Essay Plan: Narrative

Narrative is an extremely important part of any media production. My music video includes a linear narrative. The narrative shows a group of friends having a fun day out including waking up in the morning and getting ready, going to the beach, drinking tea together, wandering around London, and then going home and getting back into bed. Aside from the performance areas of the music video, the video is shot on a Go Pro using a point of view angle from the artists perspective.

Propp's theory of typical characters is subverted in my music video. This is because the characters in my music video are all females who are all seen as empowering and equal. There is not one character who is more important that another therefore Propp's character theory cannot be applied to my music video. The girls in the music video are seen to be empowering and equal through shots of them laughing and having fun together with not only one of them in charge.

Levi Strauss has a narrative theory which includes binary opposites. Binary opposites are for example black vs white or good vs evil which are complete contrasts in order to construct a narrative. My music video includes binary opposites within the locations the girls are seen in. All of the locations which are used in my video are all very different, the first location where the artist is shown is in a modern house. The narrative then moves on to the girls being together outside at a beach walking down the pier. These two locations are binary opposites as there is a complete contrast between the two. Binary opposites is then shown again in the music video as the girls are seen in a house drinking cups of tea and chatting together, after this the girls are then seen exploring a room full of colourful, vibrant lights which shows a huge contrast between this location and the girls in the house.

Barthes also had a narrative theory which included the 5 narrative codes which are the enigma code, action code, semantic code, symbolic code and the referential code. My music video creates the enigma code. This is because as most of my music video is filmed from a point of view angle the person behind the camera is never revealed. This creates enigma as the audience are left wondering if the person behind the camera is the artist who is seen in the performance/lip syncing shots or is it somebody completely different. This creates enigma as it creates mystery within the music video and leaves the audience wanting to know more.