Music Video Theoretical Ideas & Narratives...

Andrew Goodwin was a theorist that identified some key features within music videos, they are...

A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals.
(The visuals will either illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics)

A relationship between the music and the visuals.
(The visuals will either illustrate, amplify or contradict the music.)

Genre-related style and iconography present.

Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist.

Voyeurism - Camera close-ups to particular body parts on women is often used.
(The male gaze)

And finally, Inter textual references to other media texts may be present.

Within my video analysis, I have picked up on a few of Goodwin's points, and agree with alot of the things he said.


Music Video Narrative:

Narrative describes the way in which a story is told, it is the way the story's elements are structured and organised in a way that is understandable to the audience.
(How events are unified in time and space)


Todorov's narrative theory...

The story is structured into 5 stages -
Equilibrium, Disequilibrium, Recognition, Reparation and New Equilibrium.

Basically, Todorov's theory says that all stories start with everything in order, then something disrupts that original order.
Character's realise the order has been disrupted and attempt to fix the damage of the disequilibrium.
Finally, the narrative ends with a repaired or NEW equilibrium.

Vladimir Propp's narrative theory...

The story is influenced by a variety of character roles.
Primarily there is a hero who is sent on a quest by the sender.
The hero has to overcome the villain, usually with the aid of a helper.
In completing the quest and/or removing the villain, the hero gains a reward - often a princess.

Claude Levi-Strauss' narrative theory...



The story is motivated by a struggle between Binary Opposites.
One side will be represented as the "Right" side, the audience should identify with and support this "Right" side.

Finally...

There are two key types of narration...

Restricted Narration - The audience is "tied" to one character, and only sees or knows what this character knows, building up suspense in most cases.

Omniscient Narration - The story is not tied to one single character, and the camera reveals things which allows the audience to know more than the character in the situation.

This also builds up suspense because the audience is waiting for the event to happen to the character.