1) The document analyzes J. Cole's music video for "She Knows" using Andrew Goodwin's five aspects for analyzing music videos: thought beats, narrative and performance, star image, relation of visuals to song, and technical aspects. 2) It finds that the video uses a storytelling technique to engage audiences and leave them wanting more answers. The story is of a boy catching his mother cheating with J. Cole. 3) Technical aspects like camera movements, editing, lighting, and colors are used to convey different moods and build tension. Darker tones signal negative emotions while brighter tones convey positive feelings. 4) Overall the analysis finds the video to be very effective at using

1. Music Video Analysis- J.cole – She Knows
The video that I have chosen to analyse is J.Cole She knows. This is because I have looked
through artist that are in my genre witch is Hip Hop. I am going to use Andrew Goodwin’s
(1992) theory of how to analyse a music video for this song I have chosen. Goodwin said that
there are 5 aspects that we should take into consideration when analysing music videos. I am
going to use these 5 aspects and go through them individually to analyse my video choice.
Thought beats- ‘seeing’ the sound-
J.cole himself has a very distinctive unique voice that acts as his trademark. This is a
beneficial aspect because this allow the audience to be able to know when he is playing. This
can make the artist themselves more popular and keeps fans occupied. They have made this
clear in the beginning of the she knows video because in the beginning of the song it is a
track shot down a lane of house, then you hear J.cole’s distinctive voice saying ‘oh I’. This has
initially been put in in the early duration of the video to attract the target audience. This
allow the audience to know that it is his song. This voice as a trademark can also work well
with the star image.
This video for Cole’s song doesn’t actually have
him in the video so idea that he is in the music
video to gain attraction can’t be applied.
However the song in this case can be seen as a
story and the artist witch in this case j.Cole is the
storyteller. The story is based around a boy who
goes to school and his dad goes to work,
however hi and his friend decide to ditch school
and go skate board and do activities that the
shouldn’t be like, smoking, drinking alcohol and
trespassing and skateboarding in a boarded off location. This then leads to them running
from the police back to the boy’s house. When he enters the house he catches his mother
having an affair on the father. She is having an affair with J.cole. The rest of the video is of
the boy running away from his house and then at the end he is having dinner with his parent
in silence however he doesn’t tell the father about what he has seen. These are some of the
screenshots suggesting the story line.

2. A story within the music video can make the video itself a lot more popular this ios because
this give the audience and expericance when they are qwatching this video. If this leads to
the audeicne being interested this this will make them want to watch the video over and over
again this music video has Coherent repeatability this makes it easier for the audeicne to not
loose interest in the video. I video can be interesting like thisd video thaen it can make your
video more successful.
Narrative and performance-
Goodwin says that we only tend to get a gist of the meaning of the song. This is what this
video itself does you can only get a breif meaning of the song. However this is a good
technique because this give the audience the opportunity to have their own meaning to the
song themselves. This allows the music video in this case to have a personal connective with
individuaqls in the audience, as each veiwer may think the video means something else. This
video also leaves the audicene wanting answers like ‘What was happening before’, ‘why has
she cheated’ and ‘whats going to happen next’. The fact that this video has this effect on the
audience keeps the audience interested witch can make them want to see more of J.cole’s
video and hear more of his music. This suggests that a good video and sotryline can build up
a good fanbase. J.cole is acting as both the narrator and a participant in the video this helps
to create the authenticity. The audience needs to believe the sotry is real and in this case it
does give off that effect.
The Star Image-
J.Cole himself is only in the video for a short amount of time. He play the character that the
mother is cheating on the father with. Although this aspect doesn’t really apply to this musiv
video iteself. The fact that J.Cole does
make an appereaqnce give the audience
a buzz. This keeps the fans happy
because they are seeing him. This music
video could also apply Meta Narrative
this may mean that the video is a big
story that describes the development of
the star over time. This may mean that
the video itself is something that J.Cole
has gone throught himself and the video
is a replay of his sruggles. This helps the
audience have a personal connection with the artist as they may be able to relate to cole’s

3. struggles. If the music video is something that the audience can relate to this can also make
it a lot more popular.
Realtion of visuals to the song-
This music video uses an illustrative technique within the video. It uses a set of images to
illustrate the meaning of the lyrics, this is normaly the most common technique in videos. In
this video also use a technique where they stop the music and let the digetic sound play
(this is the sound that would be in the world of the scene, in real life) for example when he
walks back into the house and catches his mum having the affair. This helps build tention
within the video. When the music then comes back in when he runs out the house this makes
the running scene more emotional and helps put it into the veiwers prespective on how the
character may be feeling. This adds the the fact that the music vuideo connects with the
audeicne to make the music video more personal and popular.
Technical aspects-
Camera movement and editing- The video tends to stick to long takes and slow tracks. This
is because this builds the mood of the story. The fact that whats happening in the video is
draining and emotional because of whats
about to happen, the music video keeps to
slow movement and long takes. This builds
this emotional atmosphere in the song.
However this chnages at the climax of the
song when he finds his mother cheating.
When he then begins to run out of the
house the cuts become more frequent, and
the tracks become a lot quicker this build up
the idea of haste and frustration and also anger. This makes the video more interesting to
watch. Like I have also mentioned previously this lets the audeicne be able to make a
connection with the video.
Lighting and colour- The clour and the lighting chnages throughout then music video to
signify different moods here are the following I found-
When the mood in the song is low and bad
they have used Low Key lighting this is
because this is a darker scale of lighting. This
relates to the mood of the song. Because the
sectuion of the video is where the mood is
bad they have used thr dark lighting to
amplify the dark and gloomy atmosphere.
They have also done this with the colours
that they are wearing and in the scence. For example in the cheating scene the mother is
wearing black and J.Cole is wearing a dark red. These colours stereotypically represent this

4. dark, eveil mood. This has created a better effect to the music video because it really helps
the mood of the scene be more visible witch helps the audeicne relate the the video.
This is the opposite to when there are elements to the video
that are more positive. In these sections of the video the
lighting is bright and the colours are also bright too. This
helps signify that the character has taken his mind of things
and is having fun. This contrast between good and bad is
really effective. For examplein theis shot that I have screen
shotted the lighting itself is bright and positive. The
character at the front is also wearing a bright orange
striped t-shirt and a bright blur back pack. These colours signify the mood witch in this case
is positive. The way they have used colour and lighting in this music video is brilliant as it
really helps separate the different emotions wihin the video. It also really help amplify these
moods.
Overall I believe that this music video is brilliant. I think that after studying goodwins theory
to anlyse music videos this has done brilliantly. This uis the type of success I want to acheieve
when I make my own music video.