Narrative Theory

Narrative - A form of story-telling
- Open - The story isn't finished (eg soap operas)
- Closed - The story is concluded
- Linear - A beginning, middle and end
- Non Linear - No sense of shape

Andrew Goodwin has 3 narratives for music videos:
- Illustration - Literal meaning of the song lyrics and how it relates to the video. An example of this is Miley Cyrus' 'Wrecking Ball', as you can see she is literally swinging on a wrecking ball.


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Amplification - Performance and narrative and how it relates to the lyrics. This shows George Ezra performing the song throughout the video, but also telling the story at the same time.





- Disjuncture - Abstract, often ignoring the lyrics and trying to offer different meanings. A good example of this is Sia's 'Elastic Hearts', which shows a performance based video with no relation to the lyrics.



  


There are 3 types of narrative:
- Performance based. For example Royal Blood's 'Little Monster', which shows the band doing a live performance of the song with an audience.




- Narrative based. For example Kodaline's 'All I Want', which tells the story of a man with a disfigured face, trying to get past life with his condition.



- Combination - A mix of performance and narrative. For example Mumford and Sons' 'The Wolf'. It shows them doing a live performance of the song, and also cuts to scenes of the band behind the scenes on tour, and getting up to fun things whilst wearing costumes.



Andrew Goodwin - Intertextuality - Making reference to past media texts. A good example of this is 'Love Story' by Taylor Swift, as it makes reference to William Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet'.
Todarov - Equilibrium - Disequilibrium - New equilibrium - This means there is a conflict, then the story develops, then a resolution.

Levi-Strauss - Binary opposition




AS A GROUP, WE HAVE DECIDED TO DO A COMBINATION OF NARRATIVE AND PERFORMANCE FOR OUR MUSIC VIDEO.