Andrew Goodwins Theory on music video’s:

Goodwin believes that pop video’s are not traditionally narrative based but are approached in a different way to novels and films. The reasons of why this is, is as follows

• Pop videos use the singer both as the character and the narrator.
• The singer often looks directly at the camera, generally to engage the viewer at home with their performance.
• Pop videos are built around songs and often songs do not produce traditional narrative structures.

Pop video rely strongly on repetition, the video repeats images in the way the song repeats lyrics (chorus’s). We become familiar with different genres of music, as there styles are usually alike to one another (intertextuality). In addition the video would be played on the TV and song on the radio, also there might the song might be an advertising film or TV tie-in making the song very familiar through repetition.

Pop songs do have a form of closure or ending, it builds to a climax or constant repetition before fading away, the ending is based on the structure of the music itself.

Some video’s are not based on the song but go beyond the original meaning, so that the video provides a visual pleasure for the viewer, some video’s are made to promote a film that the song is featured in, therefore it is being used to promote commodities.

Goodwin has summed up a theory that music video’s consist or three main category’s:

• Illustration:  This is where the video tells the story of thr lyric “papa don’t preach”(Madonna) for example. Dance is often used to express the feelings/moods in the song.
• Amplification: occurs when the videos introduce new meanings that do not contradict with the lyrics but add layers of meaning.
• Disjuncture: this is where there is little connection between the lyric and video or where the video contradicts the lyric. Michael Jackson “man in the mirror”. This song is about self-realisation but the video is full of radical world events.