Intro
Goodwin is a theorist that came up with a theory of music videos, discussing that all music videos are made up of eight characteristics.
Goodwin's theory says that all music videos are created following 8 points; this is counted for all genres of music. These are: Genre Characteristics, Relationships between lyrics and visuals, Star image motifs, Notion of looking, Intertextual references, Performance, Narrative or concept and Technical elements.
Mention the 8 points and use examples to support your work
1. Genre Characteristics are the different characteristics each genre of music will have in their music videos which are conventional to that genre. For example, a Rap music video displaying half naked women and the artist wearing big chains.
2. Relationship between lyrics and visuals means that the visuals seen match the lyrics, amplifies the lyrics or exaggerates the lyrics. For example, in Kelly Rowland's music video for her single 'Stole' the visuals are fully matching the lyrics and it is like she is telling the story through song and we are watching it play out.
3. Relationship between music and visuals. This referrers to the pace of the video connecting to the pace of the visuals. For example, in Rihanna's 'we found love' the editing is fast paced and matches the upbeat music.
4. Star image motif. This includes close - ups of the artist to make them popular. The audience can identify them. For example, in Miley Cyrus' 'Wreckingball' there are many close ups.
5. Notion of looking is predatorily treatment of the female body and women are seen as sexual objects. This is often used in both R'n'B and Rap music videos. For example in 50 Cent's 'Candy shop'.
6. Intertextual references refer to when links from real life events, news, films ect, are used in the music video.
7. Performance, Narrative or Concept-based. Performance refers to the artist performing the song in the music video. Narrative is when the video has a story line matching the lyrics. A concept-based music video refers to a music video that has no relation to or doesn't make any sense to the music. This often involves a lot of special effects and comes across surreal. For example,
Include and state the Will Smith example
biggie smalls - juicy
The notorious B.I.G's music video for his debut single 'Juicy' shows very good examples of Goodwin's theory. It displays characteristics that are conventional to its hip-hop/rap genre such as; portraying a flashy life style, girls and has a very urban theme. however, its relationship between the lyrics and the visuals is that the visuals are matching the lyrics which allows there to be a narrative telling the story where we see him coming from a poor upbringing in Brooklyn to a rich super star.
The video is also performance based where we see the artist performing the song, also showing star motif as we see a lot of close ups of him, which allows the audience to identify and remember him as a new artist at the time. The relationship between the music and the visuals also match as the music is not too slow or fast paced and is quite a chilled feel and the editing pace matches this. There is also an intertexual reference that the artist makes when he says 'Blow up like the world trade' , relating back to the world trade bombing that happening in that area of time.
Conclusion:
From looking at Goodwins theory I know that my music video will need to contain frequent close ups of the artist of the artist so that the audience can recognise and remember them. If possible I will try to use some inter textual references.
My video will relate to my music and me a visual narrative of my lyrics.
The pace of my edit will follow the pace of the music, if I choose a fast pace song I will make my editing fast paced.
I will make my video both performance and narrative based to give the audience a clearer understanding.
