Andrew Goodwin's Theory

In his 1992 book, Dancing in the Distraction Factory, Andrew Goodwin introduced six different common features of music videos.

I will try to apply this theory to Incubus' Anna Molly, from their 2006 album, Light Grenades.

Andrew Goodwin's Theory - Incubus

View more presentations from rallywill.

Textual Analysis of Music Videos

Friendly Fires – Skeleton Boy

In the music video for the Friendly Fires’ Skeleton Boy, the band is present in a performance style of video. They are dressed in one-piece skeleton suits, a nod to the title of the song, and the video uses two contrasting colours of black and white.  As well as the performance nature of the video, it is also conceptual, with the band appearing to play through an artificial snow storm.

The band is typically indie in terms of its genre, and the music video typically carries elements of redundancy and entropy. Indie bands tend to have performance-type videos, which the Friendly Fires have used in this case. An entropic dimension to this video is that they are dressed in skeleton suits, there is artificial snow, and there are only two colours present in the entirety of the video. This sense of entropy may appeal to the alternative-youth audience in that the video is enigmatic; it challenges conventions of the indie genre, it is bold in its monochromatic approach to the indie music video scene, and carries an interesting concept that reflects the title of the song.

The visuals often respond to the music, particularly when the artificial snow stops falling when the lyrics allude to ‘night’, and lead singer Ed McFarlane is shown in the centre of the shot with a long shot. Later in the track, the lyric is ‘you’re too much, too much’, at which point the long shot that shows McFarlane triples to show him repeated three times in the long shot. This is an example of the visuals amplifying the lyrics, with the meaning of the song being added to by the visuals.

The costume in the video is a major feature. Progressively, the costumes become more detailed, as at the start of the video they simply wear black suits. However, throughout the video they gain white skeletal limbs and end the video with a full skeleton, covered in white shapes which could also be interpreted as clothes.





Pendulum – Crush

At the immediate beginning of the video, there is a red screen that the proceeding images fade in from. The video’s mood is full of mixed emotions, as it follows a man who has lost his love, though it is unclear how. A prevailing feeling displayed from the male protagonist is a sense of rage, anger, bitter disappointment and misery. The edit of the red screen may connote this general feeling, amplifying the meaning of the video.

There is a very strong sense of narrative in the first twenty seconds of the video, and is entropic in that the opening of the video commences in a more cinematic style than one of a typical electronic rock genre music video. The intro is rich with edits, with many of the character’s memories shown as sharp flashbacks. Before the soundtrack of the music video for Pendulum’s Crush begins, there is an introductory close-up of the main character that features in this narrative type of music video, accompanied by ambient.

The screen of red is a recurring feature in the narrative video, particularly in connoting anger. The viewing audience is given a sense of catharsis with scenes that follow; often indicating through effects in the video that its protagonist has lost somebody close to him.

The video demonstrates an extended metaphor of escape; there are scenes of the male character running, of him in lonely situations or environments, and despite him often shown in locations where there are other people present audiences can instantly feel that the protagonist is alone, physically and somewhat mentally. The opening scenes that introduce this solitude are split with fast, straight cuts and the editing speed is very quick for the majority of the video, however there are more long takes present towards the denouement.

The video jumps quickly between shots of him alone and with his (ex)partner (who the audience can consider to be the source of his apparent depression). Colour is a prominent feature in connoting anger; aswell as the fade-from-red introduction there are scenes where the former couple argue where the video turns monochrome.

IS TROPICAL - The Greeks

The song ‘The Greeks’ by British band, Is Tropical, was released in 2011 and has a very unique visual style. The band is an alternative/indie group and has released their debut album, Native To, this year. The video features a group of children set in a quiet French suburb and is visually relevant to the indie style of the band and at the same time takes comic book violence and adds a perfectly naïve and innocent front to it, represented in the child stars.

I liked this video because of it’s unique visual style – a distorted cartoon cross reality music video. I liked the narrative – several kids living on the same street play fighting having a war and the detail they went into, such as the mini-story with the drugs and C4 bombs; I also liked the mood of the video – a seemingly serious introduction followed by kids with toy guns, then the interruption of lunchtime; the video is very light hearted.

The video has an abundance of editing, with fake CGI blood, explosions, bullet animations and sound effects, that take an innocent playfight with water pistols between suburban children into a full blown conflict. Not only is there graphic editing but also synchronous sound effects that match what is happening in the video. 

Tzvetan Todorov's theory of equilibrium is present in the narrative structure; the video starts with a sense of equilibrium when the first child is presented, despite him appearing to be injured. The equilibrium is instantly broken however after the first half minute and is never restored again, until the video ends with a resolute explosion as all characters walk away in a group.

The attitudes and ideology presented in the video show or reflect the indie genre of the band. The genre of the playing band is alternative and so the video carriers many indie and unique features. The narrative and visual style is unique to this style of music, and representation of children in the video is of a playful mood yet they are shown to be able to take things seriously. The target audience is a young adult group.

Time Management #1

Over the course of the music video project we will aim to manage our time to organize ourselves so that optimal amounts of time can be spent on each section of work that needs doing. This will be a work in progress calendar that will alter throughout the process of the music video development that will reflect changes in time taken to do certain tasks.

Here is our plan for the remainder of December up to the end of term;

Introduction

Welcome to my new blog!

With this blog for the next few months I will be documenting research of music videos including their content, conventions and concepts, and ultimately writing about the development of my own music video, magazine advert and digipack.

I have looked and will look at various types of music videos, narratives, concepts and performance-based videos and I will consider various features and conventions of these when it comes to developing my own.

I will share some of the research I've collated from the last few weeks.

Enjoy
Will