Music Video Structures

Katy Perry- "Roar" (2013)

Katy Perry is an american singer/song writer who first grew in the industry in 2001. She released her single 'Roar' on September 3rd 2013 which was later included on her album 'Prism'. She has become well known for her music in genres such as pop and alternative; also branching out into pop rock music. 

Her music video 'Roar' included both narrative and live performance. With the video inter-cutting between shots of her singing directly to her audience, generally within the chorus, and shots of her living through the narrative of being in a plane crash and having to survive in the jungle. 

This is typical of the pop genre, telling a narrative that is uplifting while also having the artist perform the song as if they are singing directly out to the individual viewer of the video. The general theme of the song is the idea of freedom and independence, which she is singing about in her lyrics. While the situation of being stranded in the jungle isn't the real theme of the song it is a symbolic representation of her learning to become a leader and use her voice. 

Chip ft. Stormzy and Shalo- "I'm fine" (2014)

Jahmall Fyffe, also known by his stage name Chip (Chipmunk) is and English singer song writer who began his career in 2004. His work is mostly categorised in Grime and Hip hop. The song 'I'm Fine' that features other artist (Stormzy, an Enlish rap artist, and Shalo) came out on December 11th 2014.

A typical convention of the rap genre is that they will include live performances. Within the music we see the three rappers dancing within a crowd of people in a small space. The camera work shows close ups on each of the rappers as they sing their parts of the song, it appeared handheld with rolling camera shot so to give the impression of a more chaotic, lively atmosphere.

This is common for videos based in the rap genre. This kind of music is created for dancing, so a way to market their song to be used in this way would be to create a music video showing people dancing along to the track. 

Arctic Monkeys- When The Sun Goes Down (2008)

Arctic Monkeys is an English rock band which formed in 2002. "When The Sun Goes Down" was released on December 10th 2008 and is a single on there album "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not".

Similar to many of their songs at this time in the band career, they chose to include a narrative that complemented the lyrics of the song. The lyrics told a story of a prostitute and how she was badly treated by her pimp, the band didn't feature in the video but are included subtlety in the back ground.

The general editing of the video is pieced together to create a pace that matches the tempo of the song. For example within the intro of the song, which introduces the characters that are sung about, the general tempo is slow. This is complemented by a slow pace with close ups of the character (e.g. "and what a scummy man" close up of the face of the pimp) However once the Guitar play there introductory riff the tempo increases and so we see fast pace editing of someone driving and quick cuts between the characters.