Creative media btec: Goodwins music video theory

Andrew Goodwin had seven theories about how succesful music videos work, he said most videos include the following aspects, but sometimes not all of them. His theory pointed out what a successful music video would need.

His theories were:

• The lyrics of a music video are connected to the visuals.
• The visuals are connected to the music.
• There should be a lot of close ups on the main artist.
• The artist should have a clear star image (original theme).
• Most of the time females are sexualised.
• There are intertuxtual references to other past videos.
• Has a performance or narrative (story).

I personally believe that his theories do point out a lot a successful techniques in making a good video but it is not always the case in some of the videos I have analysed, although every video did support at least one of his theories. One example is the video 'You Need Me, 'I Don't Need You' by Ed Sheeran where this challenges the normal conventions of music videos, yet still supports the theory of the lyrics being connected to visuals and a few others, if there is a video that does not support a single theory it is probably not popular and a complete failure, that is why most producers tend to use these because they don't want to take any risks, and use conventions to create a good selling video.

This is Tupac's music video 'California Love' it was the video out of all the videos we studied which followed most of the theories, it followed all seven of the theories.

• the lyrics go with the visuals
• visuals connect with music
• a lot of close ups on the artists
• the artist definitely have a star image
• females are sexualised
• intertextuality to some films at that time
• there is a definite narrative, and form of performance.

Here is another video:

This video has:

• Close ups on artists
• Star image 
• and a performance