Narrative in music promos

Narrative:

Music video is an advert to promote band/artists music

Traditional/classis narrative

1.       Exposition – intro to scene/characters#

2.       Rising action – Rising problem

3.       Climax – big problem appears

4.       Falling down –climax is resolved

5.       Denouement – End (relaxed)

Linear – chronological order (start to end)

Non-linear - (non-chronological order) – flashback, flash-forward, ellipsis, montage

Closed ending – closure at the end (all happy/director has given an ending)

Open ended – cliff-hanger (use imagination to figure what happened) e.g. inception & Bird Man

Circular narrative – narrative finishes where it starts (circles back to beginning) e.g. Fat Boy Slim – Weapon of Choice

Singular strand –one storyline that is happening

Multi strand – multiple storylines going on at once e.g. Crash

As an audience, we look for a beginning/middle/end in a narrative

In songs, narrative is rarely completed therefore Fragmentary

Fragmentary narratives may help the repeatability of promos

Andrew Goodwin – suggests that music promos can interpret/use the meanings created in the song lyric in one of these ways:

Illustration – Promo illustrates the ideas/narrative in the song (literal interpretation) 

An example of this is the music promo: Disturbed - Asylum

This music video is about a man who tries to escape asylum following the lyrics which quote what he says such as 'Don't want to live in asylum' for the main chorus.

 

 

 

Amplification – uses a key idea/image from the lyrics and developed into a concept within the promo. The link remains between the lyrics and promo

An example of this is the music promo: Gorillaz: - On Melancholy Hill

This song follows the story of a character in trouble and is rescued and taken to Melancholy Hill. The song is quite different from the lyrics to the video but follows the story.

 

 

 

 

 

Disjuncture – The promo bears no resemblance to the lyric or its meaning and seen as unconventional/’arty’ videos – creates a new range of meanings to the song

An example of this is the music promo: Skrillex - Bangarang

This song is totally random containing teenagers robbing an ice cream van representing teen violence today but the song doesn't match what is going on but Skrillex targets the audience who is involved in the music video and their 'rebellious' behaviour linking to his 'dub-step' songs.