All four videos I looked at for comparison were primarily narrative based, however ‘Blue Jeans’ ‘Born to Die’ and ‘Dollhouse’ all feature conceptual themes and elements in them. The narrative base with conceptual elements is conventional of music videos of the indie/acoustic rock genre and all tell quite dark and harsh stories with dark themes within the narrative, for example ‘Dollhouse’ is a video about a little girl who has a bad family life but hides it so that others don’t know, ‘Born to Die’ is about the inevitable death of the female character this particular video also displaying religious imagery and ideas and ‘Blue Jeans’ is about a romance between two characters that turns bad. ‘Sippy Cup’ is a sequel video to ‘Dollhouse’ and tells the story of the smaller girl growing up and finding out what happens to her.

Although all the videos are narrative based they all feature a conceptual element, both Born to Die and Sippy Cup have clear representations of heaven in them (Melanie Martinez is dressed as an angel, Lana Del Rey is in a majestic palace like place dressed all in white, where her boyfriend is no longer actually with her) this is because both characters die. The setting of both depictions of heaven are seen through the video its not made clear that the two characters die until the end of the videos where there is a car crash (Born to Die) and murder (Sippy Cup). Religious imagery of life after death (through depictions of heaven) connote that the two artists have some kind of belief in religion or just that there is life after death. This is also shown at the end of 'The A-Team' by the female character being edited smiling in the sky at the end of the video. Life and death is a common theme in music video of this genre seen in all of the videos I have analysed so far.

Both Dollhouse and Blue Jeans also have conceptual elements however they're much more specific to the narrative and themes of those videos. Towards the end of the Dollhouse video the small girl who plays with the Dollhouse is somehow in the Dollhouse dressed in a grey outfit with a relatively dull haircut however the mother, father and brother dolls dress her up in a pink sparkly outfit and put her hair in bunches, curling it so she had ringlets. This represents the process of the little girl seeing that her family is not perfect and being forced to pretend they are so nobody sees what is truly 'behind the curtains' (amplification of lyrics). This gives a clear view of the concept and narrative to the audience and helps them understand and see clearly what's going on (Uses and Gratifications: Surveillance and Personal Relationships).

            Blue Jeans creates a very different concept using mostly editing instead of clear visuals, during the video occasionally images of Lana Del Rey or the male character will be blurred and move, this creates a dis-orientating effect and confuses the audience. However this is in relation to the male and presents the idea that the male is dangerous and like a drug to the female character, she has a distorted view of him because she likes him so much. This idea is then reinforced after she gets into the water with him and we're shown pictures of crocodiles in the water with her, suggesting the idea that he's an animal and is again dangerous. This is also shown through editing in which Lana looks at a subject and we're shown cuts of both crocodiles and the male moving similarly as well as later on at 2:55-3:05 where the female is seen hugging and touching the crocodile in-between shots of getting closer to the male in the pool. I think we should have a conceptual element to our music video not only because it is conventional but also because it would be nice to experiment with ways of conveying that conceptual elements using the four technical elements but also using narratives.

Melanie Martinez videos tend to have childish themes and translate real world issues using child-like metaphors. In the ‘Dollhouse’ video she uses a traditional child’s toy (Dollhouse) to highlight how fake her family is and how unhappy she and her family actually are. Sippy Cup is a continuation of Dollhouse and is primarily focused on the alcoholic mother and her issues instead of the little girl; the song gets its name from the cup that the mother drinks ‘syrup’ (alcohol) from because her husband is unfaithful. This highlights the situation of the mother and uses childish imagery to convey much deeper meanings. This presents her (Melanie Martinez) as being intelligent and having a kind of duality about her character, so she knows about awful things but she can translate them in a way that doesn’t sound as awful as they are. This image is carried on throughout all her videos, 'Tag You're it' is about danger of strangers/perverts, 'Mrs Potato Head' is about beauty standads (Richard Dyers Star Theory: Strength of a stars image, seven common values: Youthfulness however at an extremity).  The use of child-like language is very unconventional and I don’t think it would work for our chosen artist as it wouldn’t suit her songs or image particularly well.