Carol Vernallis theorizes about the functions and meanings of editing in music videos. She discusses four main categories: camera work, editing, narrative, and diegesis. Regarding camera work, she notes that music videos commonly use close-ups of artists and establishing shots of locations. Editing in music videos often breaks continuity rules by changing clothes and settings between shots. The diegesis or world of the video is sometimes revealed gradually, leaving the narrative open-ended and uncompleted to engage viewers.

1. CarolVernallis’ ‘Functions
and meanings of music video
editing’ theory
By Laura Knowles

2. •CarolVernallis is a theorist who in her work, ‘The kindest cut’ explores
how editing in film and in music videos differ from each other.
•She talks about things such as continuity, editing as a whole, meaning,
sound and visuals and their relationships, and the star image.

3. The four main categories that she talks about are camera (including it’s
positing, movements, and framing), editing, narrative and Diegesis (which
refers to the ‘world’ created within the music video).
Camera:
Vernallis suggests that in music videos, close-ups are very common shots
used to show the band/artist or the people playing parts in the music video
and the importance of them and the way that they look.This ties in with
Rickard Dyer’s theory as it demonstrates how the record label want artists to
be looked and to be a big selling point.Vernallis also suggests that
establishing shots are also used very commonly in music videos, which show
the location. For example, this may be used if a video is set in NewYork, as it
is a well known city that people will know as soon as they see it.

4. More on camera:
• She also suggests that in music videos, different shots are mostly cut
to the beat/pace of the song.This therefore brings more attention
to the artist/band as it makes the audience more interested with
what is happening in the video. An example of a music video which
this can be seen in is Adele’s music video for her song ‘Rolling in the
deep’, where shots of glasses on the floor, a performer, and shots
of Adele (the artist) are using in time with the music and to the
bass of the song.
• She also argues that the framing in music videos is very distinctive,
however this depends on the genre of the music.
•

5. Examples:
• An example of a music video which commonly uses
close-ups of the artist is the music video for the
song ‘Stay’ by Rihanna and Mikky Ekko.This music
video shows lots of close-ups of Rihanna’s face
while she is in the bath while looking emotional.
Obviously, here this may have been used to show
the audience the emotion on her face, although it
is also something that is important to Rihanna’s
‘star image’, meaning that her looks are something
that is important to her success (people like to talk
about how she looks and what she’s wearing).This
is also different to the man in the music video, who
isn’t shown as clearly and his face isn’t focused on
as much (portraying that the look of Rihanna is
more important that the look of him).

6. Another example:
• An example of a music video which uses
establishing shots is the music vido for Bastille’s
song ‘Pompeii’.
• This music video uses a variation of these sort of
shots to show the location of the lead singer of
the group (which seems to be an
abandoned/bleak looking city landscape).
• This may have been done to fit in with the genre of
the song (indie pop), as this is also a common
convention of music videos form this particular
genre. (To see more about conventions of this
genre, visit my previous ‘exploring genres and
sub-genres’ blog posts).

7. Editing:
• With regards to editing in music videos, this theorist states that music
videos usually ‘break the rules’ of continuity (unlike what would be seen in
aTV show or a film). For example, bands and artists will usually do things
such as change their clothes multiple times in a music video and include
different settings when they do so, therefore disrupting the rules of
continuity. However, I believe that this is not necessarily done as much in
narrative music videos, as they still have a story to go along with. An
example of a music video which breaks the rules of continuity is Katy
Perry’s music video for her song ‘This is how we do’, as it keeps going to
different shots where the artist is seen in a different outfit and in a
different location, with different people.
• She also states that another recognisable editing technique used in music
videos is jump cuts, as music videos usually go straight form one thing to
the next, while cutting the different frames to the beat/speed of the
song/music.

8. Diegesis:
• This theorist argues that the diegesis is something which is revealed slowly
throughout the music video and it’s story, thus allowing it to develop and
making it more interesting for the audience members. For example, in the
music video for the song ‘Oceans’ by Seafret, it is revealed nearer to the
end of the video that the main character in the music video actually has
super powers, even though the audience members may not necessarily
see it coming.
• She also argues that music videos are also sometimes in a way left
‘uncompleted’, which makes the audience member want to know what
happens next

9. Narrative:
• The narrative is usually a visual response to the song and what the artist/band
wants the meaning to be presented as. For example, a lot of different
meanings can be interpreted from a song, but the artist/band will choose
what story they want to tell.
• She argues that the endings of music videos may not be clear and may make
the audience think more or try and figure out what the meaning was. For
example
• She argues that the narrative within a music video is sometimes disjointed,
therefore causing the audience to pay more attention to the song itself
(which usually happens more commonly in band’s music videos).
• She states that music videos will usually have a theme to the narrative that the
band/artist chooses to portray. For example, the music video for Katy Perry’s
song ‘California gurls’ was obviously done in a way in which it fits with the
lyrics in a fun way, showing some girls in bikinis, fitting with the lyrics ‘Daisy
dukes, bikinis on top’.
•

10. The End.