Narrative of music videos.

Narrative

Narrative is defined as 'a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship occurring in time' (Bordwell and Thompson, Film art, 1980)

Diegesis
This is a style of fiction storytelling which prevents an interior view of the world and is:
1. that world itself experienced by the characters in situations and events of the narrative
2. telling, recounting, as opposed to showing, enacting.
In diegesis the narrator tells the story.



The above video would be an example of diegesis, the narrator is also the main character, she is almost taking us into a different world, she is showing us how she feels everything should be, and how she is feeling at any point of the video. 
Its almost like she is showing us how she wishes everything should end up like, she has created a little fairy tale where everything ends up perfectly for her and her crush. 


Story and Plot 
Story - all events referenced both explicitly in a narrative and inferred, including backstory as well as those projected beyond the action.
Plot - The events directly incorporated into the action of the text and the order in which they are presented. 
The video above is Katy Perry's 'Part of Me' this video clearly has a story, the story would be of a typical break up that the girl doesn't take to well, she wants to get away, so she joins the marines to become stronger and to forget about everything. 

Conventions of Genres

Different genres of music have many different conventions that go hand in hand with the genre, the artist, the music and the image of the act overall contribute to this, the first thing many people see to do with the artist is the album cover, this can give a lot away about the artist and the music that they chose to perform, so an album cover is a good way to draw people in to listen to your music and get to know what your all about. The image of the artist also has a big say in what the artist is all about aswell, because for example, a 40 year old man with shaggy black hair, who wears leather clothes and plays the drums isn't going to perform pop music, and this is because the image of someone who performs rock music and someone who performs pop music are totally different. 


Pop
Pop music is one of the most popular genre's of music these days, just because it is typically up beat and the artists tend to sing about nice day to day things that people go through in a more up beat way that people like to listen to because its pleasurable and makes them appreciate life and see it as people describe in the cheesy pop songs.

So-called "pure pop" music, such as power pop, utilising electric guitars, drums and bass for instrumentation; in the case of such music, the main goal is usually that of being pleasurable to listen to, rather than having much artistic depth. Pop music is generally thought of as a genre which is commercially recorded and desires to have a mass audience appeal.  "Pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, aimed at a youth market, often characterized as a softer alternative to rock and roll.

Katy Perry is a good example of a pop artist that has been around for a while in the music industry, she constantly brings out new material that always seem to be top of the charts.
Katy Perry's music videos are girly, fun and always seem to have a meaning to them, which makes them all the more relateable for people listening to them. 




The above video is called 'Waking up in Vegas' and it's the typical over the top, lots of outfit changes, upbeat kind of pop song and video. Its a typical mix of the same chorus mixed in with a few verses, Katy makes a lot of effort in this video to be the centre of attention, and thats what a lot of pop videos are like, the main vocal artist is at the foreground of most shots. This is to promote them aswell as the song itself. 

These three photos are of three different outfits that are used in the 'Waking up in vegas' video, there are a few more too, by using so many different outfits it gets the audience excited about what she could be wearing next, keeping them wanting to stay watching the video. The music is continually upbeat except for right at the beginning and in the bridge nearer the end of the song, this is typical for pop videos, the bridge slows it down and also gets the people watching excited for when it eventually speeds up, this makes them want to dance.

A lot of pop artists are in the public eye for not only their music but also for their personal lives, they are talked about  in newspapers, online and mostly in magazines for having weight issues or about their screwed up relationships, they might not particularly like it, but thats what you get for being loved by everyone!





Rock
Rock music is a genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in 1950s America and developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s and later, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s' and 1950s' rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of other genres such as blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical and other musical sources.

Musically, rock has centered around the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Typically, rock is song-based
music, but the genre has become extremely diverse and common musical characteristics are difficult to define. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music.

Linkin Park is an American rock band from California. They were formed in 1996, but the band officially rose to International fame after the success and fame of their first album, Hybrid Theory.
The first thing you notice about Linkin Park are their tattoos, piercings and slightly not normal hair styles. They create different types of Rock songs, a lot of them are screaming and loud performances, but a short few of them are actually slow, meaningful ballad type songs, they are the ones that you automatically know what the meaning of them are, but the louder songs are a little more difficult to decide what they mean, and people can interpret them in different ways to suit their moods.

The video above is their latest single 'Lost in the echo' it isnt a really loud song originally, but i suppose if you turned it right up, and had a lot of bass on your stereo etc then it could be pretty loud, especially with the screaming and the drums etc in the background going throughout the song. This song obviously has a meaning to it, and that is about losing people because of their broken promises. 
In the video you don't actually see the band, this is quite normal for rock bands, because they like to put a story across, and they maybe want the focus to be on the song and the meaning of it then on them. 

This song 'My December' does not have a video to it, but this song it a total contrast to 'Lost in the echo' it is slower and shows of the softer voices of the artists, there is no particularly loud beats in it, there are drum beats, but they arn't too loud and they don't over power the singing, there is obviously a hidden meaning to it, because other than knowing whatever is special happened or happens in December, we don't really know anything else, this could maybe suggest that this song means a lot and that the band wanted to keep the real meaning to themselves as it might be too painful to actually mention properly.



Indie
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include indie pop, jangle pop and lo-fi, among others. Originally used to describe record labels, the term became associated with the music they produced and was initially used interchangeably with alternative rock.

Indie music is normally people with guitars, singing, nothing too blingy or over the top, stories or alternative people are used in the videos, but normally its just simply the main artist with no over the top features. 

Ed Sheeran would be classed as an Indie artist, this is because most of the time his music is slow, very instrumental and pretty simple. In some of his videos you don't even see much of him, this would be because he might want to tell the story, and the story means a lot to him, and he doesn't want to take any focus away from the story itself, listening to the lyrics and watching the story take place creates more of an experience than seeing him walk around with a guitar. 

In the above video, you only see Ed once and thats only if you are really focusing on it and looking out for him, this would show that he doesn't want all the focus on him but more on his music, he wants people to realise his music more than him. 

Most Indie artists would be more inclined to get their music across to their audience than their personal profile, a lot different to typical pop artists who like to show off whenever the opportunity is there. 

Genre theory- Firth1998 & Karlson

Music Videos can be categorized in three broad typologies: 

Performance - this is to convey a sense of in-concert experience, a lot of the time artists will make this kind of video to draw the audience in, it would feel like watching the video is an experience in itself, almost like you are watching the artist in concert, these kind of videos can be used to promote tours, because watching them in a video where they are singing live would reassure to you that they do sound the same in concert as they do on the CD. 

Adele used this as her music video for the song 'Someone like you' for a few months after her performance at the Brit Awards, this performance showed the world that she can just stand there and sing and her performance will be just as good as anyone who is jumping around with tonnes of lights around them, this video shows that she is simple and she doesn't need a lot of props or anything to make her performance a good one. This video was used until an official one came out because the buzz around her performance at the Brits was too much to wait for the real video to come out, so this was released until the official one was available. This also was one of her first singles out, so this was like her coming out to the world to say that she isn't just here for a one hit wonder, but that she is a big contender in the music world. 

Narrative - this is when a story is used in the video to either put across a point, but sometimes the story isn't alot to do with the lyrics, this might be to engage the audience, to make them want to actually watch the video instead of just listening to the song, artists tend to do this so that watching the video is an experience in itself. The stories used in music videos are mostly love stories, this is because a lot of people can relate to the typical love stories that are portrayed in music videos. 

'Action is the story dominated by males who do things and females who passively react or wait for something to happen' said by Schwichtenberg in 1992. 

Taylor Swift uses narratives in all of her music videos,  'We are never ever getting back together' tells the typical love story of a couple breaking up and then one of them wanting it to work out and trying their best to make it up to the other person, and the other one doesn't want it to happen, and they are trying to distance themselves from the other person in the situation. Taylor swift does typically do this in all of her music videos, because she likes the fact that her audience can relate to her and her music, people are more likely to listen to her music if they can relate. The audience could feel that they know Taylor on a more personal level by watching her videos and listening to her music. 

This story does obviously match the lyrics, right down to the phone call at 2:20, the music stops to hear what the character has to say, this shows that the lyrics and the story match perfectly, and they rely on each other to put the story across. 

This screenshot allows the audience to get excited and dance around, the narrative at this point shows that she's having a party and that she almost feels like she's free and happy without the boy again. 

But then this shot shows a complete contrast to the previous shot because it explains to the audience how she is feeling, and when he turns up at her door, it almost ruins everything, her mood, and the fact that she thought she was through with him and that he was leaving her alone.

This part of the video is straight after the door scene and she's walking back into the room where the party was in the previous screenshot, this is because him being there has totally made her good mood go away, and she is no longer in the mood to party, she just wants to sit at the window and think like she does in the next few seconds of this video.  

These two parts of the video are almost identical, except for the fact that in one its the morning and in the other its night time, this could be because after everything that's happened not even she is believing the words coming out of her mouth, she wants to but she can't help the way that she feels. Its showing that everything ended up the way it started in the first place. 

Conceptual - This type of video is to show metaphors that create a mood or offer multiple meanings. Conceptual means something that is based on mental concepts, this would simplify to based on whatever the specific person wanted it to be or wanted it to relate to.
It can symbolise some things to one person and then a completely different thing for someone else. 


In the video above by Gotye, not many props are used, just the use of paints and different colours which could represent his mood as all of the colours around him are dull and boring, but then when the camera zooms out at 2:26 to reveal the girl standing backwards it reveals that she is more brightly coloured and this could show that every story has two sides and that they both feel completely different about the same situation. Even though the storyline is the same as many pop videos, the video comes across differently to the same audience.


Steve Archer Steve Archer said in 2004 that 'Often music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band. Additionally, a carefully choreographed dance might be part of the artist's performance. Sometimes the artist will be part of the story, acting as a narrator and participant at the same time. But it is the lip synch close up and the miming of the playing instruments that remains at the heart of music videos, as if to assure us that the band really can kick it.' 


Performances can be one of these three but also a variety of one or more of them as well: 

- Performance Clip - a performance clip contains mostly filmed performance, a performance clip is when the artist is shown in a few different settings, common places for this are recording studios, rehearsal rooms, clubs and even as simple as walking down the street, anywhere that is classed as a different location can be used in a performance clip.
A performance can then be broken down into three categories:
 - Song Performance: Almost every music video would be a song performance, but song performance is commonly combined with dance performance to create a fun and hip music video. 
 - Dance Performance: When a lot of dance sequences are used in a video. 
 - Instrumental Performance: This type of performance is not so common but a music video would be classed as instrumental if it is a 'concert clip' this is when concert footage is used in a music video. 

- Narrative Clip - A narrative clip contains a story that is easy to follow, a 'pure' narrative clip is when there is no lip-synchronized singing. The above video for Bruce Springsteen's 'I'm on Fire' is an example of a pure narrative clip.

- Art Clip - If a music video clip contains no perceptable visual narrative and contains no lip-synchronized singing then it is a pure art clip. The main difference between a music video art clip and a contemporary artistic video is the music. While the music video uses popular music the artistic video uses more modern, experimental music, such as electro-acoustic music.

Karlson

Karlson believed that there are three types of artist:
Commercial exhibitionist, Televised Bard and Electronic Sharman. 

A commercial exhibitionist - this is an artist that likes to be in the foreground of the video at all times, they are the singer and dancer throughout, there may be backup dancers or other people involved, but they will always be the main person involved in the story, they are dramatic and over the top. Jessie J would be this type of artist as she is always in her videos and she is always the main person involved in any stories that are being acted out or shown in any way.

Even though in the video above Jessie is not the main character, she is meant to be the little girl, the main character is her as a child, this is the same thing as her being the main character, no matter how she does it, Jessie always manages to make her videos original and different from the rest out there, using a mini her in this one is a new way of her being in the limelight. 

Televised Bard - This type of artist is normally more shy than a commercial exhibitionist and likes to just show off their music for what they want it to mean and for what they want to show, they don't like to steal the limelight away from the music. A narrative is commonly used for this type of artists videos, this is to link the lyrics in with a story to show the meaning off further. An example of this type of artist would be Ed sheeran as he likes to use narratives in his videos to show off the true meaning of the song.


This video for 'A Team' shows a young lady that is obviously having a rough time and the lyrics in the song execute the meaning of the video further, Ed obviously thought him being a big part of the video would take away from the story behind the lyrics. 

Electronic Sharman - This is when the music is played over images of things that might not even have anything to do with the lyrics, the artist might not be seen at all during the video, this may mean that they're shy or that they just don't want to be in a music video.