The Eight Categories of Music Videos

There are eight categories that almost all music videos fall into:

• Performance
• Concept
• Story
• Gag
• Dance
• Animation
• Party or club
• Film clip

Performance

As the name suggests, performance videos feature the artist or band performing, and often take place in various locations with the performers wearing different outfits in each shot.

Concept

The artist or band neither perform, nor many times, appear in concept videos. These videos portray only stories or images, never performances.

Story

A story video features a narrative, with a beginning, middle, and end, which is intercut with footage or the artist or band performing. The artist may or may not be a character in the story.

Gag

A gag video relies on visual tricks. They can be shot live, also known as executing the visual effects 'in camera,' such as using dolls that look like the band for the performance rather than using the band itself, or using special prostetics to visually alter the artist or lead actor in the videos. Alternatively, the visual tricks can be postproduction effects, such as giving the artist or lead actor an unrealistically long tongue, or setting the video in a location impossible to real life, such as outer space.

Dance

As the name describes, a dance video features choreographed dancing.

Animation

An animation video features animated images, in which the artist and band may be depicted.

Party or club

A party or club video features scenes that take place in a dance club or at a party.

Film Clip

A film-clip video is used when a song is features in a movie soundtrack. This video will contain clips from the film that are intercut with the music video.

From 'Making Music Videos' by Lara M. Schwartz