Conveyor Belt Video

The key to this Music Video concept is camera movement: the camera continuously tracks to one side, generally with no Jump Cuts, creating the impression that the scenes are on... um, a conveyor belt. The scenes themselves are often "slice of life" type settings or mockeries thereof, usually in a dollhouse-like set with literally No Fourth Wall.

Obviously, some film splicing is needed to create the illusion of nonstop camera movement.

Not to be confused with the Treadmill Video for "Here It Goes Again" by OK Go.

Examples of Conveyor Belt Video include:

Music Video

• Elton John, "I Don't Wanna Go On With You Like That"
• Crowded House, "Don't Dream It's Over"
• Scarface, "My Block"
• The Spice Girls took it to the next step with "Wannabe"; the camera actually followed the girls around in three-dimensional space while creating the illusion of one long, continuous shot.
• A variation in Van Halen's "Feels So Good", in which green-screened repeating images of the individual band members tracked sideways across the screen.
• The Smashing Pumpkins' "Ava Adore" did an unusual take on this idea; aside from the fact that one of the rooms is pixellated out, exactly halfway through the video the camera—following the band—pulls a 180 to reveal the track that the camera has been, and will be, following; the camera at this point was conveniently tucked into the U-turn on the track.
  • For what it's worth, the room in question is very much un-pixellated in versions of the video found on YouTube, revealing an orgy taking place in the background. (Hence the reason MTV pixellated it, most likely...)
• Halcali's "Tandem" further plays with this one, using the conveyor belt to allow for multiple exposures so that the band members can be in several places at once.
• Fleetwood Mac's "Big Love" also turns the trope sideways—rather literally: instead of tracking sideways, the camera trundles steadily backward through several spliced scenes.
  • The New Pornographers' "Letter From An Occupant" was a stylistic remake of this video, though not nearly as creepy.
• Andrew Kepple's Flash video for the Lemon Demon song "When Robots Attack" is a Conveyor Belt Video set up as an animatronic darkride about a Robot War. At the end, the ride turns out to be commemorating the victory of the robots over the human race in said war.
• Everclear's "Everything to Everyone" did a dizzying video where instead of panning, the camera just rotated, with cuts every cycle so the group of people changes.
• Coldplay's "The Scientist" did this with the entire video filmed backwards.
• Jamiroquai, "Virtual Insanity". It's not a conveyor belt per se but everything in the room is constantly moving, such as the furniture or the singer. And the walls.
• Moist, "Resurrection".
• Talking Heads' "And She Was" is animated to simulate this effect, to convey the idea that "the world was moving" and that "she was right there with it".
• Miley Cyrus' "Start All Over" music video. (It may have just been one long shot but, I'm not sure)
• John Fogerty's "The Old Man Down The Road": The camera slowly follows a very long power cord outdoors past several rural slice of life scenes. It seems like it's going to be a The Invisible Band video at first, but at the very end the cord leads to... an amplifier, which John Fogerty is playing guitar through.
• In an absolutely literal sense, Sia's video for "You've Changed".
• TISM's "Thunderbirds are Coming Out" features a long line of Australian bands playing the titular song, with TISM themselves showing up at the end when the song is over.
• German band Juli's "Zerrissen" video.
• Sugababes, "Overload"
• Devo's "What We Do" has the variation of a camera quickly panning to different scenes that are all apparently taking place in one circular room. It was shot with a camera rig that actually does have the ability to rotate 360 degrees. They also made an "interactive" version where you control the camera by clicking your mouse.
• While "Here It Goes Again" doesn't count, OK Go's "The Writing's On The Wall" is a continuous conveyor belt of illusions and Mind Screwy visual tricks. And their video for "This Too Shall Pass" is a similar conveyor belt progression through the innards of a building-sized Rube Goldberg Device.

Other

• This was also used in the title sequence of A Different World.
• Done with online comics and set to Touhou music during the first part of this video, the again near the end of it.