Conventions of form

 When thinking of a music video, there are many different conventions which are used within music videos which make them what they are. The first thing we see is lip syncing. When you see a music video and you see the artists or band in the video, you normally see the actual artists singing the song as the video moves along, of course it would be stupid to say that they are actually singing at that point in time, all that is happening is that the artist has first been filmed miming the lyrics then the song has been edited into the video, making it look as though the artists is actually singing. This is probably one of the most popular conventions of the music video, because you can find an example of lip syncing in almost every single music video that you see.
 Another example that you'll see is the use of close up shots, normally when you see an artists lip syncing or "singing" you will normally see a close up shot of their face. This is typical of music videos because we are then allowed to see the artists facial expressions while they are singing and this draws in the audience and allows us to understand the emotions that the artist is experiencing at that point. It gives us a window into the artists life or at least allows us a greater understanding of the narrative of the video. We will normally also see close up shots of other things such as the instruments that the artists are playing, again this is just to create the effect of live music which is automatically more appealing then pre recorded music, and will once more draw in the audience.
 We see the conventions in the way that normally in most music videos you will see the artist or the band playing instruments or actually singing, even if there is a narrative to the video that the band or artist has nothing to do with. As mentioned before this does almost create the illusion of live music rather then edited, processed music, which is injected with lots and lots of advertising techniques designed to make us, the public, give our money to millionaire music producers. It also makes the music  video seem more relateable to us because after-all we, as fans of that particular band or artist, want to be able to see them performing and starring in their videos, we don't just want to see randomly picked actors performing a short story line to fit in with the music video, we want to see the artists that we are supporting and effectively giving money too.  Another convention of a music video is the idea of abstract and narrative videos. Normally any music video that you see will fall into either one of these categories, narrative videos are normally videos which have a set storyline, which is easy to follow and normally fits in with the lyrics of the song, on the other hand abstract videos are normally much more difficult to understand and at first glance could appear to have no relevance to the song lyrics at all. Sometimes even the video itself doesn't appear to have any storyline to follow. Once more this is just a feature of an abstract music video, however it doesn't always appear like this. Abstract and narrative videos have many negatives and positives of them, many of which have been already mentioned. The positives of a narrative video is that the audience can follow the storyline and relate to it, as well as this more often than not the music video directly relates to the lyrics, meaning we have a better understanding of what the music video and the song is about. The negatives are that because it is a narrative, with a storyline that many of us could relate to in real life, it may just come across as a little bit cliché meaning it may bore the audience, and just reflect on the song and music video badly, after all we go to watch/listen to music videos to escape from life not to have to relive it once more. Despite this, the idea that the story lines could relate to the audience, could be seen as a good thing because it allows the audience to really relate with the artists and song, meaning more people will enjoy the music song and video. The positives of abstract videos are that because they have no real relationship with the song, and are often quite strange and eerie, this can sometimes appeal to us, the audience, purely because it's something different from the cliché "boy meets girl" storyline, that you often see used in many music videos. On the other hand it can also be a negative because of course it can confuse the audience and make the music video seem pointless if it's difficult to see the relationship between the video and the music itself.
 In music videos a convention which is often used in most music videos is a point-of-view shot. This is typically a camera angle which looks as though we are seeing through the eyes of the people in the video. This is an appealing angle for obvious reasons. The one thing artists want in their videos is for the audience to either relate to the video or be intrigued by the video. Using a point of view shot could in some ways be considered intriguing however it most definitely allows the audience to relate to the lyrics and the music video. By using a POV shot we see what the main subject of the video see's, this makes it seem as though we are part of the music video and all together, makes watching it more exciting. It also makes the video seem more "real life" rather than just a music video which helps to appeal towards the audience.
 Another feature of a music video that could be considered a convention is the idea that as the music, or the beat of the music speeds up so does the action within the music video. For example if we are considering dub-step music, the more the beat quickens, as does the action occurring in the video, so a person in the music video could start of walking then as the pace of the music gets quicker the person could start running and getting faster and faster, this is a technique used quite often within music videos which have a varying pace because the faster the music gets the more involved and excited it gets the audience, it almost takes the audience up to a climax along with the music. This effect allows the audience to once more relate to the music and also allows us to become more enthusiastic about the music that we are listening too.  

  
     

Initial Ideas for Music Video

Initial idea 1:
Alarm goes off, girl wakes up, does a test and finds out she’s pregnant, she tells the father of the child that she’s pregnant, who gets angry and storms off, girl gets upset, gets dressed, gets on the bus and she goes to college, trying to act as though nothing is wrong and the father of the child has started spreading nasty rumours and lies about her, making her sound like a slut. She starts getting abuse of people as she walks through the college corridors and this tension and anger builds up till she gets home, she starts getting angrier, to the point where she starts smashing things to take her anger out on something, she goes to bed and wakes up the next morning, she gets ready for college, gets on the bus and the same routine repeats again, almost mimicking the lyrics “tomorrow is another day”.


Initial idea 2:
Teenage boy gets bullied. His alarm goes off, he gets up, gets ready for college and goes. The minute he’s in class, he sits down and school bullies throw things at him, in front of the teacher, but the teacher ignores this and lets it happen. The same thing repeats, again showing the routine of his day to day life. 

Initial idea 3:
A teenage boy (or girl) is struggling in college with the work and is stressed because he/she is falling behind in everything, however when he leaves college him and his friends go and get drunk/smoke/use drugs, and they’re on a beach like environment quite late at night. He eventually goes home and its late, he goes to bed and you see his laptop open next to him, and he receives an email from his college saying he’s falling behind, he closes the laptop and goes to sleep, wakes up the next morning and the same idea repeats again.. Same routine. “tomorrow is another day” showing his mindset where he feels like he doesn’t have to take life seriously, even though he does. 

Initial idea 4:

A teenage girl is woken up by an alarm clock going off, she gets up looks tired, does a pregnancy test and see's a positive result. She gets upset and doesn't know what to do, she finds out a couple of days later that he was killed in a drunken car accident, she falls on the floor to her knees. She gets on the bus and sits on it to college. We see her sat at her seat not really paying attention to the teacher. We then see her getting ready to go out, she goes to a club and we see her getting drunk and partying, trying to forget her problems but we know that it won't help. We next see a shot of her sat on a field or something similiar and we see her getting extremely drunk taking back one drink after another, there would be camera cuts after each mouthful of each drink to emphasize how much she is drinking. She goes home and some of her friends are at her house, one of them asks if she is okay and she says she is and forces a smile. Eventually her friends leave and she goes to bed, she has her laptop open next to her where she recieves an email saying she is behind in college, she slams close the laptop goes to bed, wakes up the next morning because of the alarm, gets up, looks tired, and the same routine repeats again, mimicking the lyrics "tomorrow is another day". 

Initial idea 5:
A teenage girl is woken up by an alarm clock going off, she gets up looks tired, does a pregnancy test and see's a positive result. She gets upset and doesn't know what to do, she tells the guy she slept with who gets angry, starts shouting at her and storms off, she falls on the floor to her knees. She gets on the bus and sits on it to college. We see her sat at her seat not really paying attention to the teacher, we flick over to a shot of the boy doing the same thing, perhaps he is seen in a boxing arena, with a punch ball. We then see her getting ready to go out, she goes to a club and we see her getting drunk and partying, trying to forget her problems but we know that it won't help. We next see a shot of the boy or even her sat on a field or something similiar and we see them getting extremely drunk taking back one drink after another, there would be camera cuts after each mouthful of each drink to emphasize how much they are drinking. She goes home and some of her friends are at her house, one of them asks if she is okay and she says she is and forces a smile. Eventually her friends leave and she goes to bed, she has her laptop open next to her where she receives an email saying she is behind in college, she slams close the laptop goes to bed, wakes up the next morning because of the alarm, gets up, looks tired, and the same routine repeats again, mimicking the lyrics "tomorrow is another day".

Initial Idea 6
A teenage girl is woken up by an alarm clock going off, she gets up looks tired, does a pregnancy test and see's a positive result. She gets upset and doesn't know what to do, she tells the guy she slept with who gets angry, starts shouting at her and storms off, she falls on the floor to her knees. She gets on the bus and sits on it to college. We see her sat at her seat not really paying attention to the teacher.We next see a shot of  her sat on a field or something similiar and we see them getting extremely drunk taking back one drink after another, there would be camera cuts after each mouthful of each drink to emphasize how much they are drinking. She then begins to walk through a field like environment or something similiar and looks emotional and upset. Finally she arrives home and gets in bed she has her laptop open next to her where she receives an email saying she is behind in college, she slams close the laptop goes to bed, wakes up the next morning because of the alarm, gets up, looks tired, and the same routine repeats again, mimicking the lyrics "tomorrow is another day". 

Initial idea 7: (CHOSEN MUSIC  VIDEO IDEA)
A teenage girl is woken up by an alarm clock going off, she gets up looks tired, does a pregnancy test and see's a positive result. She gets upset and doesn't know what to do, a couple of days later (possibly signified by a clock) she receives a phone call, and she finds out the guy who she's pregnant with has been killed in a drunken car accident, she falls on the floor to her knees. She gets on the bus and sits on it to college. We see her sat at her seat not really paying attention to the teacher.We next see a shot of  her sat on a field or something similiar and we see her getting extremely drunk taking back one drink after another, there would be camera cuts after each mouthful of each drink to emphasize how much she is drinking. She then begins to walk through a field like environment or something similiar and looks emotional and upset. Finally she arrives home and gets in bed she has her laptop open next to her where she receives an email saying she is behind in college, she slams close the laptop goes to bed, wakes up the next morning because of the alarm, gets up, looks tired, and the same routine repeats again, mimicking the lyrics "tomorrow is another day". 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM4Va_9cSCY

Genre Conventions

There are many different genre conventions when it comes to electro/dubstep music. This general genre cam about in the 1990's from this it evolved into all sorts of similar genres such as broken beat, 2-step garage, jungle, drum and bass, dub, reggae etc. The first music released under the title dubstep, was experimental and there was little or no emphasis on the vocals at this point in time as they focused more heavily on the bass and beats, however today you will hear a mix of vocals and dark instrumental beats. The online website AllMusic actually described dubstep as "tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals" which basically describes dubstep in a sentence. Many of which have already been mentioned. Dubstep was actually first established in the 2000's and mainly originated from the London grime/garage scene, despite this it took around 6 years for this genre of music to be properly established. Through this time Radio DJ's such as Mary-Anne Hobbs who put her efforts into spreading the word about this new type of music, began to present this music to electronica fans, through live sets which were performed up and down the country. When albums such as albums such as "Warrior dubz" were soon being released dubstep was soon  to be heard and loved in many high profile clubs and was soon part of the "overground scene". This a totally modern form of music is quite heavy in the bass frequencies that  can be heard as the beats vibrate through the club, it creates an almost "underwater" effect, which is due to the suppression of the bass. Dubstep is primarily instrumental and much darker than techno or other similar genres of music, it uses jarring chords, minor keys and a bass drop that you are likely to hear in bass and drum music. Dubstep in some ways is indie dance and grime music combined into a perfected mix of bass drops and a progression of beats which follows a "skip and beat" pattern. It is this genre of music which has gripped thousands. The term "Dubstep" was only used until just very recently, in 2002 by labels such as Ammunition and Tempa, it was at this point when the dubstep music genre really began to separate itself from other genres, purely through the changes and evolution that it was going through.