Codes and conventions of music videos

The main codes and conventions for a music video are:

Codes:

• Camera shots - Usually there's a mixture of long shots, close ups and extreme close-ups to place emphasis on the musicians and to ensure lip-synching is intact especially with extreme close ups on the lips.
• Movement - Whip pans, tracking shots that move at a pace on a dolly and crane shots keep the performers in the frame, along with vertical tilts and horizontal pans so there's enough variation and coverage
• Editing - Terms can range from jump cuts, to MTV or montage editing. Jump cuts symbolise the camera moving from performer to instrument to location and so forth without having any narrative continuity. MTV editing is where this moves at such a fast pace, it encourages repeatability to be able to catch up and montage editing follows the musicians as the video moves forward.
• Effects - Once the sequences that have been filmed are put together, digital effects are added including split-screen, CGI, colorisation and lots more.
• Lighting - This is one of the more important codes as it sets the atmosphere and mood for a music video. For instance if there's extreme high-key lighting, it can enhance the star image of a musician or if there's a change from colour to black-and-white, there can be a shift in the song.
• Mise-en-scene - The components of props, costume, location, body language and others all combine to also set the tone of the music video, as well as informing the story. It can be that a video is set in the 70s, and the costumes are exaggerated to create something that's a parody, for example or by staying true to convention and having the location be a concert hall or studio.

Conventions:

• Narrative - A series of events are unified within time and space and have the musician go on a journey or it follows their performance in a single location. To ensure repeatability generally the narrative is one of the components that has less focus, and is suggestive. 
• Band performance - There has to be authenticity in the performance of the band and this is why there are often close-ups of lips to show lip-synching, instruments being played, chorus shots are repeated and there are specific shots and angles that gives a view of events including audience reaction.
• Solo performance - Here conventions of a band performance are repeated, one of these being lots of extreme close-ups of lips. There can also be first-person views of the artist engaging the audience as this takes advantage of mode of address.
• Star image - Whenever someone is promoted by a record company most artists don't receive as much fame. Therefore it's a case of them being marketed to suit the image of the record label, stars being manipulated in the process and is why audiences relate to the metanarrative in music videos, as their image is manipulated where it appeals to a particular target audience along with others.