Andrew Godwin Music Video theory

Andrew Godwin's music video theory included six steps to attract an audience to your own music video and how to make it appealing. Firstly, demonstrating genre characteristics in your video bands like Royal Blood their music videos represent their music, a you can see in this screen grab there is a story going on with the band on the same shot in the foreground. This gives a disjointed view to the people watching but again signifies their music because it's very rock-like and therefore the audience will typically be teenagers who like to wear dark clothing and are very into their music rather than in contrast another band like One Direction who care a lot about appearance. As you can see in this video Royal Blood have a dark theme throughout, most of their videos are set like to portray a running theme and keep the audience into their music. The video below is Figure It Out, this video contains scenes of blood in which emphasises their target audience as being older because it's more of a violent nature yet if it was again using One Direction this wouldn't be found in their videos as it's more of a fun/happy lifestyle. 



Secondly, he says there should be a relationship between music and visuals, this isn't always apparent in music videos and isn't there to promote the band they're just there to highlight the narrative story, in pop videos this is very popular as it could be the "cheesy" thing to do in love songs where a girl meets boy etc and wouldn't usually be that popular in rock/indie videos as they like being different and sometimes have a totally random video which has nothing to do with the narrative of the song lyrics. For example, in the music video for MAGIC! - Rude the narrative is about marrying a girl throughout we can see two people in love but the lyrics also do match the visuals as in this picture he sings "jumped in my car" and there is an image of the men getting in a car. At the end of the video the girl and boy pretend to get married and therefore closes the song so the narrative has built-up to the ending.

Thirdly, the tone and atmosphere of the music appears in the visuals by the speed of the cuts and what actually happens in the video. An example of this is Kasabian - Bumblebeee the start of the song is very aggressive and fast paced therefore the visuals appear people getting crushed at a gig and jumping around (as you can see from the picture) having cutaways back to the band with the editing pace very fast to make the audience feel the song. Yet the song suddenly gets slower and this is where the shot duration becomes longer and the shot is just of the band very small in a lot of space which in constrast is very different from the previous scenes where everyone was close together. This represents the tone and makes the audience more drawn into the video, aswell the band are wearing white which is a more softer feel which represents the slower paced music yet the audience in the video are in dull clothing again represeting the atmosphere and creating a visual itself.

Another point he makes is the demand from the record label they want to make an image from the artist therefore they want a lot of close-ups of the artist and if they're trying to promote a certain "look" for themselves for example R&B singers want to try and create the image that they're violent/agressive to promote the street-like image to their audience in which they themselves want to recreate. In this video Eminem - Lose Yourself, he wears his hood-up which is a common thing to do in this genre of music he also shows scenes of violence which he isn't promoting but he wants to fulfill the "gangster" like image to his audience. The serious facial expressions also connote his agressive side and that he wants to be taken seriously, we see this throughout all videos of R&B singers/rappers.

In addition, the voyeuristic treatment of the female body is clear in many music videos the "male-gaze" attracts a wider audience for example in Nicki Minaj's videos she is known to flaunt her body especially in her new "anaconda" video, in my personal opinion I don't think it's suitable for younger children as she is wearing little clothing in most scenes therefore would hopefully think she has targetted this to an older audience. She again presents women in a sexual manner of which sometimes isn't neccesary just to promote her song, even the album cover is of her just wear a bikini.

Finally, there is often intertextual referencing in videos such as tv/films/other music videos. Blink-182 did a music video in which they took the mic out of "boybands" as they're from the rock genre, they did numerous costume changes and choreographed dance routine in order to change their usual music videos to something expect by a boyband in that era.

How these six steps will be incorporated into my work is that firstly, genre characteristics I will make sure that the clothes and the way in which my video is presented though props and lighting will describe and emphasise my genre well in my video and will suit my target audience. Before deciding upon what I will do for my video once I've picked my song I need to do audience research to ensure that I will attract these people and I'm not going off on the wrong track. Secondly, the music visuals relationship will be important to me because as a new comer to making a music video it could help me in deciding what my storyline or my set design could include. Things like songs about love singing a line about buying presents could show someone buying a present for someone else therefore I could use this to my advantage and not having to make a lot of hard work for myself by having to create an off topic video. Thirdly, the tone and atmosphere of the music I choose will replicate the cutting speed and also how fast the actors in the frame dance etc. I want to ensure that the pace isn't too quick for the music because it will become disjointed and effect the continuity of the song and maybe create a sense of uncertainty about the video. Fourthly, close-ups will be important in my video as the audience want to see the singers in the video so they feel as though they can interact with them and using close-ups is also better to show emotion and the singing in the frame as a whole in which I find a good thing to use. In addition the female body is used to attract a wider audience yet I don't think that would be appropriate for my music video as I don't want to sexualise my actors to make my video seem more appealing. Finally, inter-textual referencing could be taken from films which could be my inspiration for my video but I want to create my own identity so I'm not sure whether I will use this in my video.