Music Video Types

Narrative Music Videos 

A narrative music video is organised in a way which tells a story. A romance is the most common story-line in music videos. In a music video the narrative is usually simple and usually told without any dialogue as the music is playing simultaneously. Usually the music video relates to the lyrics in the song as it adds a visual element which can help explain the lyrics.
An example of a narrative music video is ‘The A Team’ by Ed Sheeran which shows a young girl who lives on the streets and sells herself to buy drugs. The music video is quite striking and it allows the audience to become involved with it emotionally, while also being controversial and sending a message. This music video is purely narrative as the artist never performs, but does appear in the video briefly which allows the audience some recognition.
I think narrative videos are strong for sending a message and are used in most genres of music, so we could consider using aspects of the style in our music video.

Abstract Music Videos

An abstract music video, unlike a narrative music video has no real connection to the lyrics and in many cases is quite artistic and distinctive.  This allows the music video to be memorable and impressive to the audience.
An example is Gary Jules’ cover of ‘Mad World’ which has children holding hands to make pictures from a bird’s eye view shot. It also has aspects of a performance video, but the main focus of attention is on the more abstract aspects. The video also relates largely to the song's lyrics, singing often about school and children which relates to the setting. But on the other hand the songs main meaning is of conformity and the tediousness of life, which is parly seen through the dull colour-scheme but is also contradicted due to the originality of the video. The music video is quite memorable due to its simplicity and originality.
I think that an abstract video would be suitable to our indie music video as its purpose is to stand out and be original, much like many indie bands which purposely stray from the ‘norm’.

Performance Music Videos

A performance music video is a band or artist who performs the music video while lip-syncing to the recording song above. This is the most common kind of music video as it allows artists to advertise themselves as a brand and the audience to familiarise themselves with them. A performance video can be used by all genres of music as all artists wish to promote themselves through their self image.
‘Somebody Told Me’ by The Killers is a performance video. The music video has the band members performing in front of a screen which shows both them and the band’s name. This song was the bands breakthrough song, and this is partly due to the image they portray and how well it publicises the band.
I think a performance aspect to our video would be vital due to the band’s genre being indie, and therefor would need to promote themselves through their image and minimalism.

Hybrid Music Video

A Hybrid music video is a combination of aspects from the other three video types. This is extremely common in most music videos as many artists like to both tell a story and promote themselves at the same time. Having a hybrid video allows the audience to connect with both the band’s image and also the lyrics.
An example of this is Blur’s song ‘Coffee and TV’ has aspects of all three genres.

We would like to make a hybrid video as it would allow the video to be more interesting and memorable as it has aspects which would appeal to everyone. 

By Rebecca Gatfield