Task Two – Understand the styles and conventions of music videos

Andrew goodwin wrote a book called Dancing in the Distraction factory (1992). This book contained 6 key conventions. He said that each music video had to me sectioned into one or more these key conventions or any music video would have some of the 6 in them. Here are the six key conventions.
- Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics ( stage performance in metal video, dance routine for girl/boy band )
From this video you can see that the girls are following a dance routine throughout. in most boy/girl bands during a music video they will be dancing in sync along time to the music. This follows the Andrew Goodwin convention of "music videos demonstrate genre characteristics." Throughout the first video we can see that Girls aloud throughout the video are all in sync when dancing and therefore don't cause the viewer any confusion when watching the video. Also all the girls are coloured them and this therefore also helps link into the dancing as there colour co-ordination helps match the scene that they are dancing in.

Here are some other examples of girl band in which use the convention of Andrew Goodwin.

The Sugarbabes

The Saturdays

- There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (illustrative, amplifying and contradicting)

Within this music video there is a clear connection between the lyrics and the video. This is proven due to the objects that are on screen are being talked and clarified within the lyrics. This is a video that is clear in what it is showing and therefore follows Andrew Goodwin's convention of "There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals." another example of where this convention is portrayed is within the song "Hall of Fame" by the Script. The effectiveness of using this convention in a music video is that it is easy for you to see the clear link about what the video is talking about. however on the other hand the convention had its downfalls due to the videos can be quite boring to watch.

- There is a relationship between music and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying and contradicting)
The arctic monkeys video is a great example in order to show the convention of the relationship between music and there visuals. This is displayed due to the music video relates to the visuals due to the visuals being almost a sound wave. The amplifying sound wave gives a great affect to the song due to its syncing to the music. The strengths of doing this convention is that it makes some music videos a lot easier to understand due to the music correlating to the video. However on the other hand this convention could be seen as quite boring as in some videos like the Artic monkey one below there isn't much going on.

    

- The demands of record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and this artist may then develop motifs which occur across their work. (a visual style). In Katy Perry's Roar there is a very unique visual style which is portrayed throughout the video. The vibrant colors and always within Katy Perry's music videos she seems to like to explore different words and with each one being unique. Within roar the word that Katy is induced in is a jungle type atmosphere. There is also somethings in the video that represent her has being the queen of the jungle as well as being like a mother figure. The key scene which could represent this is the scene where she is brushing an alligators teeth. The pros of this convention are is it allows artists to explore new routes of styles that can be added within there music videos. However the downside of this convention is that some artists may take it into consideration too much and make specific videos content a bit more sexual and therefore it may not be appropriate for the younger age groups.

- There is frequently reference to the notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body. Within Rhianna's "Whats my name," this convention is a good one to relate to the music video. Throughout the video drake who is the other singer within the video is very attracted to Rhianna and we see specific parts of just Rhianna's body for example when she is walking away to the fridge the only thing that is in shot is Rhianna's backside, we then see drake looking at it. this then leads on to it getting a bit intermittent between them both as they touch each other as well as the shots of the video help to portray the convention. The positives of this convention is that it may attract more people to come and watch the video seeing as there is some flesh on show. However seeing as this specific video has signs of nudity within it, may limit the audience who can watch the video.

- There is often intertextual reference (to films, Tv programs, other music videos, etc) With the music video from Jennifer Lopez "I'm Glad" has a great intertextual reference to the film "What a Feeling." the reason behind this is the music video is made the same way as the film was produced. The great thing about intertextual reference is that it can help promote movies through a popular artists music. The one negative thing about this is that if it is to alike to what it is trying to reference some people could get confused between the music video or the movie.