what is a music video?

What is a music video?

A music video is a short piece of moving or still images put together accompanying a pre-existing piece of music to help boosts sales of the music. In a music video there should be a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals which link the music and moving images. There are many genres of music which should be illustrated by the video. A music genre is a group of music that identifies musical sounds as belonging to a particular category and type of music that can be distinguished from other types of music. It is likely to be intertextual references, either to other music videos, films or famous people. Intertextuality is when a media text makes reference to another text that, on the surface, appears to be unique and distinct.
Key features of a music video.
Music videos demonstrate characteristics of their genre e.g. A rock video would stereotypically be dark and consist of low key lighting throughout. There is always a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals in the video, so the video would never be random compared to the lyrics. The demand from a record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist which would recur across their work which would produce a visual style.