Conventions of a Pop Music Video

General Conventions:

Pop Music videos are all about the artist selling the song to their audience. Typical elements to pop music videos include lots of very bright and vibrant lighting and colours, make up and props, and costumes and outfits that stand out.

This is different to an indie rock music video as indie rock is usually contains the darker colours, including costume, make up and props.

The pop music to go with the videos tend to be very happy and involve a lot of physical movement such as dancing, being very physical in the performance and narrative. Many pop artists such as Rihanna and One Direction use these conventions which also lead them to being sex symbols towards their audience and fans which would also sell to get more money to make more extravagant music videos.

Mise En Scene	Camera	Editing
Bright colours Lighting very light and vibrant Lots of makeup and fashion accessories – synergy.	Many close ups of artists face Long shots of dance/partying scenes	Tints and filters to boost Photoshop artists so they look `perfect’

Performance:

Pop music videos are mainly based upon performance. Unlike indie rock, where the main focus is the band than the narrative and pop music videos are mainly based on the narrative with strong performance elements to entertain the audience. The pop artist is usually the main character in the music video but for some reasons such as personality traits and beliefs, artists such as Sia has a representative of her, in videos such as “Chandelier”.

Pop artists usually perform in a way in sexual manner to attract audiences and fans of both genders, for example Rihanna in her collaboration with Drake “Work” in this music video she is seen dancing sexually towards Drake. This can be attractive to the male fan members and also a role model to the female fans and audience.

In comparison, in indie rock music videos the artists don’t act in these manners as they concentrate on expression of thought and meaning of the lyrics of the song to their audiences.

Narrative:

In pop music videos, the narrative tends to be distant and all about the performance to most music artists because this attracts most audience members. The typical narratives used in pop music videos are based around parties or some kind of event.

For example in Nicki Minaj’s “Starships” the narrative/theme is that she is an alien that’s landed on the planet and wondering where she is and the rest of the music video is her lip syncing on a beach etc., this entertains the audience as they are intrigued from the initial narrative.