Research into Goodwins theory - Miss Georgiou

Research into Goodwins theory

1) Music Videos demonstrate genre characteristics, this can be seen through various ways such as the colours used and instruments played.

2) There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals this can either be illustrative, amplifying or contradicting. The lyrics in the song should match the visuals to help the narrative.

3) There is a relationship between music and visuals, this can be shown by the beat  and the tempo and how loud the song matching how the footage is shown.

4) The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which occur across their work. This will help in the process of making them more prominent to the audience and easier to remember so they will listen to their future music when release, more profit for the record labels from sales and advertising.

5) There if frequent reference to notion of looking this can be things such as a female or the band.

6) There is often inter textual reference to films, tv programmes or other music videos etc. They can be real or fake.

7) Whether the video is primarily performance based, narrative based or concept based. Usually music videos have a combination of 2 or all 3 of the elements i.e. performance and narrative which is most commonly used by artists/ record labels.
1.

The music video R U Mine by the Arctic monkeys clearly defines the music that they play which is indie rock and does this in many ways. Things such as the editing used in the music video,such as it being in black and white which is a signature of the Arctic Monkeys and very indie. This is used to make people concentrate on the song rather than being overwhelmed with the music video. Also using mise en scene specifically iconography they used instruments such as a guitar, base guitar and drums which shows how the band belongs to the indie rock genre as it is one of the main characteristics of all indie rock band. This will tell the audience  the genre of the song without having to listen to the music. This would clearly appeal to their target market as the audience can tell its the Arctic Monkeys from it being in black and white and this will help make a new connection between them and the music. Through the typical instruments of the music video they also make a connection as they may have heard other bands with similar instruments who they liked, this will help them build a connection with the Arctic monkeys. Even the small things such as girls being objectified in the video make it easier to see what genre the music video is and how the lifestyle of the artists is. 

2.

In the music video there is a obvious link between the meaning of the lyrics and what they express and the visual aspect of the music video. The music video R U Mine is foremost about the artist who likes a girl but he is not sure if she likes him back. This can be seen in the way that the music video at the end focuses on a girl walking away from the camera constantly. Furthermore this can be seen first in the lyrics which asked the question "All I wanna hear you say is. Are you mine ?", when this lyric is read we have a close up shot of the singers face looking confused and bewildered, as if asking a question. This is used to concentrate the audience on the artist and the expressions on his face. This shows how he is unsure whether she likes him and is worried about it. Another lyric is "In my mind when she's not right there beside me , I go crazy cause here isn't where i wanna be" which could mean he likes her a lot but not sure about if she likes him. While this is said we see a woman walking away from the camera and the camera following her but she walks faster, which could show how she does not like the man singing. However this is juxtaposition of the starting of the music video as he is alone with his friend and they are just driving a car. This helps the viewers massively as they have a narrative to go along with the lyrics which may be confusing otherwise. Although there is a narrative, at the end there is a performance by the Arctic Monkeys so that the connection between the band and the viewers is still there. Furthermore the link can be seen in the body language of the artist, when they sing "R U Mine" they always look at the camera and zoom in as this gives the impression they are talking to the girl they are asking. This also gives it more power than all of the other lyrics in the song.  Overall the link is seen throughout the video and puts a certain feeling on each lyric. 

3.
Also the connection between the music and visuals is very prominent.When watching the music video it is clear to see how there is a real connection, for example when the music become more upbeat and louder the the visuals suddenly quicken and the editing suddenly becomes faster. This particularly happens at 0.46 when the music really starts to quicken, the camera moves to a mid shot from a close up and the musicians start to dance and move with more action taking place. This engages the audience in the narrative and again helps the watchers to understand what the This happens at another point towards the end of the song around 3.00 minutes where the song heightens again as this is the performance part where the song finishes on a quickened height for the song. This engages the audience for the final part if the song and prevents any boredom towards the end, which would put off potential fans for the Arctic Monkeys. This would likely become less successful of a song if they did not these points of high tempo music and this is synonymous with a successful song. If I was to use this in my video it would keep the tempo of the song quick and keep the audience entertained while watching the video. 

4.
There are many ways in which the record label markets the band through the music video, the record label that represents the band is the independent label Domino. One way it does this is through the use of the black and white, which many of the Arctic Monkeys songs have such as their song "Arabella". This helps with fans watching as they can instantly tell that the song  is from the Arctic Monkeys which will make them have a better experience. Furthermore this brings the attention away from the video and towards the song so that they concentrate on the music. Also for the new fans this will give them something to remember about the band, which hopefully will get them more fans as it will be memorable to new fans. Another way that the record company markets the band is using close ups of the lead singer Alex Turner, this puts a memorable picture of the lead singer to the new fans and helps people who are new listeners. This marketing techniques is geared more towards the new fans rather than old ones. This will hopefully increase their fan base and help them sell more records.

5.
There is some reference to  the notion of looking using various camera angles. One example of this is when we see the singer sitting in the car with a girl  and he start to talk to the girl and then goes to touch her and she slaps him. This shows the singer as objectifying the girl and is one notion of looking which can be seen as voyeuristic as he thinks he is allowed to touch her. This is used as it makes the video conform to the genres conventions, which is objectifying women,  whilst still keeping the interest of the audience.  Another point in the video when this happens is when the woman starts to walk away from the man and the camera stares at her as she walks away. This is obviously showing how he is staring at her in a sexual way and is another way that we can see that the singer is objectifying the woman purely in a sexual way. Furthermore we can see that the artist are looking at them as well. Throughout this video there are many points where we can see the camera focusing on women in a voyeuristic way, which is a convention of the genre.

6.
There is a big part of inter textual reference in the video, that is promoting the brand of the band or other media types. One example is at the start of the video a radio presenter opens the song with saying "we have a new song today, from the Arctic Monkeys, R U Mine". This shows how they are promoting there own brand in the form of a radio station which is another way they can tell people who are unfamiliar with the band who they are , so they can buy their music . Another time it does this is at the end with the performance, there is a TV with the band playing on the screen whilst the Arctic Monkeys play live. This also introduces the band to new audiences who

may be unfamiliar with the band however they now know who it it and that they have many other songs. However there are no fake brands within this video and the only real brand which is in it is the Arctic Monkeys, this makes them get the most attention from the audience with all focus on them. If there were any other brands then this may take away from the lifestyle that the Arctic Monkeys are trying to promote, which is having a good time and being carefree.

7.
The music video that the Arctic Monkeys have made has both narrative and performance, the amount of narrative is 85% and 15% performance based. The narrative in the video is just two members of the band in a car driving along to their song, whilst moving the camera around. Along the way they are singing the lyrics at times , however other times they are doing other things such as playing air instruments for example  the guitar. This happens until you get further into the song where other members of the band turn up and girls appear and they walk over to the stage where they perform. . Then the performance starts with the band playing and the song comes to an end.This is expected as indie rock videos are mainly performance based as the audience wants to see there artists perform . Furthermore this helps with the audience identifying them and any people who do not know the band , they now have a clear idea of what they look like which will help with the artist selling more albums as they are recognized.

This research will assist me in planning my music video as I can see what is used in a successful music video and take inspiration from it and put it into my own. For example having the main artist in the video , whereas other do not is a way in which i could take inspiration from the video.  Furthermore as I plan on using this genre of music then I can take some of the connotations from this video and put them into mine as I would like to be conventional to the genre. A way I could do this is by making our video performance based rather than narrative or concept based. Me taking inspiration can also be used with the characteristics of the video which I would also like to include such as with the  black and white effect which could be used in conjunction with colour to make some things stand out, this would be one characteristic which could be implemented into the video. Overall I will be taking lots of inspiration from this video as I would like a similar feel to this video with my own. 

History of a music video - Miss Georgiou

History of a music video

Music Channels (MTV)

The Internet/youtube

There are many ways in which media can be consumed such as through phones,laptops,TV and tablets are just some of the ways in which media can be consumed by people, we now can also see music videos at any time and anywhere. The ways in which these devices access the music can be through things such as apps,itunes and YouTube  and with new wireless technology we can view these like never before. Things such as 3g have made accessing music easy and fast and can be done anywhere, whereas before you needed wires so were limited on the places that music could be consumed. Music videos can now also be viewed in higher quality than ever before, we can now see HD music videos with no wires. TV has not changed over the years too much with MTV being the first music TV channel in the 1980s and  there now being many other music channels such as 4Music and Viva which have increased there popularity as there is now a wider variety of choices of music. This shows that the ways in which music videos can be viewed has had a dramatic change over such a small amount of time.

The first company to show Music videos on TV was the american music channel MTV. The channel first aired on August 1st 1981 with its first song being "Video killed the Radio Star" at 12.01 am. The aim of the channel was to play music 24/7 , 7 days a week and having various personalities as video jockies such as Eddie Murphy and Phil Collins. At the start MTV was aimed at young adults, however there new target market has opened to include teens and young adolescents. This can be seen in the way that they heavily censor songs which have reference to sex,drugs and violence. For example with the artist Eminem they often use very censored versions of his music to play during non watershed hours.This was successful as we can see by how popular it was as in 1990 MTV reached 28 million viewers worldwide. Later in MTV's life they broke the "colour barrier" which had been around in music by playing artists such as Prince and Michael Jackson, this was one of the first forms of music media that did this. MTV also introduced the MTV music awards, which has become an award where artists can win different awards depending on there genre. This makes it obvious how MTV revolutionized the way that people can access music through there TV and at the time they were very forward thinking.

One of the biggest changes of the way people are able to access music is through the internet and specifically you tube. YouTube was set up in February 2005 and is a site which allows users to watch,upload and comment on videos. This has become one of the biggest ways in which artists can get to there audience as it is free for everyone, so there are few limits on who can watch. This meant that people did not now need to watch through other music videos and could pick what particular music video they wanted.Also it would be much easier to see which artists are the most popular in another way than sales of music.Furthermore as anyone can upload videos to YouTube there is a big chance for amateur artists to get attention. The video with the most views is Gangnam Style by Psy a South Korean pop star with his video having 2,030,153,868 views. So we can see that this is a very viable way in which artist can get global attention for their songs and will promote them on a international level.

 We can also see the way that music videos themselves have changed over the years, with increasing amounts of technology and bigger and bigger budgets.The first music videos were first introduced in the 1940s, however they really became prominent was in the 1950s, with Tony Bennett claiming he made the first music video, with him in a basic black and white picture. This was made up of simply  him singing with a very poor quality video showing him.  Over time music videos have become more and more advanced with other artists using editing,special effects and new technology. The most expensive music ever being Micheal and Janet Jackson's Scream which was 4.46 minutes long but cost $7000000 to make. This huge price comes from the special effects and editing that was used and was very visually impressive for viewers. However music videos do not need to be expensive such as another Micheal Jackson song, Dont Stop Til You get it Enough which uses no technology with just the artist singing and dancing. This shows how music videos can be cheap or expensive and but have changed dramatically over time, but can be successful no matter which option that is used for the video.

The technology and special effects of the films have also changed dramatically, with things such as special effects, CGI and new editing techniques becoming frequent in music videos. This has been able to increase the marketing potential of the videos as they become more visually interesting for the audience.The genres that have developed most over the years are the genres that do not use music instruments, such as dub step, electronic and drum n base. This genre of music uses pre recorded sounds which can be altered to make new sounds and then are made into full songs . Then the artist can put these together and create a new song which would not be possible without the stored sounds. An example of an artist  New technology with electronic equipment and music studios , especially with the use of new computer which can make music using pre recorded sounds. An example of an artist who uses this type of new technology is skrillex who is a dubstep artist who solely uses technology to make his music and is just as successful as any artist that uses musical instruments. This music genre is so recent as the technology has just been been able to be used in this way and has trickled down to make it more affordable for amateur artist.


This research will help the planning of my own music video greatly in many ways. It is clear to see that the lastest technology and editing techniques is most often used in some of the biggest videos as audiences want to see new technology which will also attract them to the video as they want to see what is new. Furthermore that technology can make a video so much more entertaning for the audience which will hopefully increase the sales of the video and the popularity of the artist with fans. Thirdly that the most successful songs often have a very memorable and striking music video which people will want to watch and they will more likely buy the music track for this reason. All of these aspects I will try to incoprporate into my music video which will hopefully make it stand out and memorable to the audience, whilst still keeping the song at the centre attention. Overall this would help us make a successful music video.

In conclusion music videos and the way they are consumed by audience have changed dramatically over the years especially in the 1990s and 2000s with technology such as CGI and new editing techniques being the biggest factor for change. Things such as the internet and wireless technology have completely changes the way music videos are viewed as they can be seen anywhere at any time, unlike ever before.