5 key aspects of music videos that we look out for

Darcie Russell

Andrew Goodwin’s theory

Thought beats (imagining seeing sound)

Goodwin claimed that one aspect of a successful music video is that of being able to see the sound in your head. The chorus and verses are important for this as we are supposable able to imagine the structure of the song. Then we should consider the voice of the song, artist’s have their own unique voice that creates identification that helps the artists to create a ‘star image’ - I will discuss the aspects of star image later. Finally, Andrew Goodwin claimed that music should be looked upon as a song, the artist is communicating with listeners through lyrics. He called this a communicational device. Them telling the target audience a story as well as those responding by listening.

Narrative and PerformanceGoodwin's second aspect of a successful music video is that of understanding that a song never gives is the full and complete narrative. We have too look further into the song into understanding what it is about. We may have an image in our head of what we believe the narrative is about but sometimes this can be proved different. This shows as Goodwin says in order for a music video to be a hit it must ignore the common narrative that people believe the music is about and take a ‘think outside the box’ approach.

This happened to me and Laura, we were looking at the lyrics to ‘hate that I love you’ by Rihanna and listening to the song on my iPod, after a few times of listening we discussed the song and came up with the idea that the song is about a breakup and the boy and girl are saying that have a lot of hatred for each other after everything's that’s happened but they will always love each other, However when we watched the video is seemed that at first but towards the end Rihanna and Ne-Yo are showing that they are not singing about each other, they are singing about other people but happen to just see each other in the lift whilst they are both on their way to see the person they hate to love. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMOOr7GEkj8)

Star ImageStar Image is important to maintain as if it is not the star could risk losing ‘fans’. Star image can be changed depending on the situation but as long as overall star image doesn’t majorly change its fine. For example Rihanna’s star image in ‘hate that I love you’ is sexy and flirtatious, as she is in lingerie. However in ‘stay’ she is exposed as a venerable person. These are two different representations but her star image is still the same.

Relation of visuals to song

Music videos can use a set of images to illustrate the meaning of a song. When the star image of a star is very strong usually they can get away without illustrating meanings of songs, they can use their own ways of being artistic with their videos. For example, Lily Allen can now get away with this as she is a known star.

Technical Aspects

Aspects such as camera work, angles, movement, editing, mise-en scene, special effects and sound all make up a music video. Lighting and colour can set mood. As well as camera work, in Rihanna’s stay music video that I have recently spoke about. There are extreme close ups of her face to show her vulnerability. Mise-en-scene also can be used with star image, for example a rapper will have various objects in his music video that a opera sing will not.