Cultural Music Video Characteristics

Aside form the normal characteristics of a modern music video listed in the previous music video post, each culture or country has its own style of music video, however these music videos tend to emulate their country's own style of ordinary film. Some of the unique characteristics of several different cultural music videos are listed below:

• Western / American Music Videos: Short cuts of film and quick transitions, moving focus (eg. when a clip transitions in, it starts somewhere else, then focuses on the singer.) Western music videos also tend to use extensive video effects such as brightness, saturation and slow motion to make the music videos more dynamic. Also, the camera tends not to be stable in places, but instead shaky in order to create the effect of constant movement and excitement.
  

• Japanese Music Videos: Longer cuts, tends to have still focus on singers, slower moving focus of overall band, tends to focus a medium shot on singer, usually has overall focus on the band itself. Also, Japanese Music Videos puts a lot more focus onto the singers rather than the story itself, as the point of music videos is to advertise the song.

• Chinese Music Videos: Unlike other music videos, the story and the performance of the song is very well immersed together. Though it really isn't an aspect, they also tend to have the subtitles of the song as if it were a karaoke. Besides that, there also tends to be a lot of action in Chinese music videos. Similar to Japanese ones, Chinese music videos put a lot of focus on to the singer. The camera angles and techniques also tend to mimic the action, such that if the song is in a calm phase there the camera will be still, but at a fast paced area, the camera will be shaky and in some places effects such as slow motion will be used to emphasize the action.

Notes on Music Videos

What are music videos? Music Videos are basically short video clips that accompany a piece of music. Music Videos are currently very popular with the modern music industry, but are only somewhat used in the classical section. Music Videos comprise of several key aspects:

• Consistency is not an issue - In many modern music videos, scenes tend to switch places that are meant to carry on from each other, however, in each there are obvious differences. For example, in the former scene, the subject may be bound by ropes, then suddenly, the next scene may depict him in a free state singing the song.
• A Story - Usually in modern music videos, the ones that follow modern rock music, there is usually story of some sort that follows the theme of the music. If the music is about love, then the story tends to be a love story.
• Singer singing - The music artist / singer is usually present in the music video, lip syncing to make them appear to me actively singing the song though the music is obviously pre-recorded.
• Scene Switching - Music videos constantly switch between the story at hand, and the singer lip syncing with song.
• Quick Switches - Because music videos tend to be dynamic in way, scenes tend to switch very quickly, usually in time with the music's pulse.
• Slowing Down and Speeding Up - Many music videos tend to slow down or speed up some of their scenes to create a dramatic or rushed effect, respectively, usually to enhance the "feel" of the music
• Focus on instrumentals and Singer - During the areas where it depicts the singer "singing" or where the music enters a purely instrumental phase, the camera usually use a series of close up shots to focus in on the singer or the instrument played, respectively.
• Progressive Story - Story's usually follow the tone of the music and the short story starts small and progresses with the music's dynamics, and they end at the end of the music, following the music itself.

The above are general features that are encompassed within all videos. However, different language and culture music videos would probably have some differences unique to that style. For example:

• Chinese Music Videos - These tend to have karaoke lyrics at the bottom of the screen that follow the song.
• Spanish Music Videos - The Spanish variety tends to focus more on the singer as a character as part of the story or singing separately, though they also focus on the story also, just less so.
• Japanese Music Videos - They sometimes include lyrics similar to the Chinese Music Videos, but they also introduced the song title, artist and record company during the beginning of video. They also concentrate a bit more on bands playing instruments.
• English Music Videos - English music videos have the tendency in some videos to have the singer sing while acting in the story.