Notes on Media Language

Andrew Goodwin identified a number of features of music videos:

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage preformace in a metal genre music video, dance routine for boy/girl bands).

2. A relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting).

3. A relationship between music and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting).

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 (a visual style)

5. There is frequently reference to the notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc.) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

6. There is often intertextual reference (to films, TV programs, other music videos, etc.)

Now I am looking back to identify whether any of these features are present within my music video.

1. The genre of my music is acoustic and therefore I have created an acoustic music video. My music video demonstrates a number of genre characteristics. It uses clothing that are seen as normal/casual and not glamorous/showy. It uses long takes for the majority of the video. It uses "soft" editing (meaning the video is generally slow paced and doesn't use cuts such as "jump cuts"), and finally it uses locations that are quiet/isolated i.e. with little or no people in the shot besides the star of the music video. However my music video doesn't use both performance and narrative, which can be seen quite often in acoustic music videos.

2. Within my music video there is a link between the lyrics and the visuals.The link is that the place my actress goes to is the room she draws in, within the video. The part which says "it is us I see" relates to the fact the actress has drawn what are supposed to be her and her (ex) boyfriend. And finally, the part which says the words "dream catch me when I fall, or else I won't come back at all" relates to how the drawings make her feel better when she's sad, as it seems otherwise she may remain heartbroken.

3. In terms of links between music and visuals there aren't many in my music video. When certain parts od the song enter and certain parts end, the visual change, but besides this there isn't anything notable.

4. Since my video used a male artist and only one person within the music video; a female, this means that my music video doesn't use a vast amount of time to show close-ups of the girl, as she is not the artist and therefore not so important to the task of raising awareness of the artist. Even though my artist doesn't have an active part in the music video, there is a small part where the girl looks at a picture of her with her ex-boyfriend, who happens to be the artist, therefore the motif I created is that my artist doesn't play major roles within his music videos, but has small cameo roles/appears somewhere with no major part (such as in the picture in my music video).

5. Within my music video the animations are seen taking an active interest in the girl's life, as they care about her since she created them as well as the fact they are kindhearted drawings that only aim to make her happy. My music video treats the female form in a very respectful way, as at no point is the girl seen in revealing clothing or shown trying to get the attention of the audience through seductive body language or suggestive lyrics within the song. This is quite a contrast to how music videos show women nowadays, but it also conforms to the acoustic music video genre, as acoustic videos are not seen showing off women in voyeuristic ways.

6. Within my music video the animation style I used was heavily based off of the Flash animations of someone who goes by the name of "BarfQuestion". He animates short cartoons that contain incredibly simple drawings (often a boy and girl) that always have a very cute quality to them. The cartoons he creates also have very cute stories and even though they don't use any speech, they don't need it, as the story explains itself by the end and always gives a heartwarming feeling to the viewer, as I and many others have experienced. Therefore my animations are an intertextual reference to "BarfQuestion". Also, the way my artist is part of the video but does not appear in a main role is an intertextual reference to the artist "Fatboy Slim", who appears in his music videos as supporting roles/background characters but never as a major role, thus causing fans to seek him out when watching his music videos.



Anyway guys and girls that's the end of this post :)

I hope you enjoyed my analysis of Goodwin's features of music video within my own, and I hope it helps anyone who is not sure what to do when looking at Goodwin's features of music videos in relation to their own music video.