Andrew Goodwin's music video theory

Andrew Goodwin identified 5 key aspects to look out for when looking at music videos:

1. Thought beats (seeing the sound)
2. Narrative and performance
3. The Star image
4. Relation of visuals to song
5. Technical aspects

Thought beats

This is the idea of seeing the sound.

• Firstly is to look at the music, look at the structure of the song.
• Next is to look at the artist's voice. Each artist has a unique voice which goes hand in hand with the star image. The voice is an expressive instrument and therefore able to make associations of its own.
• Next is the artist's mode of address. Songs are like stories, and the artist a storyteller.

Narrative and Performance

Goodwin says that songs fail to give us the full narrative, they leave part of the story to the audience to work out. He also says that music videos should avoid typical narratives, they are made to advertise above all. The video should be made to allow repeatability. The artist should also be convincing, the audience need to feel that the video is real.

Star Image

The star image identifies the artist, and makes then easily stand out from others.

Relation of Visuals to song

This can be broken into three parts on how the video can promote the song:

• Illustrate- The video can use images to illustrate the lyrics, genre or a certain meaning
• Amplify- This is when meanings and effects are manipulated to drum the video into the audience
• Disjuncture- This is where the song's meaning is ignored and the video unrelated, possibly making is more memorable or to get the audience think more carefully about the song itself

Technical Aspects

A music video should be edited to the beat or rhythm of the music where possible to make it more entertaining. Colour and lighting are also vital to show the mood of the song and genre or maybe to ignore it completely. Mise-en-scne is needed to be constructed carefully to ensure the authenticity of the video and make it look professional.