I am going to discuss theories of narrative in relation to my advanced portfolio. This was a music video for The Pussycat Dolls pop song, "Hate This Part". We started off by analyzing and investigating real media texts, this was to ensure that we had a good grasp of what conventions are used within the power ballad. I began by creating a Goodwin analysis of Ciara's video "Taking back my love", as it clearly portrays a relationship breaking down and for us a pair to capture this, it is important to examine real media texts. We decided that we were going to illustrate a relationship breaking down within our video as we wanted to create a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, which is one of the key features considered by Goodwin.
After analyzing the lyrics of the song, we interpreted that the song was based on a female who is looking back at her relationship and sensing a break up due to continuous arguing, this enforced us to create a power ballad. We crafted a narrative about a couple who are going through a tough time and she is currently looking back at the hard times.
We decided to create a narrative which everyone from a variety of age groups would be able to relate to. Many people can understand and relate to a rough patch within a relationship, therefore this narrative was seen to attract a wide range of an audience.
The stylistic influences for our narrative story line have come from looking at scenes from films such as, "The Devil Wears Prada, The Break Up and The Holiday". As well as watching similar music videos which showcase a similar narrative device such as, "Taking Back My Love - Enrique Iglesias ft Ciara and Watcha Say - Jason Derulo." Additionally, we chose to incorporate intertextual references to our narrative which is identified in our first narrative scene, that is, the scene whereby the couple are depicted sitting apart from each other in the car. This shot was taken from Nicole Scherzinger's video "Don't Hold Your Breath". The shot draws attention to the vulnerability and emotion that is being heightened due to the artist coming to the realisation that her relationship is coming to an end. This shot allows the artist's fans to view the singer in a different light, seeing her at her more vulnerable state, allowing her fans to sympathise with her. This is predominantly the reason behind why I decided to create this shot based on the original used in Scherzinger's "Don't Hold Your Breath" video as I wanted my artist's fans and audiences to be able to empathise and sympathise with her and to be able to heighten the emotion that is being transferred through the scenes in the video.
In terms of our narrative structure we decided to follow Todorov's five stage model theory. Todorov argues that "narrative involves a transformation. The characters or situations are transformed through the progress of disruption." Todorov's five stage model stands in the order of an 'equilibrium, disruption, recognition of disruption, attempting to repair disruption and a return of new equilibrium,' as we wanted our audience to have a clear understanding about what the narrative was about, by clearly understanding who was the hero, for instance the artist for leaving her partner and how the break up of the relationship became the 'return of a new equilibrium.' Although this theory is more conventional and fits mainly films it is still appropriate and fitting for music videos which follow a narrative story line also.
Clearly, it is crucial for artists to have a defined target audience and our intended target audience were those aged between 13-29+ as the narrative and performance concept of this video relates to those of this age group. Additionally, we paid close attention to the uses and gratification theory making sure that our video consisted of a sense of identity, social interaction, entertaining and would be relatable to our target audience. Critical theorist, Hall explained how most texts can be read in different ways but there is generally a preferred or dominant reading that the producers of a message, that is, I intend when they create that message or story line. Hall also explained that the most popular media content will have a preferred reading that reinforces the status quo.
We ensured that our video related and was entertaining for our age's group for the reason that this age range will most likely be familiar with the narrative story line and have sympathy for the breakdown of a relationship as everyone will have experienced this at some point during their lifetime. It will be aimed at the female audiences not only because the main protagonist/singer is female but because girls are more caring and understanding to the sensitive and emotional story line which the song narrates - a breakdown of a relationship and knowing it is coming to an end. Therefore it is more likely to engage a female audience.
Additionally, because the song is a power ballad with the chorus becoming more up-tempo we came to the decision that the narrative story line might relate to the older teens and young adults, i.e 17-25 whilst the performance concept being a choreographed dance scene would appeal to the younger generation, i.e 13-17 as they will find this more enjoyable and fun to watch. Therefore we wanted to add a narrative and performance concept to our music video to ensure that we engaged both the younger and older generation and provide them with exactly what they would like to see in a music video aimed at their age group.
However, a problem I may be faced with is the fact that because sections of the song are fairly slow and the beat of the song isn’t very fast paced, I would have needed to ensure that the shots which depict the emotion between the girlfriend and her boyfriend come across as being interesting rather than dull and boring, resulting in losing my audiences attention. My aim was clearly being able to engage the audience’s full attention with an aspect of exploring the emotional sides of the song as well as incorporating a fun and enjoyable performance to watch as well and I would like to think I pulled this off well.
What is more, it that without realising it we kept with the heterosexual message which was encoded into our text, i.e the boy and girl norm. We depicted in our video how as the relationship wasn’t working out, the woman was powerful enough to leave the man and even though she was isolated from leaving her boyfriend she was comforted by the crowd. Nonetheless, feminist theorists may suggest that the artist is only happy when being with her boyfriend, whilst others could say that she is the strong one as she pushed her boyfriend away.
All in all, I believe that in my advanced portfolio, we created a music video consisting of a clear and fluent story line that could be decoded easily, illustrating a girl who was strong enough when making the tough decision to end her relationship due to constant confrontations, as well as highlighting the emotion and intensity of the artist seeing her at her most vulnerable state as she came to the realisation that her relationship was over. I am certainly pleased with the final product and it could not have been achieved without Khushel or me and our own creative decisions and knowledge of real media texts fitting the genre of R&B.
