2. This Narrative Music Video has a single
storyline running through it that is related to
the lyrics of the song. In this case, the story is
based around a young female actress, not the
artist themself. The three images on the left
emphasise the idea of narrative music videos
having a stronger focus on locations and mis-
en-scene.
All three images are long shots in order to give
the audience a wider view of the background
and thus get more of an insight into the story’s
settings. Also, the wide shot allows the
audience to gain a better understanding of and
relate to the main character’s feelings. The
story follows a female struggling with an
addiction to a ‘Class A drug’.
The Artist explained that the songwriting
process came from an experience he had when
he did a gig at a homeless shelter. This
predominantly was the inspiration behind the
song and the music video incorporated this
also. This is an ‘Illustration narrative genre’ as
the narrative closely reflects the lyrical
content of the song.
3. Much like most performance based videos,
narrative music videos also tend to use a
variety close up shots. However in narrative
based videos, these are used to reinforce the
storytelling element and connect the audience
with the main character. The close up shows
clearly the expression and feeling of the
individual and helps the story to make more
sense. Whereas, performance music videos
tend to use close ups to simply highlight the lip
synching of the artist and illustrate them as
the ‘star’.
These close-up shots help the audience to
understand the theme of the story and
consider how the character is feeling at
different points in the video. Despite them
being close-up, the frame still shows some of
the background and mis-en-scene and thus still
emphasises the narrative and the relationship
of the location to the character. For instance,
the top shot implies her feelings for the
outdoors park location as positive through her
side profile smile. There is no lip-synching as it
allows the story to be much more realistic,
relatable and engaging for audiences.
