Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin's theory identifies that there are 5 different things that we the audience should look for whilst watching music videos. They are:
-Thought beats
-Narrative and performance
-The star image
-Relation of visuals to song
-Technical aspects of music videos 


The Drums- Let's Go Surfing

This theory can be applied to the music video of The Drum's song Let's go surfing. If we start with thought beats we can see through out the majority of the video of how this is being applied. Thought beats are how we the audience see the music in our heads and how those images that we form of the music we hear are translated into the music video. From the sound of the artists voice and the beat of the song we can picture an indie band that will come off in the video as unique and quirky, which is exactly what we see. Goodwin also pointed out in this first of the 5 stages that the songs can be seen as stories, and the music videos are the communication device to tell the audience that story. In this video all we see is the lead singer running along with his band mates which could perhaps be a story from his childhood of him possibly rebelling and "running" away from his mother, as in one verse of the song the lyrics read "oh mamma, i don't care about nothing."

The 2nd stage of Goodwin's theory is narrative and performance in which Goodwin actually states that in songs a complete narrative is failed to be given to the audience, therefore it is the music videos responsibility to be able to get that narrative to the audience. Because of the length, lyrics and other factors in this song, the music video would have had to be restricted in narrative and performance but as i said previously the running throughout the music video may indicate that the artist is metaphorically running away from his mother. Performance is also shown in the video when band actually play their instruments and lip sync to the song, which is common to see in an indie music video but still adds to that performance. The 3rd stage, star image, can be linked to the narrative and performance as the lead singer, the star, is constantly in frame unlike the other band members. This adds to the importance of lip syncing in music videos with the lead singer being in every frame singing along to the song.

Goodwin's theory said that there are 3 stages in which music videos work to promote their song, which are amplify, disjuncture and illustrate. In this music video we can see illustrate being used the most which is when music videos use a set of images to illustrate the meaning of the lyrics and genre. The use of the band members themselves are illustrating what genre of music this is, with the clothes they are wearing most commonly being seen in indie music videos. The final stage of Goodwin's theory, technical aspects isn't seen in this music video as much as you will see it in others. The main technical aspects that you see in this video are the location, lighting, the speed and movement of the camera, and cuts in the video. The location and the lighting go hand in hand with this music video as the audience is being shown that the setting is on a beach at night, but can only be told that because of the bright light singling out the band throughout the video. The other technical aspect seen in the video is the cuts made in order to keep up with the rhythm of the song. At 1:43 we can see the video cuts from the band walking to them standing with instruments and clapping along with the tune. This makes sure that the audience are still interested and not getting bored of watching the video