Music Video Theories

I am going to start by talking about Andrew goodwin who identified five main aspects of a music video.

These five things are:

• Thought through beat (seeing what the lyrics mean in your head)

• Relationship between the song and the visuals

• Narrative and performance of the song

• Technical aspect of a music video

• Star image (protagonist), lots of camera shots making him/ her the centre of attention.

Andrew Goodwin believes that a successful music video should strongly link the visuals with the lyrics. When applying this idea to my own video, there will be a connection between what you see and hear, but it won't be a strict match where the visuals precisely follow the lyrics.

Goodwin also emphasizes the importance of the star image in a music video. The star not only enhances the video's appeal but also brings a unique style through their portrayal. In my video, the main focus will be on the actress, making her the central figure to create an appealing and distinctive visual experience for the audience.

Moving on, we have Michael Shore who argues that music videos often reuse styles, presenting an overload of information and reflecting adolescent male fantasies. He suggests that these videos commonly feature elements like speed, power, girls, and wealth, creating a pattern that resembles soft-core pornography with cliched imagery. Shore's perspective implies that contemporary music videos share similarities with older ones, lacking significant changes or originality over the years.

And lastly we have Roland Barthes. He said that texts may be open or closed, he narrowed down the action of the text into five different codes, which are included into any narrative, this includes music narrative videos.

The five codes are:

• The Hermeneutic Code — this is seen as the voice of truth. it is the way the story avoids telling the truth or letting slip of the facts. This is to drop clues throughout the video to help create a sense of mystery, which ultimately makes the video a lot more interesting, and gives it more talkability.

• The Enigma/Proairetic Code — This is the empirical voice. this is to give the audience a cliffhanger, it is used to build up tension and keep the audience engaged.

• The Semantic Code — The semantic code is the voice of the person. This points out to any section in the lyrics that suggests a particular meaning by a connotation is what is symbolized.

• The Symbolic Code — This is the voice of symbols. It is vaguely similar to the semantic code, however it acts at a wider level, as it organizes semantic meanings into a broader and deeper set of meanings, this is often done through the use of contrast, where new meanings arise out of the opposing and conflicting.

• The Cultural Code —The cultural code is the voice of science. It looks at the audiences wider cultural knowledge, morality and ideology. This related to the audience and makes the video more interesting and realistic.