“Music video is not primarily a commodity form but a promotional

one.”

Andrew Goodwin

This quote is saying that music videos are not there just to be enjoyed but to promote something this can go from promoting an artist, the song, other products

the artists has to offer a location or somewhere the film applies.

An opposing view is that music videos are an artistic piece of footage for us to watch and enjoy alongside the song. Therefore they are there own piece of art

with the purpose of us to enjoy watching them.

Skyfall by Adele

Skyfall was made as a song for the James Bond movie Skyfall. The song promotes the film in many ways, firstly with the name and the lyrics. The video promotes the film as it is named after it, the video is also very basic not including the artist very much keeping the focus to the movie. Also the name of the film is included in the music video in quite large writing and the images look like a sky again reminding you of the name of the film. Finally the video appears unconventional and looks like an opening scene to a film with titles which reflects the film theme.

I think this video could also be seen as artistic as it uses lots of colours and shapes to entertain the watcher rather than footage as most videos do. There is also a shot where they blend the artist into the shapes this gives it a more artistic look than commercial appeal. The shapes and colours are also used to represent things, for example the shot of blues appears to be a skyfall and the shots of oranges look like fire, reflecting the line being sung in the song.

Girl on fire By Alicia Keys

During this video the whole theme is around the Alicia, she appears in every shot, and is the in the centre or main character seen for all. It includes lots of close ups of Alicia where she is mainly wearing bright clothes so she will stand out more than the dark surroundings behind her. In all the shots she is done up with her hair and make-up looking perfect and also comes across very seductive is the beginning shots. I think this shows that the purpose of the video is to promote Alicia Keys ,the performer, as it revolves around her without much storyline and she is made to stand out and look perfect throughout.

Also is this video Alicia is seen to be wearing sunglasses in some shots. There is one shot where they zoom in on the name of the sunglasses “BVLGARI” the shot lingers and this is clearly to promote the sunglasses, showing the name promotes the brand. As the main part of the video is Alicia to have her wearing the sunglasses is good advertising as she is the main/only part to look at. This is seen later again when Alicia is seen wearing a pair of “SONY” headphones again with the name lingered over.

I think the only purpose of the video was to promote mainly the performer but also the brands she is wearing this is probably to make more money. This video highly agrees with Andrew Goodwins theory as the video is not artistic or have any value other than to promote Alicia.

We can’t stop by Miley Cyrus

The beginning of the video starts with a beat speaker, it is the centre of the screen and is in bright pink which makes it stand out, as you can clearly see the speaker and the logo on it, it is obviously promoting the speaker. I also think the speaker is not particularly relevant to the video it is mainly to promote. Again in the video you see Miley using a lipgloss, it is also bright pink and stands out with the logo clearly on show. The lipgloss again doesn't seem relevant to the video aside from promotional purposes.

Also the video promotes Miley, although there is a lot going on in the video it always goes back to Miley, she is wearing little clothing and bright lipstick to make her stand out. There is a lot of close ups of her so she again stand outs a lot. As this was on her first album it would be a good time to try and promote her and also her new image.

On the other hand I think this video could be seen as very artist as it seems alot of thought has gone into the clips. For example the girl sucking a lollie pop with lips drawn on her face is and the man appears to have two tongues which funny and purely for our entertainment. The video has a creepy vibe throughout which they have managed to keep funny this is all for the views entertainment.

Roar by Katy Perry

I think Katy Perry’s music videos are always very artistic in the sense that they are entertaining and tell a story to the viewers. For example in this video she is set in a jungle, throughout it tells the story of her getting lost in the jungle then getting used to it. There is no promoting in this video, although there is lots of clips of Katy Perry she is doing it to tell the story rather than to make herself look good. The only thing it does promote is the song as people will watch and enjoy the video and it will make the song more popular and easy to remember.

Andrew Goodwin’s other theories...

The 5 aspects of music video(how to analyse a music video)

Thought BeatsNarrative and Performance The Star ImageRelation of Visuals to Song Technical Aspects of Music Video

1st step: to look at the actual music and its structure 2nd the voice of the song is it unique?3rd is there communication through you and the artist

Goodwin believes we create our own message rather than understanding the artist message.

Consider the star image and what they are doing.

Are they Illustrate (using a set of images to convey the meaning of the lyrics), Amplify (meaning is manipulated), Disjuncture ( the meaning is ignored)

Use of camera, lighting, Mise-En-Scene and Beats