F.L - Goodwin Theory, 'Cocoon' Music Video

• Andrew Goodwin, Dancing in the Distraction Factory (1992) carried out research into mainstream music videos and identified typical conventions.  Applying his critical framework to music videos such as ‘Cocoon’ by Catfish and The Bottlemen (2014) determines to what extent the text is conventional.
• Firstly he stated that music videos demonstrate genre characteristics.  This video could be categorised as being in the ‘indie rock’ genre.  It is conventional in this genre that the performance is enhanced by the use of props and costume, as evidenced in this video where the narrative is heavily told through the location and costume (although narrative storytelling is typically unconventional for this genre). Furthermore, it is conventional for the cutting rate and speed to vary. This is shown throughout the video as the cutting rate is constant throughout, whereas the speed increases by the end. Camera techniques are conventional for close ups to be used (of the artist) nevertheless, despite the artist not being in the video, close ups are still used of the actors, which clearly portrays their emotions and feelings, which are essential for this video.
• Goodwin discussed the relationship between lyrics and visuals. In relation to ‘Cocoon’ it is clear that amplification is majorly used, this is shown through the narrative idea of being in a mental hospital. The lyrics read “when you’re half cut, and you’re frozen” which relates to the concept of being ill and harmed. But this is amplification because the basic concept of being hurt is there, however it is enhanced through the idea of mental illness. Furthermore, the lyrics talk about a boy and girl being together, the lyrics read, “I fell straight into your arms” which also is visualised in the video by presenting the male which is lusting and wanting the female.
• He also considered the relationship between music and visuals to be an important convention.  In ‘Cocoon’ we can see however that the relationship is quite weak, with minimal cuts being made with the music beats, and the cutting rate only increases slowly to the end (irrelevant to the music beat speed).
• He made reference to the notion of looking, however this is only conventional (typically) in videos with the artist in, and this video only has actors. No mirrors or multiple photos are shown either.
• He discussed talked about the voyeuristic treatment of the body.  With reference to this video the camera focuses on the lead male by using frequent amounts of close up shots, and giving him prevalence/following him around. Furthermore, a shot of the ‘nurses’ waist is shown which could connote fetishistic treatment of the body too. However, overall voyeurism is used to follow the lead male and female and show their relationship by contrasting their shots and emotions (shown in the close ups). 
• Music videos are a postmodern form, which implies that they often borrow and rework ideas from other texts and forms. ‘Cocoon’ uses intertextuality by using existing films/books to reference the conditions and treatment that they show in their video. To make their video as believable as possible they had to use external sources in order to create a realistic representation. However, no notable specific intertextual references were made.
• However the video is unconventional in that it doesn’t feature the artists (generic for the indie rock genre) and instead presents actors in a narrative form. They lack intertextual references and adopt a unique, amplified representation of their lyrics.
• A possible reason as to why the theory cannot be applied to this video is that Goodwin’s theory was typically targeted towards Pop music videos, and lacked real focus on other genres, therefore it is harder to apply his concept to this specific artist and genre.