Narrative Theory

The narrative theory basis around the idea that what we experience when we 'read' a story is that we understand particular sets of constructions and conventions and it's very crucial to understand how these constructions have been put together.

Andrew Goodwin (1992) believes that in a music video 'narrative relations are highly complex" and the meaning of the media text can be influenced by the individual audio-viewers musical taste to sophisticated intertexuality that uses multidiscrusive phenomena of Western culture.Many music videos he argues it overtaken by advertising references, film pastiche and reinforce the postmodern 're-use' tradition. According to this view of narrative theory in my music video I have heavily influenced by my own ideology of what the song I have chosen should represent with it's lyrics so therefore whoever my audience maybe will have similar beliefs to  my own.

The narrative of something is the structure of the story and Tim O'Sullivan (1998) argues that all media texts tell us some sort of story such in music videos through detailed mediation. These media texts offer a way of telling stories about ourselves- not usually our own personal stories, but the story of us as a culture or a set of different cultures. 

 However another theorists interested in narrative theory Carlson (1999) argues that music videos as a whole fall into two groups: performance and conceptual. He suggests that when a music clip is mostly showing the artist singing/dancing it is a performance clip. A conceptual clip however shows something during it's duration, often with an artistic ambitions it falls into this group. As my music video doesn't involve singing or dancing my clip apparently to this theory is a conceptual music video.

Lastly Kate Domaille (2001) suggests that every story ever told can be fitted into eight different narrative types. She argues that each of these narrative types have a different source.  







The Russian theorist Vladimir Propp (1928) 

Research of ecstacy

Extreme mood lift, increase in energy, increase in social outgoingness, acuteness in senses (hearing, touch, sight are much more sensitive than sober). Feelings of love and comfort are more apparent as a MDMA user will explore these emotions more with people around them.

Dehydration, nausea, and jaw clenching are a few negative side effects.
 

- These are some of the side effects I found for MDMA on the internet, I felt this was important to know as I want to make my actress look very realistic when it comes to taking the tablet and expierencing the good and bad side effects of this addictive drug.

First edit

Filming day 2 - 10th December

Unfortunatley Ellie couldn't film with me on Sunday at her house so we decided to film the next day (Monday 10th). As Hull City Centre was more accesible this day I decided I wanted to do a few shots in town instead of filming an argument with her mother as she was busy. This shoot is now planned for the 16th of December.

Locations I used-  back of station, Queens gardens, station itself and on a stagecoach bus.

Props- parker jacket, fingerless gloves, hat, cigareetes, lighter, paracetamol, money, red lipstick and eyeliner.

Actors- Jessica and Ellie

Yesterday I used a range of different shots in my chosen locations such as medium close ups, point of view shots and long shots. I believe to make a good and exciting music video you have to keep the audience entertained and changing shots frequently is the way to do it.
Ellie once again was fantasticly paitent with re shooting a lot of the shots to make sure they were good enough for my first edit. Problems we faced included the cold although we was both wrapped up and prepared for it.
Another problem was that the shot I wanted on the bus of Ellie (legs on the seat) I believe isn't good enough as it's too light so therefore I'll reshoot this at a later date. Overall though I felt the day went very well as we had all our props ready the day before.

 <-- This is Jessica Parker, a homless woman I paid a small amount to be in my video. Her part in my music video was to be a dealer for Ellie and exchange extacy (paracetomal) for money. I think this shot went well as the location (back of station) created a lot of natural light. Jessica was very proffesional and played her part well. She also gave consent for me to publish images and footage of her on the internet.

The clothing she wore also helped to create the illusion of her being a stereotypical dealer with the hoodie, hat and can in her hand.

 

Next planned shoot - 9/12/2012

The next shoot I am planning will be this Sunday. I am planning to get out of this shoot atleast 10 more seconds of footage at Ellies home of her arguining with her mother other the table.
Then I plan to get some footage of ellie travelling on a bus into the city centre where the main storyline shall begin. Today (07/12/2012) I have created more model release forms as her mother will have to sign one. Hopefully the shoot will go smoothly with no complications although I will go ahead no matter the weather.

This Personal Release form i have made is a simple contract that gives me legal permission as a filmmaker to use the footage of the actor in my film, to edit it and to publish the video online.

Filming day 1 - 24th November

 The location of my introduction to my chosen song I decided was to be a bedroom and a bathroom in my performers house. The introduction of my song I decided to include:
-  extreme close up of alarm going off
- Ellie waking up close up
- close up of feet getting out of bed
- close up of feet walking across the screen
- medium close up of Ellie taking off her makeup
- Ellie then reapplying makeup close up
 
To make my performer look like she'd had a rough night of crying I applied eyeliner, eye shadow and mascarar and then smudged. Below this image is the makeup I used.

The mise-en-scene of this music video epically when in the characters room had to be very specific. When filming the first shot of an alarm going off I decided to place some books next to it to connote that she's very knowledgeable and probably from a middle class family.

This is a shot the reapplying makeup shot I used, this is one of my favourite shots as it's very clear and by the use of Ellies stable hand it looks like she's looking in a mirror.

I dressed Ellie in matching pjamas for my first shoot as in the video she's waking up.

I used Ellies bathroom for the shot of her wiping her makeup off.

What went well

The day ran smoothly as I made sure my video camera was fully charged so it didn't create any filming problems.

The lighting of the shots are very good as all my shots are very clear and crisp.

I was very organised and I knew what probs I needed so in advance I made sure I had them.

 

Things to improve

I took a while to get to grips with using a trypod which took up a bit of time.

The makeup I used on Ellie needs to better presented and less rushed.

Make sure I have all my props in advance as I couldn't find an old fashioned looking alarm clock as I had to use a digital one instead.

 

 

 

Exporting my video to the editing suite

Today was the first time I used an editing suite in college as I had my first 1 hour of footage to place on the system. The process took a while as I had to create my own folder on the  suite and then I had to individually  rename each clip that I had imported to make it organised and easier to edit. I then deleted clips I felt were to short to cut and edit such as clips under 3-4 seconds although this wasn't a problem as I had many shots of the same thing to avoid having to reshoot.