Andrew Goodwin believed there were a number of key features that distinguish a music video as a whole. He believed that every music video will convey these key points as they are what make up a music video. One point explains that there should be some sort of relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. In my music video, looking at the animatic, there are a few points in which a relationship is shown between the two, but the majority shows no obvious relationship between them. An example of when there is a relationship would be when the lyric 'It's just the radio' is sung, and a shot of a radio is shown. Other than small links like this, there is no real connection. This is because my video is very performance based, so gives me less opportunity to show clear link between them like you would in a narrative based video.
Another point explains that there should be a relationship between the music and the visuals. This is much more obvious and clear in my video in comparison to lyrics and visuals, as the pace and beat of my song is kept very much in line with the shots I use. An example of when I have a connection between the music and the visuals is when I have short shots of her strumming the guitar when a guitar is being played. Another point explains that in particular genres they may have their own style and iconography which could be reflected when creating a music video in this genre. I believe my music video somewhat follows this pattern for the Folk genre as one of the many conventions of this genre is that it is very raw and stripped-down. In my video I have her simply sitting down in a chair in an abandoned location with hardly any props but a guitar, which shows my artist as raw and stripped-down like the conventions show.
He also explained that the record companies that manage the artist may demand to have many close-ups of them to raise awareness of them and help boost their popularity. This is certainly reflected in my music video as I have many close-ups of my artist, for example in the first verse when the line, 'Before the second show' is sung. Another point he made was that many artists develop their own iconpgraphy by using something over and over again in all of their videos. This obviously doesn't apply to my music video as my artist is unknown, so can only rely on the iconography of the genre itself, for example the fact that she is holding a guitar which is common in many Folk videos.
References to voyerism is another point that Goodwin made about what should be included in a music video. This also does not apply to my music video as I use no shots such as a screen within a screen, binoculars or a personal camera anywhere in my video. This is mainly because performance based videos do not use these sort of featres as they would be uncessecary, however narrative based videos are more likely to use them to fit in with whatever is happening in the video. Also it is not a convention of the Folk genre to really play up to the idea of Voyerism mainly because it looks into the artist themselves which is why so many videos are performance based instead of having a dominating storyline.
Finally, he believed that intertexual reference are an important part of a music video. This is not a huge part of my music video however there are some points in which intertexual references may be shown. This would be from the music video of Laura Marling that I posted earlier on my blog. Due to all the similar shots and location this may make my music video an intertexual reference to her video, but other than this there are not many clear references to other types of media except for my following of Folk conventions which would be shown in any other Folk music videos anyway.
By Harry Luke Mulvany
