M3 - Codes and Conventions of My Music Video

Final Music Video

Genre Conventions

Despite the production process of my music video being almost totally different to my original planning, I still made sure to follow the codes and conventions of the EDM genre, which Hydrogen falls under. Most of my initial plans for how the video will reflect the song's genre remained a key feature of the music video's composition.

From my M1 document, here are the conventions of EDM that I originally planned to incorporate:

(More detail on these conventions can be found in M1)

1 - Vibrant colours and high contrast lighting

 

2 - Lots of movement / action / high intensity sequences

3 - Club setting

4 - Vague, far-fetched or otherwise strange scenes / events

5 - Unreal or extreme representation of reality

How my final music video conforms to these conventions:

1 - Although my video's lighting was not traditionally bright or vibrant, I deliberately used dirty red and blue colours for most of the interior scenes to create a dark contrast effect in many shots. This conforms to the EDM genre because the lighting is very similar to the lighting used in real-life nightclubs and dance clubs, which EDM is based around. 

2 - My video makes use of movement in two different ways to help conform to the genre. Firstly is the movement of the subjects on screen; this is most prevelant in the action sequences that take up large parts of the video. Secondly is the camera movement, such as pans, tilts and dolly shots. Most of the shots in my video contain some kind of camera movement. The combination of both of these gives the video a fast-paced, exciting and tense feel, which conforms to EDM because the music itself is usually upbeat and high tempo, inciting the listener to dance. 

3 - Another common convention of EDM is the use of a nightclub as the video's setting, as it reflects where the music is most often listened to, and a place the target audience will enjoy. My video is no exception to this. Most of the video takes place inside a club run by a criminal gang, from it's dance floor to the endless back corridors to the boss' office. I also specifically included shots of people dancing in the club, despite it not being particularly relevant to the narrative, because that too is a convention of the genre.

4 - The narrative of my video can certianly be described as vague, far-fetched and strange. The events of the video are not properly explained as there is limited exposition and no dialogue at all. I chose to do this deliberately as it is a convention of EDM videos to have such a narrative. Enough hints of the narrative and the video's events are given so that the viewer is not lost, but enough is withheld from them to incite mystery and intrigue.

5 - Obviously, a man in a pig mask beating up criminals in a nightclub is not an accurate portrayal of what the world is like. EDM videos are rarely grounded in reality like some other genre's videos. They are usually wildly exaggerated, depicting unreal scenarios that are either impossible or very unlikely. My video falls in the latter, because although it is possible for such a narrative to occur, it is nonsensical enough to be clearly unrealistic. 

General Conventions of Music Videos

As well as conforming to the conventions of the song's genre, many aspects of my video also adhere to the general codes and conventions of music videos. 

Andrew Goodwin's Theory:

In his 1992 book "Dancing in the Distraction Factory", theorist Andrew Goodwin described 7 key characteristics that makes up music videos. Most of these characteristics have been deliberately applied to my music video;

1. Relationship between lyrics and visuals

I was unable to include this characteristic in the traditional sense because the track I chose for my video does not have any lyrics at all. However, I still reflected the lack of lyrics in the video by deliberately avoiding any dialogue or text throughout the video, with the key exception of the title card. I wanted the video to be mostly without words, both in speech and writing. The title card at the beginning of the video is the exception to this because "Hydrogen" is the closest thing to a lyric that the track has; it's the track's title. This makes the display of the word more distinct and iconic given that no other words are seen or heard in the video (besides minor background detail like signs).

2. Relationship between music and visuals

Since there are no lyrics in the track, I felt as though I had to "double-down" on the relationship with the music itself. Coincidentally, EDM music videos often have to do the same thing as lyrics are not as common in EDM than other genres. EDM music has much more focus on the beat / rhythm of the track, making it all the more important to have a strong link to that rhythm in the visuals.

The most prevalent way that I did this was not in a given frame's composition, but in the editing between frames. Almost every cut between shots is cut on the beat of the track, with aligns the visual rhythm of what the viewer sees with the audio rhythm of what they hear. 

3. Video style and iconography of the genre

My video's adherence to the genre conventions of EDM has already been explored above.

4. Close-up shots of the artist

This characteristic is not really applicable to my video because I did not have access to the artist to feature him in my video. In the transition to a digital setting, I could have created a virtual version of the artist as a cameo, but that would've been very time-consuming and I also would've needed permission from the artist, who has since all but abandoned his work under the M.O.O.N. alias.

It may however still be relevant that close-up shots are used of the main character, Jacket, which enforces his presence as the main character and the music video's connection to the game Hotline Miami, of which the narrative is based on and the Jacket model is based on.

5. Artist's own iconography

Since M.O.O.N. has never released any of his own music videos, it is difficult to tell what his artist iconography would be. I could have incorporated visuals from his album covers, but that's about it.

As with the previous characteristic, I instead leaned more into the Hotline Miami side of things and incorporated aspect's of the game's iconography to reinforce it's connection to the game, as my video is  a pastiche of it. The most integral feature I included was the narrative of the video which, as explained in M1, follows a similar chain of events seen in a level of the game.

Other aspects of the game I included took less obvious forms, such as Jacket's messy bedroom in the first scene, which mirror's his room in the game, the use of a baseball bat, suitcase and pig mask as key props, which are items in the game, and Jacket pulling the mask out of a package, as that's how he recieves his first mask in the game's first level.

6. Voyeurism

Voyeurism is the use of "looking" in a shot, such as perspective shots as well as frame-within-a-frame shots. I use both of these techniques in my video. Firstly, POV shots from Jacket's perspective are used a few times throughout the video to give the viewers a more intimate relationship with the character. Over-the-shoulder shots are also used to achieve this, albeit to a lesser extent.

Frame-within-a-frame is a compository technique where the frame is visually divided into an outer composition and an inner composition. An example of this in my video is the shot of Jacket's phone where the frame is made up of two distinct frames; the outer frame is Jacket's room and his desk and the inner frame is the phone screen with the call display.

7. Intertextual References

My video is likely full of many indirect references to videos and films I have seen in the past, which were incorporated into my video despite being unaware of the idea's origin. References I am aware of include the character models of the thugs which are from the game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, the motel setting in the first scene which is from Left 4 Dead 2, the car model and mob boss model which are from GTA San Andreas and GTA V respectively, and the suitcase + dancing civilians which are from Half-life 2.

I did not deliberately choose these models because they were references, they just fit the look of what I wanted, which would make them indirect references (unintentional)

 

Direct intertextual references fall under the pastiche to Hotline Miami, which was explored in the artist iconography section. 

Uses and Gratifications Theory:

The Uses & Gratifications theory claims that, while consuming a media product, an individual is expecting the gain something from that product. These gains are known as Audience Pleasures, and there are 4 main categories:

Surveillance

The use of media to acquire knowledge, information or understanding of a subject. For example, watching the news to gain knowledge of current affairs.

Personal Relationships

The use of media to produce a topic of conversation between others. For example, two people might watch a film and discuss their thoughts about it.

Personal Identity

The use of media to identify values that reflect yours, or things you aspire to be. For example, reading a fitness magazine because you aspire to be healthier and stronger.

Escapism

The use of media to escape from the real world and be immersed in a fictional setting for entertainment. For example, playing a video game to detach from reality and have fun in a virtual setting.

Although an argument could be made for each of the pleasures, my video is mostly tailored towards the escapism category. This is for 2 reasons; firstly, because of the music video's genre. EDM music and the culture surrounding it is about dancing, partying and having fun; about letting go of everything and focusing on the moment, on the music. This makes the genre already closely tied to escapism and entertainment. Further enforcing the choice of escapism is the song's relationship to the game Hotline Miami. Like most games, Hotline Miami's purpose is to entertain and act as a form of escapism, making it even more suitable for my video to do the same.

To assist in the escapism factor of my video, I created an interesting and exciting fictional story for the viewer to be immersed in and be entertained by. This allows the viewer to detach themselves from reality and spend a few minutes simply enjoying themselves.