How useful are ideas about narrative in analysing music videos refer to “Ghost Town” and “Letter To The free”

Music videos can convey a lot more subtle and or powerful messages that other forms of communication can’t. We can understand these messages and signs a lot better, by using narrative theories ideas to analyze music videos, past just the surface signs and styles. 

There are many theories about narrative that could apply to the videos, such as; Claude Levi-Strauss (Binary Oppositions), Tztevan Todorov (Tripartite narrative structure) and Seymour Chatman (Satellites & Kernels). I chose these theories as I felt they were the most relevant to the case studies.

In ‘letter to the free’ the use nice camera work that supports narrative structures such as Freytag’s Pyramid. from beginning ,middle, and end, the camera starts by getting closer to the musicians and singer creating close up shots which are typically used for emphasizing emotion till it passes the climax of the song, and then start panning back out of the prison. this can be interpreted as the journey to freedom out of the prison.

Now relating to Seymond’s theory of satellites and kernels we can understand the important elements behind the music video ‘letter to the free’. The kernels in the letter to the free music videos, I think are subtle but help massively in giving the music video real meaning, and giving the message behind the video, a solid base to really define it. So even though the signs are subtle, they are kernels in my opinion. Examples would be the setting being in a prison, the use of black and white filtering used for the whole video. Since the saying “ seeing in balck and white’ was meant to say a message was seen as only facts, nothing else’. So by using black and white filtering over there music video whilst singing their lyrics about black history and black injustice i think this is a brilliant way to define the message to tell people you can interpret this any other way, this is the truth. And the use of the black box which wasn’t the clearest sign from seeing it the first-time.Viewers could still understand the surface signs of the box transitioning from a prison to an outside pleasant scenery, showing freedom in the meadow. Some examples of satellites in this video would have been the basketball hoop in the background of some of shots, or the shots of the drummer.

Using now Tztevan Todorov (Tripartite narrative structure) that there are clear shows rising of climax or the disturbance of equilibrium and equilibrium. this is shown from the start as the band members are in the car and driving normally through the city whilst sing, with no disturbance till you get further through the song,  the break of equilibrium is shown by the the car swerving left to right in fast short shots, as the band start to act crazier and crazier. This could be interpreted as a tell towards the rapid increase of unemployment through the country, and the upset around the country. The new equilibrium finishes with a wide shot of the band throwing stone into the river. Now i think this is a good way to end the music video, as it symbolizes the youth as a whole and in my opinion shows some binary opposition of the youth against the county, rebelling back to the government who caused so much unemployment.

 There is also evidence of narrative structure in ‘Letter to the free’ From the start of the music video you see a black box floating in a boxed grey room said by the artist to represent “the infinite thing about blackness and blackness can’t be defined in time or space.” and transitions to another scene in the prison as the climax of the video is happening and then transitions to a new setting in a meadow meant to symbolise freedom, the opposite to the prison it began in prison. Therefor new equilibrium.

“Ghost town” and the theory of binary opposition you can see the sides of the good and bad being used and the song itself is about how In the 1980’s, England experienced a recession in the industrial workplace, and left a lot of the country unemployed. so by knowing that, and quoting the lyrics stating

“Why must the youth fight against themselves? 

Government leaving the youth on the shelf’

That we can prove the Specials are pointing out how the british government is the opposition. Even though the video doesn’t show this, it’s a point to be considered as a deeper meaning in the video.