Rick Altman's Theory

Rick Altman argues that genres in music videos are made up of 2 elements;

Semantic Elements:

- Rick Altman states that within music videos there are elements which visually signify the genre of the video

- This includes the colours, locations, props, costume and makeup

- An example of this would be features of a pop video, which include bright colours, dance routines, and the artists performing the song in some way

- This is shown in One Direction's music videos, including One Thing and History where they are performing the song to the camera with a few dance moves, the group are also wear some bright colours and the video for One Thing in particular is in a bright and exciting location






Syntactic Elements:

- These elements of the genre aren't visual

- They are often themes of the video or the overall mood or emotion throughout the video

- In most hip hop videos theres a theme of love or lust, this can be shown through the lighting or camera shots and also the location and outfit choices

- In Beyonce and Jay-Z's song Drunk In Love the main emotion is love and this is shown through the black and white effect, and also through the close up shots of them together, portraying their love as being strong and showing their affection when they're together