Andrew Goodwin's Theory

Goodwin's theory implies that music videos have a set structure that all artists follow.

1) Music videos will often show genre stereotypes. For example rap music may often feature the main artist (e.g a male usually of high status and wealth) surrounded by women wearing revealing clothing by a pool. Whereas on the other hand, a girl band may feature a dance routine. The genre of our song 'Without You' by Lana Del Rey sways more to the alternative side of the music genre- I think our planning so far is more stereotypical of this genre as we wish to incorporate more retro effects and bohemian/edgy style which would support Goodwin's Theory.

Dizzee Rascal's 'Holiday' music video is a good example of the stereotypes of the rap genre.

2) Voyeurism- the act of looking (especially secretively) at a male or female being portrayed seductively for their own pleasure. Goodwin says that voyeurism is mainly used to sell the artist's music or gain popularity by sex appeal. It can be used through the use of props too which is seen in Miley Cyrus' 'Wrecking Ball' music video as seen below where her actions make a sledgehammer be seen in a sexual way. In terms of our own music video, we do not plan to use voyeurism as we want to brake some of the typical conventions in the music industry so that it is not like all of the other existing videos, especially as our artist is female- which voyeurism is shown from a very biased angle due to the objectification of women in society today. We have created our artist to be more sophisticated yet edgy at the same time so sex appeal is not really needed as it does not match up to their character.
One aspect of voyeurism that we are planning to use is direct eye contact with the audience as we feel that it creates a stronger relationship between the artist and the viewers which I feel is very important in the music industry as audiences in this day and age want to get even more personal with the artist in order to warm to them and feel that connection.
The '4th wall' is broken when the artist sings to the camera (direct address) which makes it seem like they are singing directly to us. We have some camera shots in our video planned when the artist seen to hold the camera and sing directly to it which, again, makes the connection between the audience appear stronger.

3) A relationship between the music and the visuals. For example, the lyrics of the song will match what is seen on the screen. We agree with Andrew Goodwin's theory on this as we would like our music video to also have a relationship between the music and the visuals. I feel that it would be more successful this way as there is more of a vivid story told and also makes the lyrics far more meaningful. Although I can see how doing the opposite would also be very successful also, as a huge contrast is created and sometimes the most strange and wacky videos have the most attention drawn to them. Saying this, our chosen song has a lot of symbolism and deep lyrics in it which would allow us to be creative with how we choose to visually project our interpretations. 

4) The demands of the record label- some record labels have particular demands for what their artist should be represented as. For example some female artists are made to appear 'sexy' in order to draw in more of a male target audience. For our music video (as stated above) we do not want our artist to appear like this, we have taken most of our inspiration from Lana Del Rey who's main focus isn't on sex appeal, more on the content and quality of the music that she creates. We think it would be more successful to focus on these qualities as it would more likely draw an audience that is most interested on the music itself rather than the artist's branding whether it be 'sexy' or not.

5) Intertextual References- These are references to existing forms of media such as television, films and other music videos. The audience like being 'in' on the reference and it generally makes the video more likable. We are not planning on using intertextual references in our video as we don't deem it to be very appropriate for our song as the lyrics do not relate to anything else because it is mainly narrative based, therefore the visuals would only reflect the lyrics themselves.
 An example of an intertextual reference is Taylor Swift's 'Love Story' where she references Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' both in the lyrics and visuals. 

Lana Del Rey uses intertextual references in her video for 'National Anthem' referencing the time Marilyn Monroe sang happy birthday to president JFK. 

6) Performance based, Narrative based or concept based? A narrative based music video is all about telling a story. A fragmented narrative would be when the story has no set order, showing both flashbacks and flash forwards meaning that the audience would piece it together themselves. We decided to go for a more linear narrative as although we wanted to tell more of a story (or present an idea of our artist's relationship) we aim to show it in chronological order. We think that this would be more successful as it shows consistency which matches the genre of music that our song is, in comparison to a fragmented narrative which could be more suited to the rock genre where the storyline may be more unsettling to the viewer. A concept based video presents a particular theme or idea which I would say we are planning our music video to be like too however ours is set to have a more vivid story so wouldn't solidly fit into this category. Performance based videos have less camerawork, normally featuring closeup and wide shots of the band/artist playing. Although I think it is a good way to showcase their talent, to me, it seems less creative and doesn't give the song as much meaning.

An example of a performance based video is Miley Cyrus' '7 Things'- a positive of the video is that there is lots of direct address so there is a strong relationship between the artist and the audience. Although I think this is important, I believe you can also achieve this through a concept or narrative based video which explains the reason why we have chosen this. 

Overall, I would say that we have been very influenced by Andrew Goodwin's theory of music videos- some of which I am confident that we are going to apply in our very own. Saying this, I don't think we are going to stick to them all as we want to break some of the typical conventions of music videos in order to stand out.