Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin was a director of music and organist at Bangor cathedral for 37 years. He also studied music videos and found several features and conventions that consistently appear in music videos.

Andrew says that music videos have typical characters depending on the genre of the music video. For example a metal video will usually be performed on a stage. There would usually be a dance routine if it is for a boy or a girl group. He also says that in a rap video there is usually a sports car or girls in their bikinis.

He says that the female body is usually exposed and is very seductive. Props are often used to make the female appear to be seductive to the audience or to other characters in the video. These pros can consist of: Mirrors, television screens, cameras, telescopes, binoculars and magnifying glasses.

There is usually small and brief links between the music and the visuals. This could be shown by things such as illustrations.

There will often be many close ups of the artist during the music video this is because the record label will give the specific artist a certain visual style this is because they want to make sure the audience can always associate that visual with that artist this visual will also be seen across all of the artist’s work. The 180 degree rule is pretty much always broken so it appears that the artist is singing to the audience.

There is often inter textual references. This means that there is usually a link to films, TV programmes or even other music videos. Examples of this can be found in Destiny Childs video for ‘Independent women’ as this references Charlie’s Angels throughout the video.