This document summarizes several music video theories proposed by different scholars: 1. Andrew Goodwin's theory focuses on editing techniques that synchronize with the music, using different scenes to depict different parts of songs. It also emphasizes using music videos to convey narrative and showcase the artist's performance, image, and style. 2. Vladimir Todorov's narrative theory analyzes the typical structure of stories into five stages: equilibrium, disruption, recognition of disruption, attempts to repair disruption, and new equilibrium. This structure applies to many music videos. 3. Vladimir Propp's theory identifies eight common character types frequently seen in media narratives, including heroes, villains, helpers, and princesses.

1. MUSIC VIDEO THEORY Lois Moyes Evans

2. ANDREW GOODWIN
With music running through all of his life, Andrew Goodwin has developed many different features to
what makes a music video so good, and so successful.
Seeing the music: Editing cuts so that it corresponds with the music, and the beats within it. In a music
video Goodwin says that you should structure the song itself and link that to what you film for it. This
means that there'll be different scenes for different verses and maybe repeated ones for the chorus.
Narrative & Performance: Sometimes songs don not specifically show what their lyrics mean, so you
have to use video to do this. Narrative & performance of a song should keep the audience thrilled and
wanting to watch the video over and over. Repeatability is also key, as well as the artist acting as not
just a musician, but also an actor/performer to advertise the product being sold, the song.
Star image: The artist doesn't just have to be an actor, performer or musician, they have to be
the 'Star'. The artist has to have a specific image, whether it be a style of hair, or clothes or even dance
moves. For example, Elvis has the hair and the moves and likewise, MJ has his dress sense and his
'Moonwalk'. This gives the audience something to remember the artist for, and makes them stand out
to the rest.
Relation of visuals to song: Specific lyrics, give specific images to each individual. It is the director and
the band/artist's job to pick the objects to fit the mood of the song, and to corroborate with the genre
also. Repeatability is also used to 'Amplify' certain meanings to certain placed objects in a video.
Technical aspects: One of the most important ones (to the director especially) is how the music video
is made. There has to be a heavy focus on camerawork, movement, editing, mise-en-scène, lighting
etc. etc
Arguably Andrew Goodwin's theory does relate to a lot of music videos in this modern day, but I would
also argue that that is only the truth in the majority on one genre, Pop. In other genres such as Rock,

3. TVETVAN TODOROV
Todorov was a Bulgarian academic, who devised a way of looking at narrative
structures according to the different stages of the narrative. Using this structure, he
believed that narratives were circular - they were about trying to reach the
beginning. The 5 stages of his theory include:
- The equilibrium – this is the state of balance in the narrative, where the audience
get to know the characters and their situation.
- The disruption – this is where oppositional characters/events are introduced and
the story continues.
- The recognition (of the disruption) – this is where the story develops, different
events occur and more characters become involved, so more drama occurs.
- The attempts to repair the disruption – this is where there may be a twist or
climactic point.
- The new equilibrium – this is where the problem is solved and harmony is resolved,
though things may have changed from the initial equilibrium.
This theory links in well with music videos as for videos such as You Belong With Me
by Taylor Swift, there is the initial -popular boy meets geeky girl- love equilibrium
that is resolved in the end with them infact ending up together at prom, to result in

4. VLADAMIR PROPP
Propp was a Russian theorist who created a narrative theory on
the characters we expect to see in media texts.
Although his theories were originally written in the1920s (in The Morphology
of the Folk Tale) and refer to Russian Folk Stories, they have since been used
in
reference to many modern narratives. Propp referred to eight main character
types.
These are:
- THE HERO
- THE FALSE HERO
- THE PRINCES
- THE FATHER (OF
- THE PRINCESS)
- THE HELPER
- THE VILLAIN