Purpose of Music Videos

A music video is a short film usually around 3-4 minutes long (the length of a song). Music videos are created for many reasons such as to integrate song with visual imagery which will help the viewers, maybe, understand the song more if it has a narrative that goes with the lyrics, also by putting a video with the song it is an easy way to relate and remember the song.


Another reason a music video is created is for the main purpose of promoting the artist and the song so it will get more recognised with the public therefore get popular and be shown on the music channels more frequently and online, on websites such as YouTube, YouTube is a video website and Music Artists can have their own channels with their music, music videos and other videos. usually if someone else uses music from an artist the audio will be taken off as if affects copyright issues. When an artists songs are being played a lot the artist will be getting more money as every time is it played a fee has to be payed to the Performing Rights Society for Music. The PRS for Music will then pay the money they have collected to the artists. Also if the video becomes popular the sales of the song and the artists other songs are likely to increase and the sales of other things such as DVDs,  Cd's and merchandise therefore the artists income will become greater and the idea of the promotional video is a success.


Music videos can also be made if a song is the theme for a movie or TV programme and therefore the music video will use part of the movie in their music video this is done to promote a film and relate the song with the film this will make the song memorable and the artist will get a sum of money for their song and promoting the movie.


Music Videos from major music labels will have a greater production value and be very proffesional and shown on music channels as the music label will set aside a reasonable amount of money to make a decent music video. A music video form an independent label or a music video that is self produced by the artist may not be at the same quality of a major label music video. A self produced independent music video is likely to just be shown online to promote the artist and if it gets a lot of views online the more popular it will be come and more people will watch it this can be just as effective as a major label production thats shown on TV music channels.