1980's Music Promo's

1983/4: Matthew Wilder- Break my Stride 

This video is very conventional for music videos, showing only the artist performing on a stage; inferring that they are playing to an audience.

This mise-en-scene in this promo is focused mainly on the performance of the artist, rather than showing any objects/images to assist with any narrative, the room is lit with a blue lighting, this is the same throughout the promo, and spotlights are used to bring the focus onto the artist and when needed onto the dancers. The artist in this video is wearing the brightest colour making him stand out from others in the video, the next point of focus is on the dancers as they are spotlighted and wearing green.

The shots in this promo are mainly mid shots, and close ups of the artist singing. However at the beginning of the promo an establishing shot of the stage is seen, this also makes the promo quite conventional, as in most videos for any genre tend to begin with an establishing shot of the artist, or the setting. Panning shots are also used to show the band and to show the audience that is there watching them perform.

1985: Madonna- Into the Groove 

This promo is slightly more unconventional than others, however for what it is, it fits with the genre well, this promo doubles as a backing track for the movie 'Desperately Seeking Susan' and so instead of using conventional scenes seen in a number of promos, this also has scenes and characters from the movie mixed in with scenes shot for the music video, however the main shots seen are all clips from the movie put together in a montage, this helps the promo advertise not only the song but the movie as well, through doing this the music promo also appears almost as a trailer for the film.  

This promo shows the singer throughout the video, however there is no real performance (e.g.showing just her singing); it is focused mainly of narrative. There is some illustration of the lyrics, however this promo takes a key theme and centres the different shots around it.

There are a variety of shots and transitions used throughout this clip,there are a number of pans to set the scenes and most of the shots are close ups, extreme close ups and reaction shots to catch and focus on the characters and the artist. The mise-en-scene in this promo is quite like and there are never any empty shots with just the artist, the shots are all quite busy, as many of them are clips from the movie, some shots have been edited to look as though they are in a photo, which creates a good effect when the shot fades to the artist looking through a number of photos.

Throughout the promo, a close up view of a photographer and a shot of this camera flashing is repeated, giving the idea of fame, relating to the artist and the movie.