Tuesday, 24 September 2013

Research: Carol Vernallis's Theory


Narrative Structure In Music Videos:

  • Narrative in music videos are not always complete
  • There is not always a balance between narrative and performance
  • Music videos don’t always have narrative resolution
  • They often pose questions in the narrative that are not answered within the video

Analysing Media Language in Music Videos

From Vernallis’s observations, she found out that edits come much more frequently in music videos than film. They stand out as disjuncture and the editing has a rhythmic basis connected to the song and the camera may move in time with the music. The rules of continuity editing are broken in order to draw attention to what is on screen. Edits may be really obvious to draw attention to themselves, such as wipes and special effects added and the speed of the edit is manipulated (speeded up or slowed down). A master shot (base track) is frequently used to give video a structure and jump cuts are often used as well.

Rihanna – Where Have You Been: 


This music video is a great example that illustrates Vernallis’s ideas as it has a variation of editing, including slow motion, scene transitions, obvious edits such as reflecting the image on the screen, editing in time with the beat of the song and special effects.  Rihanna, being the artist and narrator, she is the main focus of the video and sings throughout. Repeated shots were shown of her throughout the video and she also looks directly into the camera. There is also performance in terms of dancing and theatrical movement by her and other performers (which was also edited as they slowed down as certain points), this then appeals to the audience and keeps them interested. There are a few base tracks as the camera switches back and forth between scenes. Jump cuts were used and the earthquake effect making the camera shake. 

Reflecting Image
Rihanna & Others Dancing
Stylistic Editing
Duplicating & Reflecting
Editing - Rihanna Is Twice
Obvious Editing

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