The Andrew Goodwin Theory

Andrew Goodwin has theorised that in order to make a successful music video, there are five key aspects that must be followed:

• Thought beats revolve around the story that is being told in the music video, 

• and the actual lyrics of a song which the add to the Narrative & Performance of the artist. Despite this common trope, music videos are famed for not giving a complete narrative, in fact, they often ignore the common narration seen in films and television. Mark Romanek (Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Linkin Park) has stated that when he makes his videos, he 'ignores the right hand side of his brain' in order to create something truly abstract and memorable that has coherent repeatability. The catchier the song combined with the aesthetics of the piece is all to keep the audience interested in the song. Lip syncing add to the narrative and the performance due to the fact that viewers respond to the brand of the musicians; 

• Star Image is a way in which money is made from music video and artists. For example, fans of Thirty Seconds to Mars will be excited about seeing their newest music video--and to further sell the brand of the band, their triangle motifs may be scattered throughout the video like Easter eggs for viewers to identify. The more they view the video, the more they will see. 

• The more they see, the more links they will perceive to be in the Relation of Visuals to Song. The visuals of the music video help to Illustrate the meanings of the lyrics, Amplify the the music so that it gets stuck into the audience's head and to Disjuncture any clear meaning so that people can take whatever message they want from what they have watched.

• Last but not least, all of the above are achieved with the Technical Aspects of Video: The use of camera angles, the Mise en scene (actors, costumes, sets, make-up), Editing, Sound Special Effects ('diegetics' of the narration) and how the video is cut in order to accentuate the beats of the song.