Purposes
The main purpose of a music video is to promote something, something such as a TV show or a film. Using a music video gives a nice visual of the song even if it is sometimes not related to the song itself. All videos are different, they can either go by a songs lyrics or not go by them; either way 90% of the time it will tell a certain story in a certain way. The story may not be obvious, but it is there. Music video's are performed and portrayed in various ways. One main way is to give entertainment to the audience.
YouTube is pretty much the main and only source of music videos, thankfully to YouTube it lets people find many different videos some being music videos and some being actual music. It encourages people to go on a place like Itunes and buy the song therefor increasing revenue.
Revenue is the main source of a band/singer/rapper/performer's successfulness, that and publicity. Increasing revenue can be done in many different ways. These ways being promoting it by singing live, possibly selling products, or a music video.
Techniques
Slow motion
Slow motion techniques are in a few music videos and are increasingly being used as the general technique of a music video, basically slow motion or slow mo is where the footage is played slower, lower than 24fps which is the normal amount of fps in a video. Fps are frames per second, so the the amount of frames you have in a second, to create a slow mo you could adjust the fps to be higher, maybe something in the 50-60 area but it does have to be on a 24fps timeline or it won't work. To adjust the speed of a clip you can use an editing software such as Adobe Premiere Pro, then right clicking the clip and clicking "Speed/Duration" An example of a slow mo music video is below:
Zoom in and out
Zooming in and out is a hard technique to find in music videos, and so far I only know of one that frequently used it at the beginning of its music video. That would be Darude Sandstorm, it may not be the best music video but it does use the zoom in and out technique, this technique can be done in an editing software, or on the camera itself. On camera: just zooming the lense in and out. On the editing software, such as Adobe Premiere Pro: go to effect options and change the size of the video whilst inserting different keyframes, and making the size bigger and smaller.
Cuts to the beat
Cutting to the beat is another common technique in the majority of music videos, it gives a better effect on the video itself, cutting to the beat is in the name really, "cutting to the beat" To cut to the beat you would need any editing software and possibly a pair of headphones, you simply cut the clips at the same time of the beat, as you can see in the video below its not actually cutting but the movement of the drums is similar to cutting to the beat.
Point Of View(POV)
POV, also known as point of view, is a great technique not used much but is great when it is used. To do POV most people use a GoPro, and attach it to a helmet that then the person uses it to record its own perspective. This technique does not require any post production work, just needs a camera and the person themself. And of course a script. In the video below you will see a pov of a dog, this was done as I said, with a GoPro he went round with a GoPro strapped onto the dog and put the clips recorded together with some slow mo, and music.
green screen
In this day and age green screens are commonly used here and there on a daily basis for production companies, music videos will be used but not as much as natural camera shots. Green screen is a large sheet that is green, and cast around all of the person or in a certain area that will later on be able to change after the production stage, the editing stage where the editor can manipulate the background but software and a computer is required to do so. Adobe after effects is good for this, first of all you need to place people into a chromakey, then you make the background layer transparent which will detect the single green colour and it will then allow you to overlay it with an image. The picture below is what a green screen looks like:
Below is an example of a music video that used a green screen:
styles
Animation
Animation is not used much in the music video industry, and if it is its most likely from a TV show, or movie. Animation mostly comes from a show, or little animations you see online as a gif, but they are used in music videos as well as the shows and gif's. Anybody can make an animation all it requires is certain software and possibly a little bit of talent at art; when I say little talent at art I mean having the ability to repetitively draw an object(s) over and over to form together an animation with software such as Adobe Flash, which is a great software for making animations. You just need to insert keyframes and draw different sections until it blends together to form an animation. An example of an animation music video is below:
Narrative
A narrative is kind of like a short film, it has 3 acts; beginning, middle and end. It tells a story to the audience, this can be done by making the theme of the video/music have a story to it, like its reading a story to the audience but in music form. In some cases the musics' lyrics need to be similar to the video as I said "in some cases" so it does not always need to be based of the lyrics of the song it can be different. Mostly the video will narrate the lyrics of the song, as you can see in the video below "thriller" it is classed as a narrative:
Live performance
A live performance video, is a in its name, not really hard to explain. All it is, is a video of a live performance of music, to make it a live performance it just needs to be recorded live in front of an audience. For example the music video "shots" by imagine dragons is a great example of a live performance music video; its recorded live in front of an audience with all the same usual aspects of a video, except it just has an audience that you can see and probably the equipment that is recording the video.
Found footage
Found footage music videos are the most public music videos of all time. Its using creative commons footage or other footage that you have licensed to use and include it in your own video with a track over it, to create a found footage music video you would need actual found footage possibly from a creative commons website and then cut that clip(s) into your music video, therefore creating a found footage music video. There is not much else to it besides the copyright, you have to make sure the footage used is creative commons or public to use because you could get sued for using someone elses footage, unless they license it to you to use which means that they have signed a form saying that you are allowed to use the footage from their video into your music video.
Time-lapse
Time-Lapse is another form of animation, its recording a specific scenic view or object for a few hours to a point where if you speed it up in an app, or camera setting, or editing software it will then create a smooth fast-paced video/clip. For example the video below is a great example of a Time-Lapse, it may not be an official music video because it just has time-lapsed footage with a track on top of it, but it does give a good demonstration of what a time-lapse actually is, as you can see the footage is fast paced yet still, or the camera is slowly moving but the rest is fast paced. This is done by either putting a camera in one position and recording it, or putting a camera in one position, recording up to a specific point depending on the length between the frames you could say be recording for 3 hours and record 30 minutes, stop, move the camera the tiniest amount, record another 30 minutes, stop, move the tiniest amount, and so on.
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