As Marina and the Diamonds was a heavy influence when we created our brief, I decided to apply Goodwin's analysis to her music video.
MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS - HOLLYWOOD
The first point of Goodwin's analysis that I noticed was present was the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. The single is titled 'Hollywood' and mocks the stereotypical American culture. The music video very clearly reflects this subject of American culture; there are American flags in several of the shots with Marina herself wearing a USA suit and stereotypical American archetypes, such as cheerleaders, jocks, a beauty Queen and famous American celebrities like Marilyn Monroe [intertextual references, another point listed in Goodwin's analysis. This not only demonstrates elements of Goodwin's analysis but also identifies fashion and make-up as an important part of pop music characteristics; it's all about the image.
Another example of link between the lyrics and visuals is that when Marina sings about money, she is seen making the money sign in the mirror ["You'd do anything for a dime"].
The whole video is constructed around Marina, both opening and closing the video with a close-up and featuring several mid shots in which she is positioned in the middle therefore the main focus and the background secondary. This demonstrates demands from the record label -- as stated in Goodwin's analysis -- as the ongoing focus on Marina highlights her as a commodity.
A part of the video features Marina gazing into a mirror and singing, which is a reference to the notion of looking [Goodwin's analysis], and again emphasises her physical appearance. The focus on Marina and her appearance throughout the whole video, like we are watching/following her at a party, links in with Goodwin's theory of voyeuristic treatment of the female body. It again highlights image and physical appearance as key in pop music videos.
Whilst there are no strictly choreographed dance routines -- which is strange for a pop music video -- Marina performs throughout the music video which itself is a characteristic of pop. Pop music videos are more about the performance, than any kind of narrative. This, however, isn't something that we want to take away for our music video. Analysing digipaks and album covers, however, also showed me that fashion [or image] is the focus point for any genre featuring pop, or really for female artists in general, so this is a key characteristic that we will have to focus on in order to communicate genres.
The first point of Goodwin's analysis that I noticed was present was the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. The single is titled 'Hollywood' and mocks the stereotypical American culture. The music video very clearly reflects this subject of American culture; there are American flags in several of the shots with Marina herself wearing a USA suit and stereotypical American archetypes, such as cheerleaders, jocks, a beauty Queen and famous American celebrities like Marilyn Monroe [intertextual references, another point listed in Goodwin's analysis. This not only demonstrates elements of Goodwin's analysis but also identifies fashion and make-up as an important part of pop music characteristics; it's all about the image.
Another example of link between the lyrics and visuals is that when Marina sings about money, she is seen making the money sign in the mirror ["You'd do anything for a dime"].
The whole video is constructed around Marina, both opening and closing the video with a close-up and featuring several mid shots in which she is positioned in the middle therefore the main focus and the background secondary. This demonstrates demands from the record label -- as stated in Goodwin's analysis -- as the ongoing focus on Marina highlights her as a commodity.
A part of the video features Marina gazing into a mirror and singing, which is a reference to the notion of looking [Goodwin's analysis], and again emphasises her physical appearance. The focus on Marina and her appearance throughout the whole video, like we are watching/following her at a party, links in with Goodwin's theory of voyeuristic treatment of the female body. It again highlights image and physical appearance as key in pop music videos.
Whilst there are no strictly choreographed dance routines -- which is strange for a pop music video -- Marina performs throughout the music video which itself is a characteristic of pop. Pop music videos are more about the performance, than any kind of narrative. This, however, isn't something that we want to take away for our music video. Analysing digipaks and album covers, however, also showed me that fashion [or image] is the focus point for any genre featuring pop, or really for female artists in general, so this is a key characteristic that we will have to focus on in order to communicate genres.
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