Key Features Of Music Videos

There are many different things that need to be considered whenever a band or artist makes a music video as well as what types of music that they are going to sell. Richard Dyer believes that different artists are constructed through images such as advertising, films, magazines and music. He claims that the audience prefer an artists music if it is emotionally important to them rather than the record labels trying to create a fake image for them.

Industry and Audiences

Richard Dyer also believes that the stars and artists that are made are manufactured to make money for their record labels by trying to appeal to a certain target audience. For example, Katy Perry's music is aimed to be at teenage girls and this is an appropriate target audience as she seems like a type of role model. As the record labels try to sell the different artists that they produce as they try to appeal to different target audiences. The audiences that watch and listen to all of the other types of music are seen like a market. You will need to be able to find type of music is selling the most and try to manufacture an artist that fits that market. Examples of record labels that are doing this is through Mirror branding, both Rage Against The Machine and Joe McElderry are signed by Sony Music.

Character And Personality

The artists that are being marketed by the record labels cannot be seen a being produced to suit a certain purpose they have to been seen as 'real' human beings. So in order to do this they have to make sure that they are exactly like the audience who is watching the video. An artist that shows this clearly is Adele. In her video 'Someone Like You', she is explaining in the song that she isn't anyone special and that she is just like everyone who is watching in the audience.

Andrew Goodwin

In Dancing in the Distraction Factory, Andrew Goodwin realised several different things about music videos. One of the points that were discussed is that the aim of music videos is to show specific genre characteristics that can be seen even in today's music videos. For example, in a heavy metal band video you would expect to see the band in a stage performance while on the other hand if you were to watch a boy/girl band, you would expect a kind of dance routine.
 Also in most videos there is normally some kind of link between the lyrics and the visuals or the music and the visual. Sometimes there will be a link between the lyrics that a being said in the song. For example, in Adele's song Someone Like You the video in the song is simply of her just singing. While if you were to look at other artist's like her there would undoubtedly be some special effects added to the song. Although in some songs instead of the lyrics and the visual sometimes it is the music and the lyrics that are similar. Songs such as Skyfall by Adele is where the music and visuals are the same. This is because in the song the music is linked to the movie that it is supposed to be with.
Since the record label is the people who control the artists they will try to get a lot of close ups to the artist so that they can create motifs that can be seen in their videos. An example of this is Michael Jackson whose motif was the fact that he had a white glove, something that is iconic and will be remembered by the audience. The camera which is used to film can be referenced as a 'man' who is looking at the female artist. This is because whenever a female artist is represented in a music video it is mainly sexual; trying to capture the audience's eye.
Although there are a lot of main elements that are about general music videos, there are still another point that need to be considered. You will need to think about whether the music video is mainly about a performance, narrative or concept based and see how it is used in the video. You will need to think about if the video is just the band or boy/girl band performing their song or if the song is trying to tell a story behind the lyrics.

Relation of Visuals to Song
There are three ways in which music videos work in order for them to promote a song. They are:
Illustrate: Music videos can use a set of images to illustrate the meaning of lyrics and genre which is most commonly used in music videos.
Amplify: This is similar to repeatability. Meanings and effects are manipulated and constantly shown through the video and drummed into our vision.
Disjuncture: This is where the meaning of the song is completely ignored.

Narrative and Performance
Whenever a record label makes a song they will not give us the complete narrative which means that the audience will have to figure out what exactly is being said. Goodwin believes that the main focus for music videos should be to advertise the artist but every now and then the music video ignores the common narrative.For example, Katy Perry's Roar doesn't at all try to advertise her as a female artist but instead is trying to slightly tell us about being over Russell Brand. Although music videos are supposed to say something about the music and the lyrics, they are ideally supposed to have repeatability so that it makes it a lot easier for the audience to watch the video over and over again without them losing interest.
The video seems to become a lot more effective when the artist who is singing is the narrator and the participant of the song as if it seems that they are singing the song from experience or it has happened in the past. However in some videos there are lip syncing and other actions which occur during the filming of the video but the audience have to believe that it is real. I believe that in nearly every video, there has to be lip syncing especially when there is going to be a close up on the artists face to make it seem like they are actually singing the words to the song.