In media terms, the narrative is the coherence and organisation given to a series of facts, or in my case, a series of events in my music video. I am going to cover the theories of Vladimir Propp and Roland Barthes and explain how they can be applied to my coursework.
Vladimir Propp based his theory on old folk stories; when compared to old folk stories and modern texts, it suprisingly still valid. Propp's theory states that there should be a hero, a villain, a donor, a princess, a helper, a dispatcher and a false hero in the text created. Not every text has each of these characters. In my music video, the characters I have aren't very stereotypical. The helper stereotypically comes in the form of a sidekick and the dispatcher stereotypically comes in the form of the princess' dad. There is a helper who is also a dispatcher and this is the sporting coach. He is helping Zak through his struggle to better himself on the race track. He is the dispatcher also because he has set these tasks for Zak, although this informations isn't clearly given. Eventually in my music video, the coach restores the equilibrium - which in terms of Propp's narrative theory - is the job of the helper.
Also in my music video, I have a hero and a villain. According to Propp's theory, it is okay for one character to be 2 types of people, but normally they are separate characters. In my video, Zak is both the hero and the villain. It seems he is having an internal battle with himself which is making him fail. The hero and villain are supposed to be 2 different parts of Zak's mind, therefore causing the conflict until he can resolve it... which he eventually does which leads to his success.
The other theory I can apply to my coursework is Roland Barthes' codes. These codes are: Cultural, Action, Semic, Enigma and Symbolic. Cultural (also known as referential) makes the text more sense to the target audience due to their cultural awareness. Action is where the events in the text is something the audience knows and doesn't need explaining. Semic is where the audience recognises something through connotations. Enigma (otherwise known as hermeneutic) is where there is a mystery within the text, clues are dropped but nothing is clear. Symbolic is something in a text that symbolises a more abstract concept.
In my music video, I have used 2 of the 5 codes: action and referential. For the action code, I normally used close ups to display emotion. But at the beginning of my video, I have used close ups to show Zak putting on a sweatband, tieing up his shoes, grabbing an energy drink and wearing typical sports clothes. It is quite clear that he is going for some excersize and no explanation is needed to get that point across to the audience. During the first half of my video, there are long shots showing the equilibrium, where he's going at a steady pace, but as his stamina decreases the shots I have used become closer and closer. They have gone from long shots to mid shots to close ups. There are mid shots of the coach displaying a nagging temper - this is usual behaviour of a coach and will be recognised by the audience. I have also used an over-the-shoulder shot of the coach and Zak to show the coach's disgruntlement at Zak's failure. As Zak starts to give up, there are close ups of his face showing no motivation and it's easy to see for the audience that he's lost the will to carry on.
The other code I have used is referential (or cultural). This code and concept wasn't intentional at the time of production but seemed quite fitting. I've used cultural because I have produced it around the time of the build up to the 2012 Olympics. If it was a real music video, it would add tot he country's hype of the olympics. So this concept is relevant both historically and culturally.
In terms of narrative range, I would say my coursework piece has an unrestricted narrative. This is because near enough all information given and it is quite self explanitory.
In conclusion, I would say it is quite easy to apply a narrative theory to your own work, whether it be Vladimir Propp's or Claude Levi-Strauss' because even unintentionally, these codes are secure in our brains due to our upbringing and our culture, we've seen it as we've grown up and now conveniently already have the knowledge to apply it to our coursework.
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