Research Blog: Music Video Conventions

For this project, we choose the song Positions by Ariana Grande. This song qualifies to be in both the Pop and Contemporary R&B genre of music. In the video for the song, the main conventions for the video was the camera angles, and camera movement. Along with other music videos, it uses these conventions are used to make to music video more appealing the viewers.

In the video, there are transitions that show Ariana "flipping" from one room to another. The camera movement for this, like a circular motion ito transition to another setting. This effect that they used, was to show her duality between being a woman doing her own things, getting it done and being independent, then transitioning to her showing that she can be there for the people she loves, and vulnerable. With our video we are going to try and implement those same concepts, with the transitions like the ones used in the video.

After the video for the song came out, a new TikTok trend was created. In this trend, people used the same camera motion, while in their beds they would fall back and as the camera looped, people would be in a different outfit, and changed to lighting of the room. That other take of them, would signify their alter ego. In our video, we want to achieve the same thing, but alternating from being in pijamas to us in the aesthetics we choose: Grunge, Indie, Soft, and Glam. 

Another element we want to include in the video was, the "Mirror Effect" trick. This editing trick, allows people to record two takes of themselves looking at a mirror, while their reflection looks at the camera, or does something. It does take some precision to get down. For example the lighting and the position of the tripod cannot move, and when masking the two takes on top of  each other, there need to be a line that the takes can't cross in order for it to be seamless. This is also popular when using the song. This element would allow us to show both aspects of our normal, everyday sides, to show our true and pure personalities for what they are. Other conventions like, close ups, zoom ins, tracking, panning, will also be included in the video.