Storyboards

How Goodwins Theory is Applied to Music Videos

To begin with, Goodwin's theory consists of a music video having to demonstrate genre characters (e.g. a stage performance in a metal video or a dance routine for a stereotypical pop band). There also has to be an amplifying relationship between the lyrics and visuals, as well as between the music and visuals. This relationship has to be preferably illustrative and contradicting. Due to demands of the record label, the music video has to include plenty of close up shots in order to promote the band/artist, and the artist may develop motifs which shall recur across their work. Goodwin also proposes that there will be frequently referenced to the notion of looking and voyeuristic treatment of the female body. Finally, there is often inter textual references to films and TV programmes etc. For example, with an "Indie band," such as Razorlight "Wire to Wire" uses the image of a match which is contrasted against the black mise en scene and close up of the lead singers face. This is a sign of using shots to promote the artist, thus also a sign of amplifying the relationship between the lyrics and visual. The use of the match is also very symbolic and connotes a theme of love and passion.



Furthermore, the contrasting light show an amplifying relationship between the music and the visuals. The way that the shot is continuous so you can permanently see the lead singers face of the band is exactly what Goodwin proposes in order to make a successful music video, as it makes the face of Razorlight become well known and consequently successful. As a result, people will recognise them, thus making them more popular. This also results in more record sales, concert ticket sales and overall a popular band.

Leaving the Death Ambigious (Revised)

After much consideration as a group we have decided upon leaving the death ambiguous to the audience. Reasons for this being that because we are promoting a new band, perhaps having our male protagonist shoot himself and commit suicide would offend an audience, and promote our new band in a bad way, resulting in not popular record sales. Therefore, in order to achieve a higher grade we will work on filming more close up shots, and instead elaborate on the grave yard scene and have our male protagonist "walk into the light" but not actually shoot a death or use recurring images of a gun. Therefore we can focus more on filming higher quality shots.
Leaving the death ambiguous will also be more appropriate, as the lyrics of the song suggest our male protagonist searching for a lost love; in our case a death which is never revealed. Leaving the death ambiguous is a common theme in films, such as The Sixth Sense (1999) where the male actor does not discover he has died until the end of the film. As a result, this builds tension with the added result of shocking the audience when they find out the truth.
We have also decided upon using Madonna's "Like a Prayer" music video as inspiration for our female protagonist to act like.



We are using Madonna as inspiration for our music video because she looks seductive, classy yet she resembles a very strong female character. Above all, throughout the music video there is plenty of close up shots of her face, which helps promote her as a solo artist. Therefore, we shall follow in the lead of this video in terms of filming more low angle close ups and high angle close up shots to help promote the image of our band. Furthermore, our group will try and portray our female protagonist (myself) as a strong representation of Madonna, whilst also being a strong female character.