1. Award Winning Music Video
Analysis
This is the winner of the video of the year 2013 at
MTV Awards. I looked at Andrew Goodwin's 7
conventions of a music video and how they link to
this music video.

2. Music videos demonstrate certain genre
characteristics - Timberlake's "Mirrors" is in the
pop genre so I would expect something quite
different from this video. There are some
aspects that are conventional such as the party
and young love. However, there are several
characteristics which are untypical such as no
performance from the artist and no lip syncing.

3. There is a relationship between lyrics and visual
- the song in called "Mirrors" and many of the
shots include mirrors or are filmed from behind
a mirror. The lyrics play with the idea of
mirrors, for example "It's like you're my
mirror, My mirror staring back at me" and
"We're making two reflections into one"

4. There is a relationship between music and visual
- it is unusual in that the takes are quite long.
However, there are also some quick shots
changing on the beat. The rhythm of the song is
quite slow which goes with the slow camera
movement and editing.

5. The demands of the record label will include the
need for lots of close-ups of the artist - although
Justin Timberlake does not feature all
throughout the music video, he does appear
towards the end in a room full of mirrors and
showing off his dancing skills.

6. The artist may develop motifs or iconography
that recur across their work (a visual style) - this
video is unique as it's made in the style of a
"short film" (Daily Mail - 20th March 2013) and
is dedicated to his grandparents which we see at
the beginning.

7. There is frequent reference to the notion of
'looking' (screes within screes, filming, cameras)
and particularly voyeuristic (pleasure through
looking) treatment of the female body - the whole
video is dedicated to mirrors and reflections so the
whole thing is based around the notion of 'looking'.
Unusually there are close ups of old
people, however you also see a close up of an
attractive girl in her underwear and Timberlake is
also shown dancing with an attractive female
performer dressed only in flesh colour bra and
tights.

8. There are often intertextual references-mostly
to film, television and popular culture - the
whole film is biographical referring to various
events in his grandparents relationship.