Goodwin

Today in lesson we started to look at theorists for media, one of the first theorists that we had a look through was Andrew Goodwin. He said that there was 6 key conventions that can be applied when listening to music videos. He also said their were these conventions because music video's primary purpose is to advertise the song rather than tell a story, which would suggest why the narrative of the music does not necessarily have to be complete or make sense. This however enables the audience and consumers to make up their own meanings in their minds as to what the video means.


Andrew Goodwin 

1) A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, which illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics. 
He believed that music video's lyrics either had a complete similarity or direct contrast to the lyrics of the song.  An example of this is in Coldplay's song Up and Up the visuals help to amplify the music and lyrics. 



Also this convention includes the idea of iconography, an example of this is where the lyrics of the song match with the visuals seen in the music video. In Beyoncé's music video for 'Video Phone' they sing the lyrics "you can call me on my video phone..." and then in the video you can see a video phone in the background as seen below. 

t Beats-

2) Thought Beats- This is the idea that you see sound. The visual thoughts beats are often repeated with the chorus to emphasise the lyrics and beat. Goodwin identified that the visuals in a music video are commonly edited in time with the lyrics and change with the pace of song. An example of this change of pace in a music video is by No Rest called Dry The River. It is shown below and you can see by when he becomes heart broken the pace changes.


3) Genre-related style and iconography present- Goodwin recognised that most artists have a trend of repeating certain actions within their music videos to help become their 'trademark' action and helps to make the artists songs recognisable.  This  also represents  the style of the music and is a marketing strategy for the artist and their music. For Example rap songs are usually dark and in a fairly aggressive atmosphere, as seen in rap song 'Blessings' by Big Sean.




But an example of iconography in an artists music videos is in Rihanna's videos where she is seen dancing in a sexualised manor, as seen below in screenshots of her music videos.



4) Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist: the creation of a star image to promote a recognizable brand image- Goodwin said that it is a common feature for record labels to use close ups of the artists in order to promote the sales in the single. This is in order to show the artist throughout the video but is mostly common with female artists as provocative angles are used to sexualise the female artist. This links with Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory. An example of an artist that uses provocative angles in their videos is Iggy Azalea, below are screenshots of these angles in videos...



5) Voyeurism often plays a major part, especially in relation to females.
This was found after Goodwin identified that many music videos include voyeuristic angles of women to help attract a male orientated audience. This is used to sexualise the artist. An example of this is in Chris Brown and Benny Benassi's song 'Paradise' as seen below the women are shown in voyeuristic angles. 

 

6) Intersexual references to other media texts may be present, especially in humorous videos. Goodwin later recognised that it was very common to recognize either the visuals or lyrics of a song to be a direct reference to another media text. This convention is used to engage the audiences.
An example of this use of another media text in a music video is in Iggy Azalea's song 'Fancy' is influenced by the famous film 'Clueless', as seen below with the 'Clueless' Trailer and the 'Fancy' music video: