Narratives Within Music Videos

Jesse Hammond

Relationships between the visuals and lyrics

There are 3 different categories of ‘relationships’ between music video narrative and lyrics that all create different effects. These were

created by Andrew Goodwin.Illustration

The narrative within the music video reflects the lyrics of the song. This creates more meaning within the song as the audience would be able to understand it and therefore connect to it better. Another benefit of illustrating the lyrics is because it captivates the audience more, they want to follow the storyline

through.Amplification

The narrative within the music video is inspired by the lyrics but not as an echo. The narrative tends to compliment themes and ideologies around the lyrics of the song. This technique can entice the audience more as it allows for their imagination – they can picture their own illustrations to the song therefore making it more personal to them but still be attached to the song.Disjuncture

The narrative doesn’t relate much to the song, the visuals are very random. issue with using this type of narrative is that it could disconnect the audience from the song as they may find it hard to make the connections themselves which will confuse them and not have a relationship with the song.

Performance of NarrativesThere are 3 different styles of having a narrative within music

videos, all advertising and portraying the artist in different ways.Performance videos

The music video just features the performance of the songCombination videos

The music video is a mixture of the performance as well as a narrative which can be portrayed in 3 ways: the performance and narrative completely separate, the artist watches the narrative in an invisible narrator, or the artist has an active role within the narrativeNarrative videos

The music video is all based around a narrative and features no performance, it is often known to have inter-textual references.

Classic Narrative TheoriesOpen Narratives

Stories that are a part of a series, they allow to be carried onClosed Narratives

Stories with closed endings, they can’t be carried onSingle Narratives

Stories that develop around one plot onlyMulti-strand Stories

Stories that have more than one plot to followLinear Narratives

Stories that follow a chronological order Non-Linear Narratives

Stories that jump around a bit, that don’t follow chronological orderInvestigative Narratives

Stories that involve some form of investigationRealist Narratives

Stories that feature a real life situation. Anti-realist Narratives

Stories that have a fictional story

Todorov’s theory A common narrative to use within music videos to

captivate an audience is Todorov’s. The first stage is where a state of equilibrium is defined, then a disruption

happens, affecting the equilibrium by some action or crisis. After the characters are aware of the disruption, they set out to fix what has happened. The characters

need to overcome any obstacles to get back to the equilibrium. Then finally, a new equilibrium is made.

Equilibrium

Disru

ption

Resolved Equilibrium

Realisation

Overcoming of Obstacles

Narrative within my music video

Within my music video I will be using a non-linear narrative, this is to reflect the artist being lost, trying to

find herself. Following Andrew Goodwin’s theory the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals are illustrated. This is so the audience would be able to

understand it and therefore connect to it better. Another benefit of illustrating the lyrics is because it captivates

the audience more, they want to follow the storyline through. I am going to try and make my music video a combination of narrative and performance so that my artist can use the video as self promotion and a way to

advertise herself.