Narrative

Narrative

refers to a story and the way it is told i.e. the narrative structure. The narrative structure refers to the order in which events take place in a media text. When reflecting on narrative it is also important to consider where the audience is placed which will make a difference as to how the story is conveyed to them. This may either be done objectively or subjectively.

There are essentially three ways in which narrative can be structured Circular, Episodic or Linear. Circular This is a narrative which begins at the end and may be told either through one entire flashback, or a series of several flashbacks before returning to the end of the story i.e. the point at which the video started. A good example of this is Titanic where it starts in the modern day with the discovery of her necklace and flashes back as Rose recounts the story of her voyage.

Episodic Some narratives that include flashbacks may not be circular, but episodic instead. This means that the flashbacks are shown as separate scenes much like the chapters in a book. Usually these episodes will be shown in order, but sometimes they might be shown from a different perspective. Parallel narratives may also be used in order to show two experiences of the same event. An example of an episodic narrative is Forest Gump as the film consists of the protagonist sitting on a bench and telling the story of his life through several flashbacks.

 Linear

This is the most commonly used narrative structure as the events happen chronologically. It is sometimes referred to as the cause and effect narrative as the scenes follow on as an effect of the previous scene. Linear narratives are the most simple structure but this does not mean that they are boring. For example the film Amelie uses a linear narrative but is filled with several twists and enigmas in order to make the following scenes even more intriguing.

Goodwin is a music video theorist who believes that there should be a relationship between the sound of the music and the lyrics and what we as an audience see in the video. Relating his theory to the key concept of narrative, Goodwin believed that narratives were one of the following:

Illustrative the images and footage reflect the literal meaning of the lyrics Amplifying repetition of key meanings and effects to manipulate the audiences perception Contradicting images contrasting to the music Disjuncture when the meaning of the song is completely ignored visually in the video.

music videos are simply an extension of the lyrics A good example of this is in Katy Perrys Last Friday Night where the visual images shown in the music video reflect the lyrics. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlyXNRrsk4 A

 After

analysing folk tales, Propp developed a theory that within each narrative there are a set of stock characters which appear in every storyline. These characters are:
Hero Princess Helper Father False hero Dispatcher Villain Donor

 Levi-Strauss

theory dictated that in every media text there are binary oppositions. The audience are subsequently aware of who they should side with, which also helps the audiences to be able to relate to the text more. Some examples are:

Good v Evil Girl v Boy Popular v Geeky Rich v Poor

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlyXNRrs

k4A In this video, Propps characters are easily identifiable as well at Levi-Strauss binary opposites using the social status of the characters. In addition, the video does also reflect the story of the lyrics as Goodwin suggests, therefore is a narrative video. It is also Linear as the events occur in a chronological order