Monday, 23 September 2013

Analysis of Music Video Conventions - Genre


I chose to analyse the Salsa genre, a sub-genre from Latin. In a Salsa genre music video you will expect to see:

-Main focus being on the artist.
-Wide shot of a couples dancing.
-Long Shot of the artist in the middle with people around him dancing & playing instruments.
-Casual orientated clothes.
-Mid Shot of the artist with a musician
-Settings of the videos are most likely to be on the streets, or on a made up set.



The artist of this still image Marc Anthony. I would say this ‘still’ is from dancing genre music, due to seeing dancers in the video as well as instruments being played and happy faces. In this case the genre is Salsa. In terms of location and setting, this part of the video is shot outside, representing a street like party reinforced by the fact that there are many more people in shot than what you would normally see. This still in general looks like its part of a film, or set in a movie set. From this genre you would expect generic signifiers such as instruments being played alongside the main artist, shots of dancers dancing along to the music this being in a separate shot or in the same shot with the artist, more than the artist and musicians in shot, Salsa is popular genre and always make people happy and makes them want to dance and this is always conveyed in a salsa music video. This is greatly linked by the costumes used in this still. The artist has a party like orientated costume, very relaxed and comfortable. This is seen through out the ‘still’ with all the extras and musicians wearing similar clothes, informal/casual clothing very much reinforcing a party like atmosphere. Very Latin! There seems to be red lighting used which conveys a message of Love, this reflects the message that the song is conveying, the lyrics and the name of the song. “Valio La Pena” = It was worth it. The shot is also taken during night-time, which is conventionally time for ‘Rumba’ (Party time) in Latin countries; this is reflected in the shot creating a positive vibe.

The audience for this video is very much for those who love Salsa and the artist himself. It is a video for everyone to see worldwide and gives everyone a taste of what you can expect from a Latin party; dancing, smiles and fun. The ‘still’ seems to be playing with the genre conventions as well as appearing generically conventional. Most Salsa videos include a party vibe feel to it with showing people dancing in it and having the artist around them with instruments, but not all of them decide to fill the shot with extras as in this example.

This is the official music video: 




These are some other examples of music videos from the same genre: 



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