Conventions of Pop Music

Now that we have established what genre we will be working in, I'm going to look at what conventions are typically used in Pop music videos. Here I will be using an example from Lady Gaga's Bad Romance.

Conventions in most Pop music videos typically include:

• The general beat and tone of the song is usually relatively quick.
• Music videos tend to focus more on the artist, and their image, especially with female artists. Most of the time you would find that they are in centre shot.

Camera:

The video begins with a long shot and Lady Gaga posing in centre shot, surrounded by many people. The men are dressed in black, the women are dress in white. This foreshadows the differences we are shown in power throughout the video, where the male characters are at first dominant, and Gaga is portrayed as innocent and helpless.

We are shown a long shot of some creatures dancing in a darkened room, this is showing the darker side to Gaga in this story, this is further emphasized by the mirror shot in which the artist is wearing all black.

However, this 'evil' side is balanced by the character in the bathtub. There are a series of mid-close and extreme close up shots of her where we are able to notice a variety of things:

  

• She is wearing all white, in a white bathtub, in a white room - highlighting the idea of purity and innocence.
• This is also shown through her large eyelashes.
• The extreme close up enables us to see her emotion through facial expression, in this case she appears to be wild, free, innocent.           

While the good side of her is being drugged we are shown a new character which appears to be Gaga's mind, she is neutral. There are only extreme close ups of her, she is crying and this shows what kind of pain she is going through.

Editing:

The general cutting rate of this video is very quick, there are many shots and the most influential technique in this story is the use of cross-cuts. Throughout the video there are many cross-cuts to the show the different personalities to Gaga's characters of good and evil, as she transforms into this monster-type figure. An example of this is shown from Gaga posing in the mirror, dressed in all black, and this cuts to the more pure looking character in the bathtub.

Mise En Scene:

Props and costume are the most important aspect to this video in order to portray the feelings and personalities of the different Gaga characters we see during the story.

Costume is important in terms of showing what kind of power Gaga has. In one scene there is a mid-long shot of her posing in the mirror. She is dressed in all black, and takes on a typical male role of dominance and power which is shown through having one leg up.

Lady Gaga's power is also shown towards the end of the video when she is leading the group dance, and dressed in all red. The colour red typically portrays danger, power. Gaga becomes livelier, and the cutting rate quickens as the climax of the song has been reached. 

You can also notice at the beginning of the video, the word 'Monster' is written on one of the pods, this is Gaga's way of viewing herself in general music industry, and it is also an indication of her split personality within the narrative. 

In terms of lighting, there are areas in which there is high key and low key, but this depends on what type of character we are being shown, for example there is use of high key lighting when we are introduced to Gaga in the bathtub. Likewise, low key lighting is used where we see the other sides to her, such as the dancing creatures and Gaga looking at herself in the mirror.