Goodwins Music Video Analysis

Last Friday night Analysis

The music video Last Friday night features many of the points Goodwin makes in his theory. One of the major points that is followed in the music video is the close ups of Katy Perry and the representation of her as being a nerd in the narrative of the music video. This is likely to make her seem like a down to earth icon, this is also  implied through her relatable lyrics "don't know what to tell my boss" and "think the city towed my car" in order to make her more relatable to the audience she is reaching to. This is contradicted  through the lavish setting of the party, making her seem as though she has a highly privileged lifestyle. This is cemented through the casting of highly rated celebrities and the product placement of the Wii and just dance the game and shows off what may have been required by the producers to promote the Wii and the celebrities. That a direct capture feed was set up to get the highest quality suggests that Nintendo has a rather large sponsorship deal with Perry.

The cameos from the parents and Rebecca Black shows a strong level of intertextuality and makes the video seem far more grounded in reality, despite the numerous fantasy sequences throughout the video.

The Music video also includes many voyeuristic shots, adhering to the objectification of women in the video, mainly Katy Perry as her narrative includes her changing outfits and getting ready, after which she is presented in a far more sexualised manner, with many close up shots and even having a jock grab her booty. While this is treated seriously by the nerd character as he punches him in the face, Perry is still gawked at, especially as the camera moves up her body as she walks downstairs,
revealing her showy outfit.

 That Perry is wearing the most revealing and bold outfit shows that she is promoting herself as a sex symbol, showing consistency in her image, as her sexualisation is a theme within her music videos and concerts.

Overall the video adheres to many of the points in Goodwins theory as it follows the genre expectations, sexualises women and holds a lavish style to the camera lens wrapped up in a solid sponsorship deal.

Music video timeline

Music videos were evolved from sound bites attached to short films that originated from the live playing of music with a silent film. This began in the 1920s and continued till the 1960's.

Short sections of music videos were played on television programmes in order to promote new acts, this began in Australia in 1974 and continued into the 80's as this eventually evolved in to full music videos. It was in this time that Queen released the music video for Bohemian Rhapsody.

The 1980's began the mainstream use of music videos along with the TV channel MTV, a 24 hour music video service that showed the latest music videos from across many different genres.


From 2005 onwards, music videos have been largely uploaded to Youtube as a form of both advertisement and sales, as the video itself promotes the artist while the download provides income on top of advertisement revenue. With the recent development of technology, the standard of cameras and editing software has made it harder for content creators to produce their own music video in order to get recognition as the expected quality of the content has gone up due to media conglomerates such as Vevo uploading to Youtube. The quality of the content from official companies is much higher as there is usually more money to put into this. The drawback of being a channel promoting utile artists means that their is no personal aspect from these channels, preventing a more personal experience for the viewer. The creation of music videos by independent content creators can be used as a means of gaining recognition in a music video with the hopes of gaining a profit from their content. This has been done successfully by artist Bo Burnham, who gained recognition through his original content. While he has gone on tour multiple times and released albums and books, many artists in the industry have criticised him for this due to them seeing him as cheating the system as this service has not been utilised to get the most out of it by many artists. 

Learning from Music videos

What I have learned from professional music videos is that they can often achieve professional quality assets with witch to produce a high quality and meaningful production that is  mostly achieved through a plethora of skilled individuals coming together to share talents to ensure the creative vision of an artist or producer is met in order to help associate a track with a visual that may be consumed by people in order to make them aware of the artist and provide more content for those that will buy into the artists media representation.


From student music videos I have found that the recreation of these high quality production value can lead to innovation for some, while simultaneously setting a standard that is often difficult to recreate. Inspiration will very likely be taken from professional content creations in terms of camera shots and stylisation of the filter that may be applied to the video, for example inspiration could be taken from Adele's "hello" video as it uses the black and white filter in order to go hand in hand with the wistful lyrics to create a nostalgic effect. Logically inspiration for the narrative is taken from the lyrics in order to create an engaging experience.


Overall I find that the key points that I can take away from both types of music video is that while I should explore stylisation in the concepts of my music video, I should be inclined to focus on this through software methods in the editing process and the creation of physical props as it is likely to add more depth to the music video, though it is uncertain at this point how and if the video will be presented as there are currently no concepts.

Furthermore through the official music videos I am reminded how to light a shot properly and the further significance of props, costume and makeup, though the student music videos make it clear that these are not always available in high standards to everybody and should be kept to realistic standards.