Narrative In Music Videos

In Todays lesson we learnt about a variety of theorist and there thoughts and views about narrative within music videos. As a result of this I decided to create a short presentation explaining what each of them believe.

                                                    Narrative In Music Videos on Prezi

I believe that by looking into what theorists such Steve Archer and Andrew Goodwin believe, I am able to understand a lot more about narrative and storyline within a music video and this will be extremely useful when it comes to creating our narrative for our music video. 

Firths Theory

Firth believes that a music video can be broken down into 3 main typologies. Narrative, Performance and Conceptual.

Narrative

The narrative usually seen within a music video is linear and involves some form of story, commonly about love. All videos are based around a story in some way, it could be the relationship between the song and lyrics, videos usually use feelings or emotions found within the song. Narrative is extremely popular within most genre's, most notably Indie, Pop and R&B.

Performance

Performance is used in music videos to give viewers the feeling of being at a concert or seeing the artist live. Music videos can be extremely helpful to an artist, if the performance is seen as exciting and appealing it has the potential to increase ticket sales. Performance visuals that depict how a band behaves and performs both on and off stage are very important as it becomes a sellable image to fans and audiences. There are a variety of example for this type of video such as Guns N' Roses Welcome to the Jungle, Def Leppard Pour Some Sugar On Me and more modern videos from the likes of Ed Sheeran using real concert material as well as many more.

Conceptual

Concept videos can offer a lot to an audience or a fan, they contain various meanings and can be interpreted in different ways. The visuals within the song may not relate to the actual lyrics of the song at all.

It is important to understand these different types of approach to a music video, each type portrays the image and the content the artist wants to put out to entertain fans and attract new audience members and can also be used to send out both direct and indirect messages. Understanding this will be useful when it comes to decided whats best to include in our own music videos and what approach is best for us to take when deciding on a video.

Andrew Goodwins Theory

In todays lesson we were introduced to media theorist Andrew Goodwin. Goodwin has a variety of different theories but today we learnt about his theory in relation to music videos. There are several key points that Goodwin makes and these are as follows:

• The relationship between video and the song itself, cutting rate and whether or not the video is cut on the beat, focus on certain instruments as and if the relationship or link between video and song is contradicting or complementary.
• The difference in music video concepts for example, performance or narrative based videos. 
• The relationship between the lyrics and visual images within a video, do the words or lyrics link to what is being displayed on screen. 
• How genre is represented through music videos, visual representation and general interpretation of a genre's characteristics and conventions. 
• Intertextual references to artists or products within a video as well as media texts and references to separate videos. 
• How record labels mould artists and present them in certain ways through regular recurring motifs and focus on the artist. 
• Insight into an artists life through Voyeurism as well as the use of mirrors and screens within a video and other people watching the artist. 
• Voyeuristic approach to the female body and how It is portrayed within music videos. 

Personally I believe It is important to understand Goodwins theory as it may prove useful in understanding how to analyse and breakdown music videos in preparation for planning and creating our own. 

Richard Dyers Star Theory

Today I was introduced to Richard Dyers Star Theory. Richard Dyer was born in 1945 and since then has gone onto become an English academic. Dyer specialises in cinema and has created a variety of theories and beliefs over his 50 year career. One of his theories is his Star Theory, Dyer argues that people look up to stars as role models and that a star is made up of various key factors such as Image, Audience, Culture and Personality. I decided I would make a post about Dyers Theory, here Is what I found: 

Richard Dyer

Stars As Constructions

Lana Del Ray

Dyer believes artists are constructed through artificial images such as advertising, films, magazines and music. He claims that consumers prefer artists to convey their true emotions themselves and not be groomed by record labels who try to create a fake image for them. This creates a Unique selling point for the artist as it differentiates them. An example of this would be Lana Del Ray as she is marketed as being extravagant and different to others artists that produce similar music to her within the music industry.










Industry And Audiences

Richard Dyer also believes that stars are manufactured to make money for their record labels by appealing to target audiences. As a result of this record labels have to cater different artists for certain target audiences as there are both niche and whole markets. Examples of record labels doing this can be seen through Mirror branding, both Rage Against The Machine and Joe McElderry are signed to Sony Music.

Rage Against The Machine

Joe McElderry

Ideology And Culture


Another one of Dyers beliefs within his Star Theory is that artists become trendsetters in the sense that audience members will imitate hairstyles and artists clothing styles. Artist may have certain religious beliefs and cultural values that audiences may also pick up on if shared by the artist. The most common types of media that consumers or audience members will be able to obtain all this information and keep up with the latest gossip are magazine articles, websites and blogs. An example of this would be OK magazine and an example of a trendsetting artist would be Cheryl Cole and her variant hair styles.

Character And Personality

Finally Dyer believes that stars are presented as 'real' human beings and that they are representations of the contradictions as well as reinforced ideas see in the music industry. Stars support the idea of dominant ideology, seen as a glorified version of "us" the audience or consumer. Not only this but he argues that seeing a stars lifestyle through the internet, magazines and newspapers will feel closer to them. Development in social media now means that audiences are able to interact with the day to day life of a star.

It is important to understand theories and ideas such as this one to understand certain aspects of my media coursework. It will also be useful when it comes to analysing artists in the future. Whilst analysing music videos I will be able to use my knowledge to develop a greater understanding.