GOODWIN'S THEORY EXAMPLES

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics..

The genre of Kanye West's Homecoming video follows suit with Kanye's usual associated genre of RnB. The video itself uses black and white lighting effects to give a harsh, bold and strong presence of the artist. A recurring theme in Kanye's music videos is that he portrays himself as both physically and mentally strong. This is apparent in Homecoming as the use of the low angle camera shots make him seem powerful and domineering over his audience, as if he thinks himself high over them/ The video is about Kanye visiting his 'hometown' of Chicago, therefore the panning shots and close up shops of him looking around Chicago and reminiscing on his childhood. The further close up shots of the kids could represent Kanye, himself, in his childhood. However the low key lighting keeps specific facial details ambiguous. The city is frequently shown inside the silhouette effect of Kanye and Chris performing, symbolising that the city is a part of him and he takes it everywhere with him.

2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals..

There is a significantly detailed use of cross fading, switching from a mid/ tracking shot of Florence dancing in the center of everyone to a close up of her hand resting on the side of her face. There are potentially many reasons why the director chose to use this editing technique however one reason could be for textual or lyrical cohesion. The song 'Rabbit Heart' repeats the line 'Raise it up' multiple times which, I believe, to have some spiritual significance. As in 'raise it up' from the dead which the seemingly not choreographed dancing implies. This theme is carried throughout the video as another time she is pushed out to sea on a coffin-like box which has biblical references.

3. There is a relationship between music and visuals..

Usually, there is a relationship between music and visuals; especially in mainstream/ hip hop videos. An example of this is when there is a guitar solo being performed during the song and the camera usually focuses on the musician/artist performing the solo with his instrument. In Dappy's song 'Rockstar' featuring Brian May, towards the end of the video there is a jump cut into a mid shot and close ups of Brian performing his solo.

Another example is in Drake's video 'Take Care' featuring Rihanna. The song itself is about taking care of a partner or a person in which you are in romantic relation with. During the video, Drake, himself, and Rihanna show signs of affection between each other as they are sitting close together and touching each other in a romantic way. 

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 recur across their work...

Lady Gaga is a great example of a record label's influence as in her video 'Bad Romance' she demonstrates her signature hand gesture of her 'Monster Claw'. To her fans, she identifies herself as 'Mother Monster' and all her fans are her 'little monsters'; this keeps them involved and they feel apart of her and her videos. Below is the video for 'Bad Romance' where she demonstrates this.

5. There is frequently reference to the notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body...

6. There is often intertextual reference...

GOODWIN'S THEORY

Andrew Goodwin, a director of music, came up with theories which feature in his book about purposes and features for music videos.  His theory is generally based around 6 main principles..
- Links between lyrics and visuals, when the words directly link to the video.
- Genre characteristics, the visual representations of the music genre and portrayal.
- Demands from the record label, how the artist is represented through the need of close ups of the artist and may even create motifs which occur frequently throughout their work.
- Performance based, narrative based or concept based music videos.
- Reference to notions of looking, mostly of voyeuristic treatment towards the female body.
- Intertextual reference, the reference to other videos, media texts, artists or products within a video.
- Links between music and videos, the instruments, cutting rate (on the beat) and if the link is complementary or contradicting.
- Voyeurism (insight into artists life, direct gaze, other people looking at the artist, mirrors and screens).

PERMISSION

After we decided on the artist and song we had to get permission to use it so we used our twitter account to tweet Lewis Watson in order to be in direct contact with him, this proved to be a successful way of contacting the artist as it was the most direct as possible as he was able to get back to us straight away and said he would be honoured!

SONG CHOICE

This is my groups chosen song, we liked the overall sound of the artist, Lewis Watson and to decide on an exact song we looked into the lyrics and the melody of them and also thought about potential videos to each and all three of us decided on his song Windows after getting it down to that and Bones. Windows is quite a depressing song with an up beat sound to it which ables us to create an interesting video and story to. The song fits into the indie and acoustic genre. The song itself can be related to situations people may find themselves in as it's probably about a break up and the feelings involved with it. Overall the song will allow us to be creative with our ideas and there is a lot of possibilities and potential references to lyrics.

GENRE CHOICE

My groups chosen genre will be indie.. focusing more on the sub genre of indie acoustic. We chose to do this genre as we felt our abilities would be used to our advantage within the indie genre because we all have certain strengths and combined they compliment each other and we have already proved that we work well together.

GENRE REPRESENTATION

"Genre is not simply given by the culture, rather, it is in a constant process of negotiation and change." - Davi Buckingham.

Today in our lesson we looked into genre representation. We were given a minute to come up with as many genres as we could think of and I managed to get down all these.. Indie, rock, soul, acoustic, dance, dubstep, folk, country, heavy metal, funk, pop, rap, r&b, jazz, techno, reggae, classical, punk, boy band, girl band, disco, alternative, emo, grime, grunge, motown and electro.

INTERVIEW 2

Michael/56/Illford

What music were you interested in when you were my age?
I listened to things like Waterloo Sunset, Icthy Coo Park, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeplin, Cream, Blind Faith, The Who, The Kinks,  The Small Faces, Pink Floyd, The Doors, The Faces. I was in a skiffle band was called Harry Monks Red Hot Jubilee band as well.

How did you access it?
I used to go to Camden to places such the Roundhouse, Dingwalls to see live bands and also went to the Lyceum to see loads of artists play. I also used to go to Universities, pubs and clubs to see people play. Used to go to record shops and go into a listening booth and listen to records. Listened to a lot of radio, pirate radio caroline and radio london. My dad used to work at the market so always used to bring home new singles as well which was a good way of hearing new music. I watched the Old Grey Whistle Test to hear music.

Looking back now do you think you followed a particular subculture and dressed a certain way in the sense that the choice of music reflected your lifestyle, friends and fashion?
Yes, I was more of a hippy type person with long hair and a long beard and often got mistaken for George Harrison which was heavily influenced by the music of the 60's with my favorite band of all time, The Beatles.  I wore three button t shirts and loons.

INTERVIEW 1

Denise/54/Grimsby

What popular music were you interested in when you were my age?
At parties we mostly listened to Rod Stewart, still the Moody Blues were about, Pink Floyd and some really obscure ones as well, like Tamla Motown. I used to go to folk clubs as well. Dylan and Leonard Cohen, they sang ballad type songs. A mixture of artists and singers, from Diana Ross to David Bowie.


How did you access it?
Well I didn't really listen to music very often, more of a treat. Most of the songs were well known and it would be people telling you about it but mostly I watched Top Of the Pops. Also still going to record shops to listen to songs with head phones and you'd ask if you could play it and we used to buy in my family, we'd take it in turns, 3 people put together, 7 and 6 a single, we'd get a single a week which was quite a lot really. That was my older sister and brother but I got to listen to the as well and I've even still got them they were treasured, you'd even go round to peoples houses and you'd take your record collections because not everybody had them. I listened to music mainly through records and not on the radio, as a family we did not have the radio on. In our house it was either top of the pops or the record player. Listening to older siblings, influenced by their tastes in music and saw many bands in my area because of my sister going. Sometimes I went to see live bands as I did travel to Liverpool to the cavern club to see bands there. Also I went to the Free trade hall in Manchester to see a famous guitarist called.. At parties there were duke boxes so we could choose what songs to play and and I did this at Blue Note which was a hippy 'to be seen' cafe place where I'd meet friends and not go with school friends as they had different tastes. Also read magasines to find out about new artists. We also did music appreciation in our music class at school where someone would bring in some music and say a bit of information about them and that's how I found out about Leonard Cohen.


Looking back now do you think you followed a particular subculture and dressed a certain way in the sense that the choice of music reflected your lifestyle, friends and fashion?
I think it did at the time, although I did go across to a folk club even though I dressed differently I didn't take to certain traditions there and when I went to parties all of the well known bands were played. I wore a lot of hippy style things, beads and glasses which was definitely reflective of the music I listened too. I was inspired by some artists and was able to see them from magasines pictures.

MEDIA GROUP

It was confirmed that I will be working in a group of three, along side Jack Willson ( http://willsonsmusicproductions.blogspot.co.uk ) and Becky Wilson ( http://rebeccawilsona2media.blogspot.co.uk ).

AUDIENCE THEORY

It has been said that there are two types of audiences on being active and the other, passive in relation to their involvement and choice of media consumed. An active audience member would be one who will chose to watch something because they know exactly what they want as they have high involvement within choices and a passive audience member would only watch that same something because it was on or just right in front of them as they tend to go with the flow and can't make their minds up.

People make this choices by searching on search enginges such as Google and going onto YouTube and clicking on the suggested videos at the end of the one they just watched or viewing one of the videos that are down the side of the page. They also make choices through social networking sites through their friends and adverts on the sites, TV adverts will also aid their decision process along side album releases, concerts, artists websites and the radio. Back in the 60's to the 80's past audiences made their choices through programs on TV such as Top of the Pops, by listening to radio stations, reading magasines, through work of mouth and by the trail and error method (going to gigs of bands they didn't know or heard of).

McQuails theory of uses and gratifications suggests that reasons for active choice by media audiences are:
-personal identity (who you are/your character)
-personal relationships (things in common such as music tastes/dress sense, peers who like the same)
-informations and updates (the news, mags, networks, tv and friends)
-escapism and diversion/entertainment (for fun, enjoyment)