Music Videos- media language

Narrative- How a story is told

Narratology- Todorov

Stories have a certain structure. They start with a status quo (what is normal), something happens to disrupt this (initiating incident), one thing leads to another (chain of cause and effect) at the end a new status quo emerges. If this structure isnt there, it doesnt feel like a story- its just a collection of events.

• Equilibrium-disequilibrium-new equilibrium

Structualism- Levi-strauss

One way stories build meaning is by creating a series on binary oppostion- good vs evil, good vs bad, light vs dark, hero vs villian- this is how we view things.

Editing and Narrative

Editing is how the director decides what is seen and in what order. It determines the structure of the video and how the story is told- key to narrative

A strong narrative can grip a music videos viewers. A narrative is often intercut with images of the artist to create a brand image too.

Editing Technique:

• Shot/reverse shot- When one character is shown looking off screen (to another person) and the other person is looking back at the first character
• Eyeline match- A character looks off screen and viewers are shown what they are looking at
• Graphic match- When the second shot matches the first in some important compositional manner e.g. colour or shape
• Action match- A cut made so that an action of movement is covered from 2 different angles, but is made to look continuous
• Jump cut- When the shot jumps across the same shot to show the passing of time - middle piece of action is cut out
• Crosscutting- When you cut between different locations e.g a phone call
• Parallel editing- Where 2 sequences or locations are intercut at the same time. Parallel editing is the style achieved.
• Cutaway- Cutting to an insert shot of something, then back at the character. Also used to show reactions of other characters
• Insert- A shot of some detail is inserted into the main action to emphasise importance. It is part of the main shot.