Andrew Goodwin's Theory

Andrew Goodwin identifies 5 key aspects of music videos:

• Thought Beats
• Narrative and Performance
• The Star Image
• Relation of Visuals to Song
• Technical Aspects of Video

Thought Beats

• First step: The music itself, the structure of the song.
• Secondly: voice of the song. Unique voice of the artist's identification and trademarks working well with star image.
• Thirdly: Artists mode of address. Songs can be seen as stories with the artist as a storyteller - it acts as a two-way relationship between the artist and the audience.

Narrative and Performance

• Once we get the gist of the meaning of a song we tend to make up our own idea about what is going on.
• Videos should ignore common narrative. This is important in the role of advertising.
• There should be coherent repeatability - this happens most around choruses and similar beats in a music video. Narrative and performance work hand in hand.
• Lip syncing and other mimed actions remain the heart of music videos.

Star Image

• Vital aspect of music videos - appearance and representation of artist.
• Meta narrative which is a big story that describes the development of the star over time - an important part of the production process.

Relation of Visuals to Song

• Illustrate: Music videos can use a set of images to illustrate the meaning of the lyrics and genre - 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 ignored and the music video is largely produced as a product of its own.

Technical aspects

• Use of camera work, movement, angle, mise-en-scene, editing, sound and special effects etc.
• Speed, camera movement, editing, cutting speed etc.

Andrew Goodwin's theory is something we can consider for our music video to make it as successful as possible.