Music video theory

The main music video theorists

There are many theorists concerning music videos, I have picked just the three main ones.

Andrew Goodwin

Vladamir Propps Sven E Carlsson

Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin identified 5 main aspects of a music video, the 5 key aspects are:1. Thought Beats (seeing the sound) 2. Narrative and Performance 3. The Star Images 4. Technical Aspects of the Music Video 5. Relation of visuals to song

Vladimir propps Propps suggested that every narrative has 8 different character types. They are called the ‘spheres of action’ ;A Villain, which fights the hero in someway The dispatcher, who makes the villain known and sends

the hero away The magical helper, who helps the hero upon his quests The princess, who the hero adores The father of the princess, who gives tasks to the hero,

however propps says that the father and the princess cannot be clearly identified

The hero – reacts to the donor False hero who takes credit for the hero's actions, and

tries to have the princess for himself.

Sven E Carlsson

Sven E Carlsson believes that there are two categories that music videos are able to fall into:Performance - Performance videos are when the audience are able to see the artist(s) singing and dancing throughout the videoConceptual-Conceptual videos are when the audience watch something other than the artist throughout the video