The Different Types of Music Video...

The Goodwin Theory:

There are 3 different types of music video: illustration, amplification and disjuncture.

An illustration music video is one where everything in the video relates directly to the lyrics, for example, if the lyrics were about a man in a car on a motorway, the video would show exactly that. A good example of this is Taylor Swift's You Belong With Me, where everything that happens in the video is because the lyrics are saying it is what's happening. The video tells the story of the lyrics. This is also what a performance based video is called.

In our music video, we plan at times to put what is being sang on screen. We were thinking about putting them on screen, but without the use of another object, like in Ne-yo Closer, rather than Owl City Fireflies, where the word 'fireflies' appears on a toy computer screen when they are sang.

An amplification video relates closely to disjuncture videos, however, this type only enhances a concept whilst still linking to lyrics. An example of this could be Bruno Mars' Grenade where he pulls a piano around town. Initially it looks like it has nothing to do with the lyrics, but Bruno Mars explained in an interview "The concept of the video is my struggle, to tell his girl I'd do anything for her, so I'm going as far as dragging a piano to get to her just so I can sing my heart out."

A disjuncture video is a video that completely ignors the lyrics of a song a creates a video that builds new meaning to the song. An example of this could be Bop Bop Baby by Westlife, where the video is in the style of The Three Musketeers, which has nothing to do with the lyrics.