Goodwin's Therory

Goodwin’s theory-Three day’s grace ‘I hate everything about you’

The general characteristics this genre of video includes are that there is low-key lighting, all of the members of the band are playing instruments and performing. All of these things are typical of the rock/metal genre. For example most of the shots were mainly made up of dark and dull colours and the members of the band were holding and playing various instruments showcasing their talents. This is typical of this genre of music video and is what the audience would usually expect from this kind of video as it fits in with the common features of other videos in the same genre.

There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals for example the singer says ‘after every hit we take’ refereeing to drugs, simultaneously there is a shot of a table with a variety of drugs and equipment laying on it. Another example is when the singer begins to sing about feelings there is a mid shot of two people hugging and showing affection towards each other. It is important to have a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals because it is clear that a lot of the video is a performance but to make it clearer that there is a narrative the lyrics and visuals matching up helps make it clearer. Also having lyrics and visuals mixing means that the audience can understand the song easier if the lyrics or the visuals do not make complete sense.   

There is a connection between the music and the visuals in this video to help show the performance of the band. This is done by matching the shots of them performing as the song is played along side. An example of this is when there is a significant drum beat that occurs three times in the song. This stands out there is a shot of the drummer hitting the drum in sync with the sound of the drum being hit. I think that this encourages the audience to watch and enjoy the music video. One reason for this could be that the audience of this genre usually play instruments themselves and enjoy watching an artist they like playing an instrument. 

One of Goodwin’s theories is that in most music videos there are close ups of the artists and star image motifs. There are both in this video, because this is a rock music video it is conforming to the stereotype that they are based mainly on a performance.  This means that there are a lot of close ups of the artists to help show emotion and connect with the audience and make the performance more personal to the audience. There is a close up within the first ten seconds of the video and reoccur many times throughout. The motifs come from the band’s lead guitarist who is known by their audience and fans for having an extreme Mohawk. There are lots of close ups of his hair so people are able to see it and recognise it.

One of Goodwin’s theories that does not apply to this video is the reference to the notion of looking. This is mainly because the video is performance based and the artists are looking directly at the camera in an attempt to include the audience and make it feel more personal and can also work to get the audience emotionally involved. Because the artists are constantly looking at the camera it is hard to spot any sort of voyeurism or notion of looking.

There are no intertextual references in this video as it is mainly based around a performance which is set in a dull and dark landscape for example it looks to me like a construction site and has a narrative that is attempting to appeal to the demographic of young adults and teenagers through the age of the characters which are teenage boys and girls rather than the use of expensive brands, cars and even new technologies which this video does not include.

Much of the video as said before is made up of a performance which is typical of the rock genre but the rest of the video is a simple narrative purely designed to appeal to the target audience and make them want to watch it again. I would say about 65% of the video is performance and35% is a narrative, the narrative element in this video is a short story about different characters who have been treated badly or betrayed by a loved one. This plays alongside the performance throughout the video. The performance and the narrative are separated into 1 or 2 second clips and take I turns to appear in the video. When the song reaches the chorus the narrative reaches its climax and shows an important part in the narrative.