Background to the Music Industry

Music video has a number of different functions:

·      Promotes a specific single and, normally, an album

·      Promotes a specific artist or band

·      Creates, adapts or feeds into a ‘star image’

·      Entertains as product in its own right

·      Reinforces, adapts or undermines the ‘meanings’ of a song/track

They often contain an number of re-occuring thematic elements such as; Narrative, performance, thematic and symbolic

• Most majors also own, or license, a string of a smalled subsidiary companies in order to reach different kinds of audiences in different kinds of genre. These companies are known as 'Major-Independents'
• Finally, there are a huge number of small companies with little to no financial connection to the majors

• These companies often concentrate on a small number of artists, within specialized niches in the industry.
• Known as 'Independents'

• Visually stylish – ‘artistic’ mise-en-scene

• ‘Rhythmic’ montage, fragmented style

• Intercutting

• Experimental use of camera/editing

• Fast pace

• Conspicuous lighting and cinematography

  Often break the rules of continuity editing

Music video serves a number of different functions:

–Promotes a specific single and, normally, an album

–Promotes a specific artist or band

–Creates, adapts or feeds into a ‘star image’

–Entertains as product in its own right

–Reinforces, adapts or undermines the ‘meanings’ of a song