Research: Carol Vernallis' theory

In Carol Vernallis’ study of editing and camerawork in music videos she found that edits occur much more frequently in music videos than in film. She observed that a lot of music videos stand out as disjuncture and that the editing itself matches the rhythm and pace to the song.

• Edits can be very obvious; this is used to draw attention to the edits and usually things like wipes and special effects are used.
• Jump Cuts are used very often
• Base track/Master shot is used very frequently as it gives the video some semblance of structure
• The camera often moves in time with the lyrics and pace of the music itself
• The rules of ‘continuity’ editing is often broken as it draws more attention to what is going on in the music video

·         Very obvious edits e.g wipes.

·         0:30 Freddie Mercury moves in time with the vaccum cleaner to the pace of the music

·         Rule of continuity editing is broken: E.g. the crowd of people holding the lights breaks away from the introductory shots in the house.

•     The pace of the music is very fast and there is a lot of jump cuts
•     The camera matches the pace of the music which is very fast so you get a lot of quick shots of different things
•     Slow motion is used as the band holds more and more umbrellas

•     Very obvious edits 0:19 – 0:25 – Split screen of women dancing
•     Base Track: Whenever the chorus starts it switches back to the shot of the two performers singing at the microphone
•     Jump cuts: from each individual woman lip synching the words.