What is a music video - Miss Miller

A music 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. 

A music video has different purposes, some artists create a music video to promote their song and leave a memory of the video which then in turn makes you remember the song. Others use a narrative music video to help their target audience understand the lyrics of the song better. And most artists create a music video of the song to expose and expand themselves as an artist. 

The purpose of Plan B's music video, 'She said' is to do all three of these things. In the music video we see a narrative throughout which helps the audience have a better understanding of the lyrics of the song. We see this through the use of cinematography and sound, specifically a mid shot. This is seen when Plan B begins to rap he is in a witness box tying to plead his innocence by rapping or so it seems as the lyrics represent someone trying to explain themselves. for example, Plan B says "Telling the judge and jury the same thing that I said to the cops, On the day that I got arrested, I'm innocent I contested." This is important in the use of helping the audience understand the lyrics as without the video the lyrics may mean many things but the use of the music video shows that its actually about him being a criminal and pleading guilty. Plan B also used this music video to promote himself not only as pop artist but a rap artist. This is because Plan B released the song 'She Said' as pop so more people can see him not only singing but raping which promotes him as an artist more than him just singing a pop single. In contrast the music video also promotes him as both a rapper and a singer as we can see him performing both throughout the song. Plan B also created the music video to promote his song and leave a memory of the video which then in turn makes you remember his song. The video is very challenging and seeing someone in court, pleading guilty to what seems to be rape makes you remember the video which leaves  memory in which you tell others about which creates more money for both the record label and the artist.

Music videos feature all different kinds of styles and genres. These features help make the videos interesting and unique compared to other music videos. There are eight types of music video categories, these include;


The style of music video is partly narrative, partly performance and partly concept. We see the use of narrative throughout the whole video as we see Plan B protesting his innocence about a crime with a girl which relates with the lyrics of the song. If you were to remove the music from the video we would still see a short film which has a specific narrative. This is important when creating a music video as it allows the audience to make assumptions about that artist and also allows them to create a relationship. In addition this video is also partly performance as we see Plan B singing/rapping throughout the music video. This is also key in promoting Plan B as an artist as the music video wouldn't mean much if there wasn't any evident performance due to the fact that he is a singer/rapper so that's what people want to see. Without any singing/rapping performance it would be just be a plain music video with no meaning and no ambition. Lastly this music video is partly concept with a fictitious tale of a sharp-suited British soul singer who finds fame with bitter-sweet love songs, but then loses everything when he ends up in prison for a crime he didn't commit. This is important to show to the audience as it allows them to empathise with Plan B which creates a better relationship between the 2.
What is the style of the music video?

• Narrative

• Interpretive

• Parody

• Pastiche (A celebration, rather than a mocks, of the work it imitates.)

• Performance

• Impressionist

• Surreal

• Concept

This pop song created by Plan B has many codes and conventions of both a rap song and a pop song. Many pop artists today mix with rap artists to create a song which appeals to a wider audience which will turn out more profit. This is common in music today with examples of couples who do so, i.e Jay-Z and Beyonce, to try and boost both of their profiles in one go. In this music video there are a few pop conventions which have been followed and a few that have been challenged. One convention we see used is a dance routine, in the music video we see most of the people in the court dancing or moving to the beat, this is conventional to the pop genre as most pop music videos have a dance routine/singing routine which are used to promote themselves as dancers as well as artists. Another convention we see used is a rap convention, this being a use of expensive clothing/jewellery, this is used throughout the whole video but at the start we see Plan b and his girlfriend both dressed in expensive clothing. Him wearing a suit and her wearing a fur coat. This is used in rap music videos as they like to promote themselves as rich from the music they've created which gives the impression they have good music which has made them successful. 

This music video is very good at getting the audiences attention and keeping it throughout the video, it is very eye catching and once you start watching it you don't want to stop as you want to find out what happens in the end. This music video appeals to two different type of audience, people who like pop and also people who like rap. This is because in the video we see both rap and pop being performed alongside a narrative. This is key in reaching the target audience as the narrative hooks the audience in, whereas if it was a plain boring video of him singing not many people would want to watch. having the interesting narrative which also is relative to the song is used to appeal to the specific target audience.