Narrative Essay

“Media texts rely on cultural experiences in order for audiences to easily make sense of narratives.” Explain how you used conventional and / or experimental narrative approaches in one of your production pieces.

 

I am going to deliberate theories of narrative in relation to my advanced portfolio. I plan to produce a music video for Ed Sheeran’s song ‘Autumn Leaves’.

During the creation of my version of ‘Autumn Leaves’, I will look at Vernallis’ theory that music videos are constructed around four concepts – Narrative, Editing, Camera Movement, and Diegesis. After evaluating the lyrics of the song, I discovered that it was a melancholic song about loosing someone close to you, and experiencing life without them. It also suggests that we think life is plain and simple until it is shaken up by something unexpected and sudden, such as a death. Therefore, I have decided to create a narrative video as it will allow me to tell a story based on the performer’s struggle coming to terms with the loss of a loved one. The story will highlight the memories of two best friends and therefore will include a variety of flashbacks, however the main focus will be on the protagonist’s adaption to a life without them. The camera movement in my video will be an important aspect as I will need to capture the performer’s emotions correctly. I plan to use high angle shots on the performer by herself, as it will connote the idea that she feels less powerful without her best friend by her side.

 

However, I will go against Vernallis’ theory that ‘there is not necessarily a balance between narrative and performance’ as I do not plan to use a huge aspect of performance as I will that it would take away the heavy emotion in the narrative, and would also harden the audience’s ability to connect with the story if I kept jump cutting to an artist performing the song. However, there may be some points in the video where the performer will mime a sentence or two from the song as if she is saying it to herself. For example ‘Do you ever wonder if the stars shine out for you?’ as this will further highlight what she is feeling following the loss.

 

Andrew Goodwin is another theorist of whom I have researched, and he believed there was a relationship between the music and visuals. My music video will support this, as there will be points in the video where what is happening on screen will match the lyrics of the song. For example, the lyrics ‘yesterday you were here with me’ will play over a flashback of the two best friends to emphasise the loss in the performer’s life, but also accentuate much happier times which is how the performer is choosing to remember her friend.

 

I am choosing to ignore Vernallis’ theory that ‘Something drives the video forward, but often it is not the narrative’ as I feel that the ability to tell a story simply through the narrative will connect more with my ‘indie’ target audience as they prefer things to be modest and meaningful rather than over the top performances which are generically used in ‘pop’ videos.

 

My narrative will not comply with Todorov’s five stage narrative structure. His first stage is ‘equilibrium’ which is essentially where everything is good, however my music video will start with a close up of the performers face, in order to capture the sadness she is feeling, which therefore disagrees with his theory. He then goes on to say that there is a something happens that ‘disrupts the equilibrium’ however my video will not include a disturbance of any kind as it is about the performer being able to progress with her life and to always remember her friend in a cheerful and blissful way, eventually leading to a kind of resolution where she is able to move forward with her life.

To conclude, I will be creating a music video mostly based on a narrative structure, which will support Vernallis’ theory of the four concepts and Andrew Goodwin’s linking visuals to lyrics, but goes against Todorov’s theory on narrative structure and another of Vernalls’ theories about performance driving the video forward.

Modernism VS Postmodernism

Modernism	Post modernism
Faith in "Grand Theory" (totalizing explanations in history, science and culture) to represent all knowledge and explain everything.	Rejection of totalizing theories; pursuit of localizing and contingent theories.
Master Narratives and metanarratives of history, culture and national identity as accepted before WWII (American-European myths of progress). Myths of cultural and ethnic origin accepted as received. Progress accepted as driving force behind history.	Suspicion and rejection of Master Narratives for history and culture; local narratives, ironic deconstruction of master narratives: counter-myths of origin. "Progress" seen as a failed Master Narrative
Sense of unified, centered self; "individualism," unified identity.	Sense of fragmentation and decentered self; multiple, conflicting identities.
Master narrative of progress through science and technology.	Skepticism of idea of progress, anti-technology reactions, neo-Luddism; new age religions.
Faith in, and myths of, social and cultural unity, hierarchies of social-class and ethnic/national values, seemingly clear bases for unity.	Social and cultural pluralism, disunity, unclear bases for social/national/ ethnic unity.

Baudrillard

Baudrillard

 

Hyperreality
‘a condition in which "reality" has been replaced by simulacra’

 

Simulacra...
When a sign loses its relation to reality, it then begins to simulate a simulation
Simulation:
The process in which a representation of something comes to replace the thing which is actually being represented.
The representation then becomes more important than ‘the real thing’
Hyperreality:
Division between "real" and simulation has collapsed,
therefore an illusion of an object is no longer possible because the real object is no longer there.

 

Understanding Hyperreality
Celebrity culture:
Celebrities who reach a point at which every aspect of their lives is taken care of by someone else are said to live in a hyperreal world.
They lose the ability to interact with people on a normal level and are cocooned in Hyperreality.
Normal people often try to copy this, for example one man who is obsessed with Britney Spears and every aspect of his life relates to her, he genuinely believes that he lives in the same world as her.
This is a common case in which someone has become more engaged in the hyperreal world than the actual real world.

 

Understanding Hyperreality...
Video Games
Play station games which have a lot of violence in them often have a lot of bad press, the media believe that people will copy the actions which they see in the video game.
This actually happens very rarely, only a small percentage of the people who play the violent video games actually copy the actions which they see on them.
For example one prime example is of a man who believed he was in a game and would therefore gain points by carrying out illegal tasks, the worst crime which he committed was killing his best friend. His argument was that he had been told to do it, meaning that he genuinely thought he was taking part in the game when in fact it was real life.
Showing that he could no longer distinguish the difference between game play and real life.

Narrative Paragraph

Autumn Leaves by Ed Sheeran is often associated with the theme of death, but it is presented in a peaceful and tender manner. Through the lyrics, he talks about life not being not complicated as in it begins and ends for everyone. The anaphora of ‘It’s not complicated’ is used to emphasise his point that the process of life is simple. The rhetorical question “do you ever wonder if the stars shine out for you?” suggests he is wondering whether someone is looking down on him from heaven. It would also make the listener debate the answer to themselves. The personal pronoun ‘you’ develops a personal relationship with the listener as they feel they are being addressed directly. Ed Sheeran uses autumn leaves as a metaphor for death. Autumn leaves are obviously dead leaves, falling from a tree.  The tree as an example for planet Earth and Autumn leaves for people. The person that passed away, unfortunately, is an Autumn leaf. “Another tear another cry” presents melancholic emotions – displays his emotional attachment to the person lost. The repetition of ‘another’ highlights the normality of death; lots of people are effected by the same thing and go through the same emotions. He later retracts himself as he now says death is complicated as the actual event of death can cause sadness and destruction, and can be completely unexpected. It makes it much harder to comprehend, thus making it more complicated. People realize that it actually is complicated when they lose someone and there is a gap in their life. “Is it that its over or do birds still sing for you?” suggests a reference to heaven. Birds are a symbolism of freedom and could be portraying that the person he is talking about is now free from pain and suffering. He repeats this message throughout, reinforcing his ideas and developing a personal relationship with the audience by allowing them to listen to his emotions.

 

In my music video I think I will incorporate a range of flashbacks, making it an episodic narrative, as I feel that this will allow the audience to see the performer’s relationship with the person that’s passed away. Goodwin’s theory states that the lyrics should match the visual so I will ensure that I achieve this by having the performance on screen toning the lyrics.

 

 

Genre Paragraph

Genre is a way of categorising a text through style and form and being able to place them in a particular group based on codes and conventions. My A2 music production is generally associated with the indie genre therefore I will use the typical elements of this genre to enable my music video to be successful in emphasising this genre. For example, Indie music videos are often simple and toned down as opposed to pop videos which are exaggerated and overdramatic. They often focus on a simple story line that has a deeper meaning behind it. In my music video the story will revolve around flashbacks and memories while also referring back to the protagonist being by herself to accentuate the lyrical meaning in the song and what effect it has.