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. See also Tracking Shot.
Not to be confused with the Treadmill Video for "Here It Goes Again"
by OK Go.
Examples:
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Music
- 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...)
- "I Only Lie When I Love You" by Royal Blood features an interesting variation, where the scenes loop in a non-linear fashion while still maintaining a continuous movement.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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".
- John Fogerty's "The Old Man Down The Road": The video starts off with Fogerty uncovering a small amplifier in the middle of nowhere. The camera slowly follows the very long amplifier cord outdoors past several rural slice of life scenes. At the very end the cord leads to... a guitar John Fogerty is playing.
- 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.
- For Genesis' 2007 Turn It On Again tour, during performances of "The Carpet Crawlers", a video of pictures and film footage from throughout their career as a band scrolls behind them. Can be seen in the concert DVD, When In Rome.
- The Front Bottoms' video for "West Virginia" shows a house party shot with a Fish-Eye Lens that has the camera moving seamlessly from room to room, though the apparent location of things in the house changes with time.
