There's a lot of combined elements that go into music videos.
Firstly, we'll start with techniques. Technical techniques cover camera angles, shots and movement, diegetic and non-diegetic sound, pace, style of editing, and music genre. Symbolic techniques cover facial expressions, gestures, poses, and mise en scene.
There are three types of music videos: Performance, Narrative, and Concept.
Performance music videos focus on the artist or band plainly performing with no storyline, showing a collection of camera angles and movements of the band members continuously throughout the video. This is popular amongst rock artists or pop artists.
Narrative music videos follow a storyline, but there are two types: linear and fragmented. Linear narratives follow the standard storyline structure with a beginning, middle, and end. A fragmented narrative story doesn't necessarily need to depict lyrics from the song and is told throughout the duration of the video.
Conceptual music videos are unusual, obscure, and surreal, based around a single idea. They use abstract imagery and narratives to maintain engagement with their audience and can be used to suggest a metaphorical meaning behind the song.
Mixture music videos show a combination between performance and narrative. The artists are featured in the performance style of music video while the story elements act as a B-roll of sorts.
Camera equipment and the way the camera is used are also incredibly important for the making of a music video. Different angles, shots, and movements create different effects such as moods and are reflective of different genres to emphasize elements of the video. Music videos use mostly long, mid, and close-up shots, but also utilize other kinds (medium, extreme close-ups, over-the-shoulder, wide shots). As far as camera angles go, there are several different kinds that can be used: eye-level, high angle, low angle, bird's eye, slanted, etc. Camera movements include panning and tracking and help to follow the focus of the video or are used artistically to transition between shots.
Editing includes cutting scenes down, adding special effects, stylizing or colorizing the video, sound editing, etc. These forms of editing help to finalize music videos and add an extra flair or specific mood to the video.
Sound consists of diegetic (already present in the film) and non-diegetic sound (which can be edited in).
Mise en scene elements focus on lighting (how the scene is lit, artificial light, sidelights), props (performance equipment, band merchandise), costume design (clothes and costumes that tell the story), hair and makeup (style of the artist), location, and color (specific colors that represent a mood, which can be done during filming or colorized during editing). Mise en scene helps to make the style and genre of music more concrete.
Artificial lighting, strobe or colored lights would most likely be seen in dance, hip hop, or pop music videos. Natural lighting is often associated with country-type music videos. Grunge or alternative style videos use darker, higher contrast lighting often using a filter or overlay.
Props can be used for entertainment value or to show inherent symbolism, as well as costumes, although costumes are also used for representative reasons.
Representation in music videos includes the way that events, issues, individuals, and social groups are represented through processes of selection and combination.
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