Research - Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin wrote the book "Dancing in the Distraction Factory" in 1992. It analysed music videos and Goodwin shared his thoughts on what makes a good music video.

He believes there are 5 key aspects of music videos that as an audience, we should look out for:

• Thought beats - seeing the sound
• Narrative and Performance
• The Star Image
• Relation of Visuals to Song
• Technical Aspects of Music Video

Thought beats - Seeing the sound in your head

1) Look at the song itself. Take into account the structure e.g. verses/chorus.
2) The voice of the song. Every artist has a unique sound. (This theory is further explained in The Grain of Voice by French literary theorist Roland Barthes).
3) Artist's mode of address. Songs can be seen as stories and the artists are the storytellers. This makes the music video a 'two communication device'.

Narrative and Performance

-Goodwin believes that songs fail to give us the complete narrative! We only tend to get a gist of the meaning of the song and then tend to make up our own idea of what is being told.
-The artist acting as both narrator and participant helps to increase the authenticity.
- Lip syncing and any mimed actions are the heart of the video. It needs to be believable so the audience buy into it.

Star Image

- Star image is a vital aspect of music videos. It helps people to remember the artist or the song, for example, when people hear the name "Britney Spears", most people will think of the video to her song 'Hit Me Baby One More Time', where she is dressed as a schoolgirl.
- Artists need to consider their image carefully depending on how they want to be seen, and which message they are trying to convey, as different images can portray different messages and ideas.

Relation of Visuals to Song:

• Illustrate
• Amplify
• Disjunction

Illustrate - music videos can use a set of images to illustrate the meaning of lyrics and genre. This is the most common.

Amplify - meanings and effects are manipulated and constantly shown through the video.

Disjunction - lyrics and meanings are completely ignored, the video normally has nothing to do with the meaning of the song.

Technical aspects

- Technical aspects hold the music video together through use of camera work, movement, angles, mise-en-scene, costume, editing, sound and special effects.
- Lighting and colour help to set mood of the video and help to emphasise key moments of the song.
- The setting of the music video is vital, and needs to look authentic in order to attain professionalism.
- Some videos use cuts to match the beat or rhythm of the song. This often makes the video more interesting and entertaining.