Sound in a Music Video + My Opinion

Usually,  the only sound in a music video is the song, however this isn't always the case...in my research I have found 3 different types of music video in terms of sound...

• dialogue in the music video - the music stops

An example of this type is in Jason Derulo's music video to 'What If', where right at the beginning before the music even starts there is solid dialogue between him and his girlfriend

• diagetic sounds over the music video (such as laughs etc, not in the audio track)

An example of this type is in Ed Sheeran's music video to 'Photograph'. This entire music video is filled with home videos of Ed, however at some stages in the song we can hear the diegetic audio of the home video over the music's audio

• 100% music in the video with no diagetic sound

There are many examples of this type of music video, for example Little Mix - Black Magic. Where the video has no diagetic sound apart from the actual music track.


It is very important that the balance between the music and the diagetic sound/the audio or dialogue coming from other places than the music, is right, particularly when it comes to including any dialogue - because the norm is to include none. You don't want to feel like you're watching a short film when watching a music video, and you also don't want too much sound overriding the actual song as it may become distracting. There is a fine line that should be followed.

I personally want no dialogue in my music video as I find it distracting, it makes it almost too easy for the audience to understand what is going on and is too obvious - I would prefer a more subtle approach to getting a message across in the video. However in saying this, I am interested in including at least one home video in my final piece, so if it is fitting to have some sound overriding the audio for a few seconds - such as a laugh - then I am happy for there to be more forms of audio in my music video than just the music.

All examples I have shown above (What If - Jason Derulo, Photograph - Ed Sheeran and Black Magic - Little Mix) are very successful professionally made music videos, attracting a lot of attention due to their uniqueness. Again, I believe the success of a music video will depend on the quality of the music video and if the producer has got the proportions of different aspects of the video correct, because obviously if a music video was 50% dialogue, it would be less successful as a music video, as the title 'Music Video' wouldn't match what the product really was, being more of a short film.