Goodwin's Analysis

Goodwin’s Analysis and How It Will Incorporate Into our Music Video

Andrew Goodwin writing in ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ (Routledge 1992)

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band).

The genre characteristics of the Indie genre are something that is fun and lighthearted. Even though the lyrics of the song can be seen in a serious, sad manner the actual music of the song is entirely different with a generally upbeat, happy tempo. Therefore, our music video will demonstrate a more fun side with the theme of bright colors that will be present throughout most of the video.

We will challenge the genre characteristics of the Indie music genre by including a narrative which shows a girl who slaps a boy which offers a slightly more serious meaning to the music video, incorporating our interpretation of the lyrics.

2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (Illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

We are not going to have much of a relationship between lyrics and visuals as we are going to concentrate more on the relationship between the music and the visuals. However, the narrative part of our video will be about our interpretation of the lyrics.

3. There is a relationship between music and visuals (Illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

Within our music video there is a relationship between the music and the visuals. During the verses of the song where it is upbeat with lots of drumbeats we will have lots of cuts so the footage looks choppy and correlates with the drumbeats of the song.

Furthermore, during the instrumental in the song we will slow the footage, which matches with the change in tempo of the song.

The continued use of colours throughout the music video amplifies the generally upbeat tempo and the happy mood of the music and also creates a link between the band performance and the narrative. However, we will include in the chorus of the song the ‘flashing lights’ that contradicts with the slower tempo of the song, we feel this will work really well and it is probably the only place in the song where a contradiction between the music and visuals would work.

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).

Because of the Indie/Rock genre there is a band performance that runs throughout all the verses. The motif of our band will most probably be of a colourful/fun nature as we will have lots of colour throughout our music video and the with the band name being Paper Crayons the colourful theme will almost certainly recur across their work.

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

The only ‘voyeuristic’ treatment of the female body will be in the chorus when the screen is split up into four. The close up of several females lips will be used which will be a reference to the notion of looking at the female body.

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

The intertextuality we are referencing comes from a 30H3! Music video, which is called My First Kiss. For the lyrics “ ’Ay ‘Ay ‘Ay ‘Ay, ‘Ay ‘Ay ‘Ay” we will film the lips of different people on different coloured backgrounds.

Our band performance is an intertextual reference to music videos from the indie/rock genre as most use a band performance thus we will have an intertextual reference to that specific genre.

The last intertextual reference within our music video is from the White Stripes – The Hardest Button to Button music video. They use stop motion throughout their music video and they portray the band going on ‘a journey’. Instead of showing the band going on a journey we will include a short narrative story within the music and show a journey of a girl and a boy after they have broken up.