Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to narrative

A music video usually has a fragmented narrative which shows a mixture of narrative and performance in order to relate to the song and reveal something to the viewers. As Tim O Sullivan states "media texts offer a way of telling stories as it allows us to read things in a particular way."  For my coursework project I have chosen to discuss my music video in relation to narrative which is Pixie Lotts "Its all about tonight" and relate to various theorists such as Propp, Michael Shore, Andrew Goodwin and Sven Carlsson which we both challenged and adhered.

Propp states that there is generally a hegemony narrative during a media text in which typical characters are shown such as the protagonist, antagonist and damsel in distress. However, during our video a key concept which we went with was empowerment of women whilst getting rid of the past and getting over an ex boyfriend and focusing solely on having a good time with a night out. As of this we decided to challenge this convention and go against the stereotypical "princess" idea showing a strong confident women for the viewers to be able to relate to the narrative by feeling positive about themselves after a breakup. The narrative is a feeling felt by most women which are our target audience meaning the narrative of the video will appeal to them making them want to watch the video. The artist is shown centrally within every shot to show her importance and stength to go against Propps idealogy as she is shown to be very femine and fashionable yet a strong confident women with her mannerisms. Steriotypically a woman is seen as weak but we wanted to go against this convention specifically for women to feel empowered.

Michael Shore states that often narratives are "surface without substance" and don't go into alot of depth which we felt fit with our genre of video which was pop/dance as it needed to have an easy to understand narrative so that the viewers could understand it easily and be able to dance or get ready for a night out while watching it (its main purpose when to be enjoyed.) The storyline of the video is easy to follow and straight forward involving a girl (the main artist) having a party night out with her friends after a breakup. The narrative is extremely upbeat and fun to fit in key with the lyrics and music which is a recycled style as its a convention within a narrative which is often used as we as a western culture associate parties and going as very positive aspects of life. Which leads to Andrew Goodwins theory that videos "are post modern and have been done before" as the audience expect certain things within a music video because of our society within the western culture. These aspects include a female artist seen within the male gaze and provocatively throughout each video which we decided to portray within our video by using an attractive female in appropriate clothing such as a swimsuit as the main singer in order to be seen as an attraction towards the viewer and be something they are familiar with.

Sven Carlsson states that each media clip involves performance or narrative. Our video "It's All About Tonight" offers a mixture of both performance and narrative together within alot of fragmented shots put together to the beat of the music. We offer a performace by having a wide range of locations were the artist is always centrally focused such as in a bar, a sports car and hot tub in which she associates with the viewer through actions such as pointing to the camera and nodding her head at the appropriate times of the video. The artist offers song performance with lip syncing and facial expressions aswell as dance performance by dancing with her backing dancers within the various locations. The actress herself shows a modern mythic emboliment of a confident, strong and empowered persona who is getting over a breakup for the viewers to be able to relate too. The narrative is easy to follow and makes the video relate to society and the artist by being a common narrative of a party setting and the events happening throughout.