My Title for my essay-
Are Narrative theories needed to make a successful music video in the 21st Century?
Theories
Narrative:
Todorov's Narrative Theory:
Todorov's Narrative theory is about what the order of the narrative of every piece follows. It is a cycle of equilibrium and showing that in the piece there is a 'normal' this is the equilibrium where everything is at peace with itself, then there is one thing that happens that disturbs the peace. This is then recognised by the main characters and they then attempt to repair the situation by going on a journey; mentally, physically or emotionally. The last stage of this theory is the resolution where the story reaches equilibrium once again but it is new as something has changed like the characters find a new lesson through the disruption and this brings them closer. Having a friend in someone you didn't think you would ever be friends with, est. A classic example of this is the goonies and breakfast club, two films that portray the classic 'finding friends in people we thought we wouldn't' plotline. Showing different social, age and popularity statuses coming together in some way for the same goal and learning something unique about themselves and how they perceive the world and people around them.
Gender: Complete by end Justin's lesson Wednesday
Gender theories cover how the audience would see the characters and how the film portrays them to that view like the Male gaze is how men perceive women. For example, seeing them in specific roles, class and helplessness 'damsel in distress'.
This picture below shows the different types of gender theory covers. I don't just go over what each gender sees in the opposite gender and how they perceive it as well as how they perceive their gender. It also goes over gender queer and how their gender differs and what expression they use in each different view.
Gender theory doesn't just go over what the audience's gender and how they see the opposite and the same sex gender, but it also goes over how different ethnicities, age, class and social aspects of each kind of person. This is to make the target audience feel a relation to the characters and make them more invested in the story. A theorist I looked into was Sandra Bem who created the gender schema theory in the 1970s. She looked into the acceptable roles of each sex, men strong heroes and women helpless. This theory also looked into gender stereotyping and all the different sex-types.
This picture below shows the different types of gender theory covers. I don't just go over what each gender sees in the opposite gender and how they perceive it as well as how they perceive their gender. It also goes over gender queer and how their gender differs and what expression they use in each different view.Gender theory doesn't just go over what the audience's gender and how they see the opposite and the same sex gender, but it also goes over how different ethnicities, age, class and social aspects of each kind of person. This is to make the target audience feel a relation to the characters and make them more invested in the story. A theorist I looked into was Sandra Bem who created the gender schema theory in the 1970s. She looked into the acceptable roles of each sex, men strong heroes and women helpless. This theory also looked into gender stereotyping and all the different sex-types.
Audience:
audience theory is to make the alignment of the characters, this kind of overlaps into parts of gender theory, alignment is a technique used to make the audience to side with a set or one particular character/s. Audience theory is put into the physical looks of a product like making the audience see the perspective of the protagonist in cinematography by actually putting the audience in the point of view (POV) of the character. An example of this is in the Disney animated film Big Hero 6 when the main character 'Hero' is running out of the cafe him and his aunt live above (and she works at) these shots are always done in a specific shot order, the shot of the character for the audience to establish who's eyes they are looking through and what they are doing and then followed by the POV shot.
Another way to make the audience root for the protagonist is to use sound to the protagonist's advantage. Meaning having positive music play when they succeed and negative music and sounds when the antagonist is coming or gets an advantage.
The last main way to get the audience on the protagonist side is to use the context of the story, showing the protagonist's life history, getting them to know the character and show what morally they are fighting for.
Another way to make the audience root for the protagonist is to use sound to the protagonist's advantage. Meaning having positive music play when they succeed and negative music and sounds when the antagonist is coming or gets an advantage.
The last main way to get the audience on the protagonist side is to use the context of the story, showing the protagonist's life history, getting them to know the character and show what morally they are fighting for.
Auteur:
Auteur theory, simply, is how the creator wanted their creation to be seen by the audience. The alter is usually the director as they are directing how the whole look and feel of what the final product will look, the director and screenwriter work together to create a specific look designed for the audience. Each director and writer would put their own unique spin or signatures on the way they write, shoot and overall create a project. For example one of the most famous directors alter and has this signature named after him, called the "Spielberg Face" created by how Steven Spielberg got their actors to look a certain way just off camera without looking into the lens to tell that moment, that scene an unspoken storyline. Telling the audience all they needed to know from that scene without the need for any dialogue whatsoever. I found a short video on Vimeo user called Kevin B. Lee showing some examples of the "Spielberg Face" within some of his films.
Representation theory is about how something is shown without being actually said, this could be a stereotype of a group of people, class, age, ethnicity est. Representation in its basic form is showing how a type of people see reality, it is showing part reality and how some people's grouping see that part of reality not showing reality itself. For an example of this is could be the struggles of a single parent in the working class, it is telling a story of a character and showing something that exists in the real world but also adds exaggerations and over stereotypes of that class, work role, and what they are struggling with. It is still showing part of our reality but it isn't the whole reality on that subject. There are different types of these representation characters.
There are:
Eansiha, O., 2015. Todorov's narrative theory applied to music videos. [Online] Available at: http://osaroewansihaasmediastudies.weebly.com/osaro-ewansiha--a2-media-studies/todorovs-narrative-theory-applied-to-music-videos
Go, O., 2016. OK Go - Upside Down & Inside Out. [Online]
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWGJA9i18Co
[Accessed 27 March 2019].
This link is for a source I was comparing to he equilibrium theory to argue the fact that their is ways to bend the theory for music videos and their are many music videos without stories within them but they are more popular. This source was useful and reliable for what I used it for, and helped me prove my point.
Pareles, J., 1989. IDEAS & TRENDS; After Music Videos, All the World Has Become a Screen. [Online]
Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/10/weekinreview/ideas-trends-after-music-videos-all-the-world-has-become-a-screen.html
[Accessed 2 April 2019].
Perry, K., 2010. Katy Perry - Firework (Official). [Online]
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGJuMBdaqIw
[Accessed 27 March 2019].
Swift, T., 2009. Taylor Swift - Love Story. [Online]
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xg3vE8Ie_E
[Accessed 3 April 2019].
This link is for a source I was comparing to he equilibrium theory this was proving having a storyline within the music video can inhales feelings of the audiences own feelings and can manipulate the audience to remind them of a moment in their life, person or thing that could relate to that emotion.
Unknown, 2013. Helsbyhigh.org.uk. [Online]
Available at: https://www.helsbyhigh.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Propps-Character-Archetypes.pdf
[Accessed 29 March 2019].
this is a pdf file of someone else essay on a similar subject looking over the props characters and the different types. I wanted to find their sources but I couldn't find anything other than this sheet. Looking into it further I believe it is a work sheet from the school Helsby High. As that was the original site if you take back all the forward slashes.
Vaughan, A., 2015. Narrative Theory. [Online]
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwT-_irY4LM
Wedmore, J., 2013. 8 Ways to Make Your Videos MORE ENGAGING. [Online]
Available at: http://www.jameswedmore.com/make-your-videos-more-engaging/
[Accessed 3 April 2019].
This is a link to a webpage to a sight of a independent business worker, this is his blog helping others make more interesting and successful videos. I used this to compare videos and where they are to see if these points had value to them. I think this site isn't the most reliable but it is made by someone who is working and knows what they are taking about proven by his youtube channel and his experience.
Vernallis, C., 2004. Experiencing Music Videos: Aesthetics and cultural context. Coulumbia University: Coulumbia University press
I used this book to look into the what is put into and what makes a music video and why storylines make a more aesthetically pleasing music video and creates more of a natural message for the audience that can also be interpret different messages. I use this to show that telling a story doesn't have to be full equilibrium to work but giving it a music video a storyline in some way can make a big difference on what people think of the song because the story gives the song context. Even thought the book was very unnecessarily complex once I got what it was it was saying it was very helpful to my point and a reliable source.
Wallace, R. K., 2009. Jane Austen and Mozart: Classical Equilibrium in Fiction and Music. s.l.: University of Georgia Press.
Representation:
Representation theory is about how something is shown without being actually said, this could be a stereotype of a group of people, class, age, ethnicity est. Representation in its basic form is showing how a type of people see reality, it is showing part reality and how some people's grouping see that part of reality not showing reality itself. For an example of this is could be the struggles of a single parent in the working class, it is telling a story of a character and showing something that exists in the real world but also adds exaggerations and over stereotypes of that class, work role, and what they are struggling with. It is still showing part of our reality but it isn't the whole reality on that subject. There are different types of these representation characters. 
There are:
The arch characters- When there is a long plotline for this character built up over a long period of time. TV's is the most common place for this character but there are films with this type of characters, for example, Harry Potter.
The stereotype character- This character is a single character summing up a stereotype of a single group of people in the whole film. For example, the single parent/ guardian role.
The generic character- This character is representing not a group or opinion but the genre of the film, tv film or any media product.
The stereotype character- This character is a single character summing up a stereotype of a single group of people in the whole film. For example, the single parent/ guardian role.
The generic character- This character is representing not a group or opinion but the genre of the film, tv film or any media product.
My Research For this Essay-
My Research For this Essay-
Bibliography- What information you gained from researching this and how that will help you write your essay?
This is my bibliography of my essay, I struggled to find reliable sources and is something I want to work on and finding what is a reliable source and what isn't. I feel like that was the main issue when it came to researching.
I used the internet primarily, though I did try to find books in the library however our resources are limited, I used google books to find some published resources as I knew that they would 9/10 be a very reliable source. I also linked my music video examples these were to help me explain the video and what I was referring to as they were the videos showing my evidence first hand.
I will say that I found some really helpful sites that showed other people's essays on many different narrative theories I just couldn't cite them as they didn't have enough information for a citation on them. However, I did find a few sites and sources through them like the archive of the New York Times and the helpful YouTube video on narrative theories that I started researching with.
I used the internet primarily, though I did try to find books in the library however our resources are limited, I used google books to find some published resources as I knew that they would 9/10 be a very reliable source. I also linked my music video examples these were to help me explain the video and what I was referring to as they were the videos showing my evidence first hand.
I will say that I found some really helpful sites that showed other people's essays on many different narrative theories I just couldn't cite them as they didn't have enough information for a citation on them. However, I did find a few sites and sources through them like the archive of the New York Times and the helpful YouTube video on narrative theories that I started researching with.
Argyrou, S., n.d. Todorov Theory. [Online]
Available at: https://selinaargyrou.wordpress.com/todorov-theory/
Argyrou, S., n.d. Todorov Theory. [Online]
With this information I used it to get an overall notes on each stage of the Todorov's Equilibrium theory. This link was very helpful for me to start building a structure for that part of the essay. I didn't use just this link as it is a Wordpress page. Overall this link was a helpful start within my research and gave me an idea of how to structure the look of my research for Todorov's theory.
This link is to another blog account with Weebly instead of Blogger or Wordpress, I used this as further research into how to structure the essay. I also wanted to see other examples of the equilibrium theory that people were using. This link was helpful to see how others were linking this theory to music videos, however I recognised that this wasn't an appropriate site to take facts and 'real' information from for my evidence.
This article was an online documentation of historical newspapers, this one covering the trends within music video by the New York Times in 1989. This information was used to show props theory and it not only was super clear to understand but since it is on the official New York times' website it is really reliable. The only thing that would have made it better is if their was an article a little more recent but still seems like one of the best sources.
This link is for a source I was comparing to he equilibrium theory this was proving having a storyline within the music video gives a message to the song and enhances what the creator wanted to give it making a clearer emotional aspect to the song.
This link is for a source I was looking at for research and links to equilibrium theory that they used it have some very helpful information within it explaining all the stages. It may have not the most reliable source but I did find that all of these sources were saying very similar if not the same as I looked into it further. Overall it was a good starting place to get information and an overall idea of what the subject is about.
Available at: http://www.jameswedmore.com/make-your-videos-more-engaging/
This is a link to a webpage to a sight of a independent business worker, this is his blog helping others make more interesting and successful videos. I used this to compare videos and where they are to see if these points had value to them. I think this site isn't the most reliable but it is made by someone who is working and knows what they are taking about proven by his youtube channel and his experience.
This book helped me compare the equilibrium theory to music and what the difference it made to film and music, it also showed me how they are put into context of the music and how equilibrium could be used a little looser around a music video and in film it has to be a little stricter. This helped me show that in music videos can use narrative theory and could bend the rules of it around the message they wanted to portray.
This book helped me compare the equilibrium theory to music and what the difference it made to film and music, it also showed me how they are put into context of the music and how equilibrium could be used a little looser around a music video and in film it has to be a little stricter. This helped me show that in music videos can use narrative theory and could bend the rules of it around the message they wanted to portray.
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