Music Video - Forms And Conventions (Andrew Goodwin)

Andrew Godwin - Dancing In The Distraction Factory

 

Andrew Godwin came up with key features:

• Relationship between the lyrics and visuals.
  (Illustrates, amplifies, or contradicts the lyrics)
  
  e.g (otis) - at 0.46 "Popping bottles, putting supermodels in the car"...we see a custom and maybach with kanye west and jayz inside with 3 models. The relationship between the lyrics and the visuals is pretty strong and evident in this video. For example when the lysics said "poppign bottles, putting supermodels in the car" we see that jayz and kanye are have a lot of fun, they are smilling, laughing and dancing. This  can be related to the lyrics as people normally "pop bottlle" of wine and champagne when they are happy and have something to celebrate. So the relation ship betwen these two are very clear in most music video. Most lyrics in a song or music video express feelings and these feelings are normally shown in the music video. It can be shown through facial expression, actions or through colour. For example if the video is just in black and white then it normally shows or emphasises a sad or upset feeling.

 

Jay-z and Kanye West - Otis 

Another example of the relationship between lyrics and visuals are found in the music video "Money to blow" by Birdman, Drake and Lil Wayne.

When Lil wayne says "Come to VIP, and get a champagne shower", we see a short clip of bird man popping a bottle of champagne and spraying it everywhere. Another example is when Birdman say, "Higher than the ceiling, fly like a bird" we see a shot of a white bird flying of a pile of money.

• Relationship between music and visuals.
  (Illustrates, amplifies or contradicts the lyrics)
  
  e.g (all of the lights) - at 0.35 for about 15 seconds, every 4 beats there is a transition in a different setting. This can also be seen i nother music videos, such as
  Missy Elliot - Lose control, where the beat in the music flows very well with the visuals with very quick transitions. So for example if the drum beat when from slow to fast or there is some sort of drum fill then this would be shown through the visuals.

Kanye West - All Of The Lights

• Particular music genres have their own music video style and iconography
  
  Different music genres will have there own style of videos and there codes and conventions will vary. For example in rap music, you'll see a lot of gold chains, flashy cars and girls.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Whereas in pop video you'll see a lot of colourful clothings and dancers.
  
  

• Demand on the part of the record company of a lot of close up on the main artist/vocalistI think this is seen in almost if not every music video. There i s no doubt that there is a demand on the part of the record company of a lot of closes on the main artist. For example in Alaxandra Stan - Millionaire, there are many clips of close up, this is seen especially when there trying to promote an upcoming artist.

These shots help raise the profiles of these new artists. There are many artists who's music videos contain a number of close ups, for example drake, rihanna, nicki minaj and professor green.

• The artist may develop there ownstyle of iconography in it out of there videos which over time becomes part of there star image

Here is a music video by Lady Gaga, who over the few years has developed her own style of iconography both in and out of her videos. For example at awards shows, shes known for wearing the craziest outfits, from meat dresses to boxes. This can be seen as a good and bad thing in the eyes of people and music lovers. Although in most cases her outfits do not reflect her style of music, she is seen as a very unique artist and character.

 Here is the meat dress lady gaga wore to the VMA 2010 awards.

Another example of lady gaga creating her own style of iconography is in the video "The Edge Of Glory". We can see that everything from make up to clothing is some thing that people may see as weird but she has a reputation for not only dressing in obscured ways in her videos but also out sire her videos.

• Likely to be a reference to voyerism particularly in the treatmeant of women. But also in terms of systems of looking.

In this video we see Nicki minaj and mamny other women dressed in carnival clothing, this could be a reference to voyerism as

http://prezi.com/zgvlmrn0wc1s/andrew-goodwins-music-video-theory/
http://www.slideshare.net/guestc6d43a4a/andrew-goodwins-theory