research for music video : Andrew Goodwins theory

Andrew Goodwins Theory:

• In his theory he identifies certain characteristics that are present in the making of a successful music video
• he divided these successful characteristics into the following:

1) star image - a lot of musicians use their videos as a way of promoting themselves. lots of close up shots of them are used in order to create a sense of familiarity between the audience and the artist .

 an example of this is beyonce in her music video for 'countdown'.

2) intertextuality- This is when a music video references another text, often other music videos. other things can also be referenced such as films, literature or tv.

an example of this is charlie x in her music video 'boom clap' which refers to the hit movie 'the fault in our stars'

3)sound and vision - This is where there is clear relationship between the lyrics and video. when a clear correlation can be drawn between the visuals and the sound.  this is clearly shown in john legends music video 'all of me' where the lyrics are closely linked to video.

Within sound and vision there are four subcategories. all of which play an important role in making the music video what it is. 

• Disjuncture: the video and the lyrics have no correlation to each other for example Nicki minaj in 'pills and potions' video.
• Contradict: The visuals of the video contradict with the song lyrics for example 'Rudimental's' video for the song 'waiting all night '. here the lyrics does not exactly state anything that the video depicts. 
• illustrate : The visuals have some literal representation of the songs lyrics. take for example in 'beyonce's - 'best thing i never had' and ' if i were a boy' video both demonstrating a clear parallel link between the song lyrics and music video.
• Amplify : Repetition of the key meaning to manipulate an audience. the visuals may be exaggerated. for example in the Michael Jackson - man in the mirror.

4) notions of looking- 'voyeurism' is when the viewer is watching video/performer for personal pleasure. This is often the case with female pop stars who perform sexual dance routines to cater to a wider audience .

other elements of this is when the music video contains things such as mirrors , TV screens , cameras etc. These all reinforce the idea of watching and looking .

5) Genre- music videos should demonstrate Genre characteristics and should be relevant to the genre of the song. for example for pop song there should be mainly a lot of bright colours and lots of dancing going on which reinforce the idea of 'fun' and 'enjoyment'.

for example a lot of 'lady gaga's ' music video have the typical 'pop music characteristics' for example:

clear visuals demonstrating the artist and her dancers , with extreme costume changes through out the video

Andrew Goodwin feels that traditional narrative analyses don't really apply to pop videos. there are number of reasons for this but it isn't because pop videos are trying to be avant garde- it is just that they approach narrative from a different angle to novel and films.

The reasons for the different narrative structures are because :

1) pop songs are usually built around the song itself - and so therefore do not follow the traditional narrative structure , that is ( normality - problem- solution )
2) the pop video uses the singer both as narrator