Definition of a music video

"A film or video rendition of a recorded song, often 

showing the musicians performing or showing images 

that illustrate the lyrics or the mood of the song."

A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings.

Music videos mostly came into prominence 1980's, although many video do date back this year was the major hit. The reason for this being, MTV based their format around them therefore making them popular with the public. 

When it comes to the technical side of music videos there are a  wide range of film making techniques such as, live action filming, Animation, documentaries and non-narrative approaches. 

I have already mentioned a theorist named Andrew Goodwin, he studied hundreds of music videos while researching his book (Dancing in the Distraction Factory) and came up with some key codes and conventions that are shared by many music videos. They are as followed, 
-There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals.
-There is a relationship between the music and the visuals.
-Particular music videos have their own video style and iconography. 
-There is a demand on the part of the record company for lots of close-ups of the main artists. 
-The artists may develop their own star iconography. 
-There is likely to be reference to voyeurism, particularly in the treatment of women, but also in terms of systems of looking. 
-There are likely to be intertextual references, either to other music videos or to films and tv texts. 
At least one or more of these theories will be placed within a video to then give it the conventional music video genre. 

Another theorist is Joan Lynch. Lynch stated that there are three basic video structures, they are as followed,
-Performance 
-Narrative 
-Concept 
Every music video created must be one of the three or maybe a mixture of them. 

Finally, the last theorist is Jon Gow. He's identified six genres of music videos all of which are difined in terms of their relationship to the display of the performance. They are as followed, 
-The anti-performance piece.
-Pseudo- reflexive performance.
-Performance documentary.
The special effects extravaganza.
-The song and  dance number. 
-The enhanced performance. 
Once again, one if not all are used to keep up the conventions within a music video.