Goodwin's Theories

Andrew Goodwin identifies 5 key aspects of music videos that we the audience should look out for these are:

Thought beats

·         First step is to looks at the music itself. We must take into account the structure of the song. E.g. chorus/verses.

·         Secondly, the voice of the song. The artists voice is extremely unique and can form identification or trademark that work well with the star image. Roland Barthes theory of the Grain of the voice can be related to this. He sees the singing voice as an expressive instrument and therefore able to make associations of its own.

·         Thirdly, Goodwin also points out that artist’s mode of address. Songs can be seen as stories and the artist the storyteller, making the music video a two communication device, them telling us a story and us listening.

Narrative and performance

·         Songs fail to give us the complete narrative!

·         We only tend to get the gist of the meaning of a song and then tend to make up our own idea of what is being told. Goodwin explains that music videos should ignore the common narrative. It is more important in their role of advertising. Music videos should coherent repeatability. Narrative and performance work hand in hand it makes it easier for the audience to watch over and over without losing interest. The artist acting as both narrator & participant helps to increase the authenticity however the lip sync and other mimed actions remains the heart of the music videos. The audience need to believe that it is real.

The star image

·         The star image is another vital aspect of music videos. Meta narrative which is a big story that describes the development of the star overtime, it has an important part to play in the music video production process.

Relation of visuals to a song

·         Illustrate – Music videos can use a set of images to illustrate the meaning of lyrics & genre, this is the most common.

·         Amplify – this is similar to repeatability. Meanings and effects are manipulated and constantly shown through the video and drummed into our vision.

·         Disjuncture – this is where the meaning of the song is completely ignored.

Technical aspects of a music video

·         Technical aspects hold the music video together through the use of camera work, movement, angles, mise-en-scene, editing, sound and special effects.

·         Speed, camera movement, editing, cutting and post production are all forms of camera.

·         Lighting and colour help set moods and emphasise key moments of the song for dramatic effect.

·         Mise-en-scene, the setting of music videos is vital, it needs to look authentic to attain professionalism.

·         Beats, music videos use cuts to go with the beat or rhythm making the music video more entertaining.

The editing pace in the video is fairly slow mimicking the pace of the music 

Emphasis on 'looking'

·        The 'male gaze' is often used to attract a male audience. The male gaze is a focus on presenting things that appeal to men. This often means a voyeuristic view of, and an objectification, of women. The emphasis on looking also includes the artist looking directly into the camera helping the audience connect with the artist.

Relationship between the lyrics and the visuals.

·       Themes, mise-en-scene and events of the video match with lyrics of the song, to help to portray the message of the song.

Music videos have genre characteristics

·       Certain features are expected out of a video depending on the genre of the music, for example a girl bands/artists are expected to have dancers and close ups of the singers, whilst a Indi band are expected to have performance shots of the band and cut to a fast beat.

By looking at the different theories and how there are portrayed within a music video and I can see through the examples how to execute the theories within the video. The idea of looking into these theories is to try to incorporate them into my own music video.