Choosing a final song required certain boxes the song had to check. An important box our teacher made clear we had to check was its length and it not being too long. Although Grimes’ Oblivion last for a duration of 4:11 we were warned it could be too long in length but decided to go with it as we had already thrown together multiple ideas for a narrative for the song to play behind.
Another necessary requirement our final song had to meet was the sing test, could it be lip-synced to and if so, by who? Grimes has a very particular, harmonic and high pitched voice. Baring this in mind we thought hard about what kind of narrative we would then build. We went with a mainly narrative based music video, only having lip syncing as points to break it up.
When rattling my brain for an idea for a narrative following the style, pacing and themes of my preferred choice of song, I first considered the type narrative for my music video.
I liked the idea of a love story, and although they are majorly played out, I thought it was doable and could work. An idea that came to me for some foundation as to why the narrative would follow an amplified as well as symbolic storyline was that the song, titled “Oblivion” could be reflected through the narrative. I want to show how the man and the woman followed through the story have become so entranced in their mysterious relationship that they are to the point where they are in an oblivion. In a state of being completely unaware of what is happening around their relationship.
The song, being very techno, trance, indie and upbeat means that I can play around with editing to the beat because their are so many loops, progressions and melodies to cut on. This freedom with edit gives my group and I the power to control the pace of my edit, it’s rhythm and feel.
Thinking Mise en scene, locations and star image, I want eccentric actors and cover stars. This is as To stand out as a music video, my characterizations need to be stark, bright and eye catching. My location choices must be well thought out and innkeeping with the alternative indie and dance electronic genre.
Manufacturing the perfect narrative through evaluating others
Researching music videos from other artists is a vital form of research. The knowledge of the effects possible have started to become apparent to me in doing such research. I have learnt that you can experiment with narrative structure in music videos having choice between a disjunctive, amplified, illustrative, episodic, linear, thematic, anachronic structure having free will to combine two together to create new and refreshed effects for a music video.
Ayrtn – FLO’S
The narrative of Ayrtn’s – FLO’S is partially illustrative. He Lip-syncs the vast majority of the song and some features of it are illustrated like when he “hit’s up the chip shop” for example.
The structure is linear in that he phones a girl she isn’t interested and he then goes about his day as normal to then receive a phone call from the same girl later on who has had a change of heart. The ending makes me feel happy for the Ayrtn who is the singer and main character. It illustrates him as patient, deserving and endearing.
Asap Rocky – D.M.B
The narrative of Asap Rocky’s D.M.B can be best described as disjunctive. Its structure is anachronic and chaotic. The story follows a rapper and his girlfriend (who are actually dating in real life) and they go about doing outlandish activity (usual rapper things) The song is hip hop rap and the lyrics are fast and flowy. The edits reflect the pacing of the song which makes for an effect narrative, even though it isn’t illustrative.
The ending depicts that the two are actually in love. The fast paced photo montages and low lit kiss sequence helps the audience to understand their complicated by true felt love for one another.
FKA twigs – Honda
The narrative of FKA twigs’ Honda is disjunctive and amplified. This is because the entire music video is her riding on a car but the car is a Honda which makes narrative sense, thus the amplified.
The ending is abrupt and the narrative is linear because the car is travelling forward. And her performance is stylistic and fluid and creative.
Three of my own narratives:
Bake The Pie!: A teen boy enters a bake off with some extravagant and twisted hosts (who act like Willy Wonka) the bake off goes wrong when we find out the judges have ulterior motives – to kill the contestants.
At dusk: A woman is driving around at dusk and as she drives her attention is grabbed by a dancing crowd on the side of the road running a car wash. She pays the money and gets her car wash but the experience is otherworldly like an acid trip. The car washers turn into animals and food and get on the car dancing while the woman watches in awe.
Action man: A boy has this action man figurine that he loves to play around with. One day the boy gets home from school to see his parents have thrown a yard sale and sold the action figurine the boy went straight to his room to play with. He goes to the shop later that day still sad and sees another boy less fortunate than him playing with the same action man figurine. He decides to let him keep it.
I viewed the work of students before me and chose one video to decode and evaluate.
please click on image to see pdf
The music video, Wildfire was very well edited. When deconstructing the video I found few areas that I didn’t like. The mise en scene worked until the boy came in with his school suit. I now know that it is best to keep the camera on the tripod at all times, that bad lip syncing constitutes for a bad video. On further analysis, I noticed that the representation of the star was very exclusive and untouchable fitting in nicely with the pop genre of music.
A particular aspect of the video I thought was very good was the makeup. The makeup is a key part of mise-en-scene. The actresses expression is also very appealing and eye catching helping to fit with the feel of the song and for it to look like a believable lip sync.
Focusing forward, my recently gained knowledge of what makes a successful narrative will help me in future when evaluating the structure of my narrative plan and the standard of my mise-en-scene. The examples of those before me have taught me to avoid; arguments as the actors tend to laugh, using cars because as students we don’t have nice ones, and staying away from rap as it is hard to lip-sync.
I took the liberty to research some music videos exploring how the lyrics and themes reflect on a given music video’s narrative and vice versa.
please click on image to see pdf
This decoding task taught me that music videos can be each illustrative, disjunctive and amplified. Illustrative is where the narrative in the video very closely echoes the lyrics & music. Disjunctive is where the narrative and performance seems to hold very little relationship to the song and seems quite random. Amplified is where the narrative, whilst inspired by the song, adds a new element to complement the song.
Upon deconstructing various music videos made by previous students and real stars of the industry, I realised that the star image must be conventional to the genre to construct an understanding, pleasing and or thought-provoking narrative in any music video. for example, If I dressed my star in all black for a pop video, that wouldn’t quite make sense. Looking forward I now know I need to give the star image some in depth thought for a stringy, cohesive narrative.
