Thursday, 24 May 2012

Section A q.1 b) NARRATIVE


For Section A question (b) 25 marks,you  select one production (of your own) and evaluate it in relation to a media concept. The list of concepts to which questions will relate is as follows:
  • Media language(film language = camerawork, mise-en-scene, editing, sound)
  • Audience
  • Representation
  • Narrative
  • Genre
in the examination, the questions will be set using one of these concepts only.


For NARRATIVE I suggest you think about incorporating the following points:

  • At the start, offer ideas on the place of narrative in the music video form in general: how is narrative usually handled? Is it handled in the same way in this genre as in say, film? Apart from narrative, what does the M V genre require? (eg performance, stars, relationship with the band, repeatability).
  • Narrative in MV is rarely linear; editing sees to that: explain why. What elements of MV form shape narrative, such as the chorus (lyrics, and the visuals that go with them); instrumental sections (like your opening shot)?
  • Refer to genre conventions: we learn from Andrew Goodwin Dancing In The Distraction Factory that narrative treatment may be illustration, amplification or disjuncture in relation to the lyrics: which is yours? How much ENIGMA is there?
  • ELLIPSIS? A huge feature of MV narrativ
  • FLASHBACKS?
  • Is there quite a lot of repetition? Why?
  • POV shots? To immerse the audience in the world of the MV, to 'privilege' the audience
  • Cinematography. Stress that form IS a huge part narrative. For instance, 'Using a fish eye lens in a rapid pan delivers the visual code about disorientation.'
  • Closure of narrative: CLIMAX? Resolution

Here are some provocative thoughts! MV have often been characterized as the ultimate medium of the postmodern world:  Fast. Empty. Lascivious. At least that is how the majority of the academic and educated world perceives them. Using Frederic Jameson's terms, music videos have been defined as a schizophrenic string of isolated, discontinuous signifiers, failing to link up into a coherent sequence, as a string without a centre. Andrew Goodwin talked about "semiotic pornography", "electronic wallpaper" and "neo-fascist propaganda" and Michael Shore defined the medium by its so-called "decadence", its "surface without substance", by its "clichéd imagery". For Heidi Peeters (2004), what gives narrative coherence to the form is the star:

“The star is the one that lends the video world its splendour, that gives the audiovisual elements their enchanting attraction and that illuminates viewers all over the world from the Olympus of the screen. This may seem rather obvious, but one would be surprised at how the majority of theorists still consider music videos to be visualizations of a song. While they may seem discontinuous .., the shots (in music videos)are highly connected through the image of the star.”
“The star promotes the phenomenon of identification, a process by which viewers become attached to a star, ranging from emotional affinity limited to the context of the movie theatre to projection, by which fans try to become their idols through imitating speech, movements and consumer patterns. It is obvious that when the object of projection appears to be the owner of fancy cars, expensive clothes and luxurious houses, a capitalist establishment can only welcome the attitude of identification. Identification with stars does not necessarily have to be based on appearance or sex, as especially for pop stars, it can also rely on the musical style and the subcultural group to which the singer refers. Sometimes identification is not so much a question of the male-female opposition as it is a question of us versus them, young versus old, rebels versus establishment.”

Will and Alex made an ALTERNATIVE treatment. That is, you show both the public face and the private struggle of the band. Both narrative treatment and cinematography shows this dichotomy (opposite worlds). You don’t create a Utopian world of which the star seems to be the instigator, as claimed by Richard Dyer's Entertainment and Utopia. What you do is create the world of the band, the place where they hang out, practise, play and fall out, in a more realistic, indie way. You would agree with Peeters that “Narrativity does not seem to be an absolute necessity within the medium.” What you are doing is creating emotional connection with your band through a series of poetic montages.
“The fact that music videos in this sense are primarily poetic does not mean that clips never contain narrativity. Most music videos do develop a storyline, embedded within its poetic structure and some clips even contain introductory story sequences or non-musical narrative sequences inserted within the video number but "outside" its musical score. Narrative in clips becomes a device to structure the poetic clip world and make it more accessible and recognizable to the viewer.”

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