Andrew Goodwin's Theory

In Andrew Goodwin's theory he is explaining the structure of a music video. Goodwin believes pp videos approach narrative from a different angle to novels and films. Goodwin feels the reasons for the narrative for the different narrative structures are because:

1. Pop videos are built around songs- and often songs do not pose traditional narrative structures (normality- problem- resolution), perhaps this is partly because all songs do not necessarily include a story in the lyrics that require a the video to have a structure similar to the of a novel or film. For instance songs that belong to a genre like Hip Hop, may not have a clear meaning, thus the video won't have a traditional narrative structure. 
2.  The pop video uses the singer both as a narrator and as a character. This would then mean a pop video would not really follow a traditional narrative structure, because the singer plays all the parts, there is no third person structure.
3. The singer often looks directly at the camera- this is an extension of (music-hall) performance and trying to involve the viewer at home with the performance. 

Goodwin continues, Pop videos rely on repetition. Often the video repeats images in the way the song repeats choruses or lines. Also it has become the norm for pop videos to have this structure so it has become what we, the viewer would expect when watching a pop video. Also because the song would be used a lot in the media (T.v., Radio advertising films) the song would become very familiar through repetition.

Goodwin concludes, "it can be said that there are three types of relations between songs and videos: Illustration, amplification and disjuncture."

1. Illustration: This is where the video tells the story of the lyric. Dance is often used to express the feelings/moods in the song.
2. Amplification: Occurs when the video introduce new meanings that do not contradict with the lyric but add layers of meanings.
3. Disjuncture: This is where there is little connection between the lyric and video or where the video contradicts the lyric. Micheal Jackson's Man In The Mirror. The song is about self- relisation but the video is about radical world events.  

Analysis of a music video Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby

                                                            Narrative 
The narrative in this music video is a clear easy to follow structure. The lead singer of the group is narrating the story. It has a clear verse- chorus structure. 

                                                            Genre 
 The genre in this music video is Indi. The Kaiser Chief's clothing resembles that of the genre. The lead singer is  wearing a waist coat and all the band players are playing guitars and the drums, thus the props and clothin conveys that it is a Indi genre. 

                                                      Media Language   
 The music video is not edited precisely to the beat, but there are different shots in display, low angle shots, close ups. During the video the Kaiser Chiefs are made larger than the buildings in the video, thus making them appear larger than the smaller world below them. This is probably than by using the green screen. 

                                                    Representation  
 Half way through the video as the artist are made large it makes the video and looking at the artist more appealing to the audience, it is more exciting. However, I feel this video will be more appealing overal to those who are Indi fans, mainly because the clothing and props used in the video would be attractive to that particular group. 

Letter of Request

Our artist is unsigned so we had to go on his blog and write him a personal message.

Valdimir Propp

Vladimir Propp was a Russian scholar born on April 17, 1895 in St. Petersburg. He is best known for his 'Morphology of the Folk Tale' which was published in 1928. Propp analysed Russian folk tales and he wanted to break them down to thier simplest form and the basic narrative elements. He said that after the story has begun to gain shape it takes the 31 functions some of which include:

VILLAINY and LACK- When the villan causes harm to the heroes family

DEPARTURE: When the Hero leaves home

PURSUIT: When the hero is hunted and chased by the villan

PUNISHMENT: When the hero is punished

Propp concluded that in the 100 tals that he analysed there are only 7 chracter types:

The villain — The one who is always battling with the hero
The donor — Prepare the hero for the quest ahead
The magical helper — They give the hero a magical object that may help him
The princess and her father — They give the hero his mission
The False hero — They may take credit for the hero's work
The dispatcher- They tell the villan the hero's whereabouts
The seeker hero — reacts to the donor, and marries the princess

This video by Ne-Yo shows some of the character types, the woman in the white is the villan and Ne-Yo, in the white hat is the hero. Some could say that the dancers dancing with Ne-Yo are the magical helpers because they are helping the villan prepare for battle.

Short List of Potential songs

When our group cam together we wanted to brainstorm some ideas about what type of video we wanted to do, the people in our group all have differnt tastes in music so we had to try and come to an agreement about one thing and we all suggested that we wanted a song with a powerful meaning reguardless of the genre so we brainstormed some ideas about what genre, song and artist we would do:


Genre:
-Rap
-Indie
-Soul

Artists/Group:
-Tinie Tempah
-Coldplay
-Blur
-Lowkey

Songs
-"There's no other way"
-"Free palestine"
-"Terrorist"
-"Clocks"

Summery of the main points of Andrew Goodwin's Theory

Andrew Goodwin is a music director and he has a theory about pop videos, he believes that traditional narrative analysises dont apply to pop videos. They approach narratives from a different angle to novels and films.
The reason for different narrative structures are the following;

1. Pop videos are built around songs and often songs do not pose traditional narrative structures

2. The pop videos uses the singer both as character and as narrator

3. The singer often looks directly at the camera, this is so that the performance can connect with viewer at home.

Pop videos are reliant on repetition. The video often repeats images in the way the song repeats choruses or lines. The repetition in songs of parts or rhymes of other songs are there to form inter textuality, meaning that we can become firmiliar with the specific genre and have certain expectations.  Because the video would be played on the television  and the song would be played on the radio there would be lots of repition making the song become familiar, along with this there could be adverts on the television and on the radio which would also help tie in with making the song popular.

Andrew Goowin has three ideas on the relationship between music videos, these were:

1. Illustration: this is where the video tells the story of the lyrics "Pap don't  preach" (Modonna) for example. Dance is often used to express the feelings/moods in the song.

2. Amplication: occurs when the videos introduce new meanings that do not contradict with the lyrics but add layers of meaning.

3. Disjuncture: this is where there is a little connection between the lyric and video or where the video contradicts the lyric. Micheal Jackson's Man in the mirror is an example . The song is about self-realisation but the video is full of radical world events.

Review of previous student video.

Adam, Lisa, Nasima & Sayvita from 283goswell on Vimeo.

This is a great example of a students video, alot of hard work has clearly been put into it. It is an example of Illustration and it tells the stroy of a young woman wanting to spread the word about 'love'. The narrative of the song is appealing to alla nd it is clear. I would say the genre of this song is soul beacuse the woman is dressed in a classy way and her hair is up which looks classic.

The story follows a girl who travels the west end spreding the word of love, she gets random people from the public to hold up signs which include the lyrics, this is really effective because it adds a sense of spontaneity and also fun to the video. The video is in all black and white and also bits of red, this gives a professional look to the video. The close ups gave us an insight into the emotion the woman was putting into the song and it shows that she truly believes in what she is singing.

Some of Andrew Goodwins points apply to this music video, he says that in Pop videos the singer often looks directly into the camera and from thos videos she does, he also says that Pop videos uses the singer botha s narrator and as a charcter, this also apply's.

Andrew Goodwin-Video Catergories

Illustration: This is where the video tells the story of the song and lyrics, there is always a clear link between the two.

Disjuncture:This is when the video has little or no link to the video; it can be completely abstract and contradict the lyrics.

Amplification:This is when the video is linked to the song but not necessarily to the lyrics, they introduce a different perspective to the song and add layers to the meaning.

Analysis of a music video

Genre: The main genre of this videos is Pop but I would also say that there is a  sub-genre which is Rap.

Narrative: This video is linear and this is because it follows a set structure and it has a storyline which gradual although slow. Some people could see this video as a mix with linear and non-linear because of how the video is spilt and you see different proportions of people’s body’s, some would say that this makes it a little unclear, however I feel because the is an equilibrium it makes the video make much more sense. The equilibrium is that in the opening scenes you the man without his girlfriend but then as the video progresses you see different couples emerging and in the last shot you see him grasping his girl and her smiling. The artist is also the participant because he is the one being filmed in the video and he is lip synching in the song.

Representation: There were numerous close ups of the woman’s face and also the artists face so you can immediately tell that there is some sort of relationship unfolding, There are shots at the end of the woman in nothing but socks and a football T-shirt and this is normal with some Rap videos and the notion of love is representative with Pop videos.

Media Language: In this video the editing was fast and effectively used and there is a lot of it. Most of the video is screens spilt into three and they are always changing and when they do they are in time with the beat. Close ups are used to see the facial expressions of the artist and the woman, and there are mid shots when we see the different body parts in each screen.

Summary of Andrew Goodwin's Theory

Andrew Goodwin is a music director and he believed that all pop videos had a different structure rather than a traditional narrative analysis. Andrew Goodwin said that pop videos approach a different angle to novels and films and the reason for the different narrative structure was as followed:

•Pop videos are built around songs, and often do not pose traditional narrative structure

•In Pop videos the singer is the narrator and the character

•The singer often looks directly at the camera and this is a way of trying to involve the viwer with the performance.

He said that pop videos relied on repition and the video plays the same images over and and over again to be in synch with various verses or the chorus. Intertextuality means that we can becom familiar with the genre of music so that when we hear songs on the radio without the video or when we see just the video on T.V. we can immidiatelt familiarise ourselves with them. Andrew Goodwin said that there are three types of relations between songs:

1. Illustration- This is where the video tells the story of the song.

2. Amplification- this is where the video introduces new meanings that contradict the lyrics.

3. Disjuncture- This is where the is few or no connection with the lyrics and the video.