How useful are ideas about narrative in analysing music videos? Refer to the close study products ‘Ghost Town’ and ‘Letter to the Free’ in your answer. (9 marks)

The ideas of narrative are better at analysing Ghost town over Letter to the Free but both contain prominent Narrative theories. Ghost town use a sequential narrative structure which holds up Todorov’s Tripartite theory. On the other hand Letter to the free use very few narrative elements in the music video and relies on the audio portion to present the message but it does use kernels and satellites to aid the prominent points that need to be presented.

In Ghost Town the car is used as the main driving force for the video with equalibrium being constructed with close up shots of the band in the car and then using wider and wider angle shots as the song reaches its climax and then the band leaves the car and the industrial city to escape and resolve the video . This sequential “escape” shows the videos aim of he need escape society in the 1980’s and possibly even comment on Margret Thatcher as Prime Minister at the time. By using Todorov’s tripartite narrative structure it forces the viewer into a certain preferred reading that the band wants to portray. Furthermore on Freytags’s Pyramid the climax is near/at the end inciting a incident and by delaying it it allows the viewer to craft their own prediction, of the climax, for longer. This creates contrast with the ending that the band intend making the viewer reconsider and think about the issue that is offered.

Common’s Letter to the Free is a juxtaposition compared to the weight the narrative structure holds in Ghost Town. It uses very few major narrative structures or theories but relies on the more subtle theories like Seymour Chatman’s Kernels and Satellites and Roland Barthes Proairetic and Hermenuetic codes. Both these theories can only aid a narrative but struggle to create one on their own. This means that the narrative of the video has to be in the music therefore showing that sometimes narrative ideas can struggle to analyse music videos. Common use a jail as his setting for the video which forms the main kernel of the video aiding Commons message of the mass incarceration of black people as a new form of slavery. He uses his band members as satellites throughout the video within the prison , these don’t aid the narrative but give context to the message. The inclusion of a predominantly black cast gives the video the view that they are the people Common sings about and are trying to fight from inside the system. He does this with few proairetic codes and almost all hermenuetic giving the viewer an easier time to link what is being said in the music to the narrative of the video without over stimulating them with action. This furthermore agrees with the suggestion that it is the song carrying the narrative.

Overall there are always narrative structures and theories in music videos but some are more prominent then others as not all theories are used Therefore narrative is always useful when analysing music videos but is limited to how much of the message it can carry. Although it will always either drive or aid the message of the video.