno has always tried to use special CGI effects whenever possible to give their videos a more electro style.	In techno since a lot of the music is composed and edited on computer does not heavily use performance.