What is a music video? Miss Miller

A music video is a short film including imagery and a song. It is used for various reasons to assist a song and the artist. Some of these include helping the audience to understand the song better. Also it is a promotional tool, which tells a story and helps to attract a particular target audience. Furthermore,  it offers a insight into the artist and the audience but into the artists lifestyle, enable the audience to build a relationship with them. The video helps the audience to remember the song and often a video is actually requested by the audience.

There are three different styles of music videos, which are performance (singing/dancing), narrative (telling a story) and concept (selling the audience a theme/idea). Different styles are used for different genres of music videos. the artist/producers will decide what they think will be most effective and use this style.

This music video is All of me by John Legend, it belongs to the R&B music genre. The target audience for this song is quite a general one, however it will most likely be 15-40 year olds and due to the emotional/relationship based theme of the song the audience could be predominately women. Throughout the song I can see the codes and conventions of the R&B genre used. John Legend created a music video to go alongside 'All of me' as it helps the audience to understand the song better and build a story to go along with the song,  which helps them to build a relationship with John due to the intimacy and personal feeling to the song. As the song is based on the personal subject of love, the video reveals more of an insight into John's life.

The first style I can see in the music video is performance. John uses Mes-en-scene, specifically the iconography of a piano at the start of the video to open the song. In this high angled shot i can see John playing the piano in a basic large room. Which helps to give an intimate feel and engages the audience straight away, as they will try to imagine that John is singing the song directly to them. The performance style of John at the piano is referred back to through out the song, keeping it intimate, matching the theme of the song. He is appearing as an ideal man to the female audience as him playing the piano in the intimate setting displays him to be quite sensitive. Furthermore, the piano shows that John has actual talent and can play an instrument and sing, this is appealing to the audience as it makes him more respectable as an artist. This is highly conventional of the R&B music genre, as normally the artist will play an instrument or dance to show they are multi-talented.

Along side the performance style, there is a narrative, used to tell a story to match the lyrics. The two male and female characters are shown to have a intimate relationship, supported by the editing of the video. Editing, in particular the black and white filter layered over the video, helps to create a romantic sense mirroring the theme of love in the video. This engages the audience as it make it feel like real life as they can follow the narrative, like it is a story out of a book and engage with the characters better. This benefits John as, if the audience really engage with him in the video they are likely to watch his other videos and go to his concerts to try to connect with him again through his music. This is highly conventional to the r&b genre as male r&b artists commonly are singing about a relationship with a girl, either breaking up or just about the relationship in general. 

One convention of R&B music videos is for the men and women to wear minimal clothing in order to make them more appealing for the target audience. This high angled shot shows John laying in bed asleep, bare chested with the women next to him without a top on. This gives the narrative a sense of realism and intimacy, as it shows the two characters are comfortable with each other and that the have an intimate relationship, therefore benefitting the audiences it helps to keep them engaged with the video as they follow the narrative with the song. From this shot, the female audience could try to imagine themselves in the situation that the women is in and this helps them to relate to the songs and more of a feel for the lyrics. John is appealing more to the women as they can admire him and the female character is more appealing to the male audience as she is desirable to them, however as i said before the women could also find her appealing as they could imagine themselves in her situation.

Another convention that i can see in the video is the representation of John, this can be seen through an over the shoulder shot, this shows John singing and looking out the window at the women who is looking lustfully towards him. This represents him as being desirable and sensitive, which is stereotypical with slow r&b songs. By him being represented as this is shows him to be a real person and have real emotions and not just be a famous singer. This also helps to create intensity within the audience while listening and watching the video as it implies his real emotions and this is enjoyable to see for the audience as they can relate to this, as they are most likely to have similar relationship situations. This benefits John, as when artists have slow songs especially in r&b they are trying to let the audience feel connected to them as an artist and want them to relate to the lyrics.

As mentioned before the video appeals to the wide 15-40 year old audience because  of the characters used in the video. John is used to appeal more to the female audience, the songs video shows him to be a desirable and sensitive character. This mid shot shows John playing the piano and it shows how into his music he gets and how much passion he feels for the lyrics his singing. This appeals to the audience as it makes him appear as an ideal man for many of the women, as his talented and sensitive. Appealing to the female audience is important to John as if they connect to him through his music video then they are likely to go and see him in concert or follow his other music to try to get this connection again. Whereas the female, character is used to appeal more to the male audience. The lack of clothing she is wearing and slow body movements make her appear desirable to the males. 

From analysing this music video i have learnt about the different styles that a music videos can adopt when creating their video, these include performance, narrative and concept, different genres of music use different styles in their music videos. The R&B music video that i analysed used mainly performance and narrative styles in the video. Also i have learnt that it is important to follow the generic conventions of a music genre as it helps to appeal to the target audience, this then engages the audience throughout the whole video. If the audience are engaged throughout the whole video then they're likely to follow the artists music and then maybe go and see their concerts and tours. The research has also shown me how effective music videos are, they help the audience to put a story to the song lyrics and therefore they are then able to get a better understanding of the lyrics and therefore feel like they can relate better to the artist and the song itself. From this i am now considering to use primarily a narrative based music video as i think this is the best way that i can engage my target audience as it will give the song that i choose a story to go along with the lyrics.