Inter-textual References

Narrative Structure

The narrative structure to my music video for the song Tidal Wave is closed in its structure. The main feature of a closed structure is that it has a satisfactory ending in which the narrative is tied up and finished without any major overhanging questions. The ending to my music video features the protagonist and heroine walking off together with the mask which was limiting them from being with each other, like they are in the bedside photo and flashback, being discarded at the top of the carpark. This is a satisfactory ending. My narrative is also linear, most linear stories don’t feature flashbacks, however mine only contains a couple of these which are used to establish the relationship between the two characters.

My video features two character types, a protagonist and a heroine. The protagonist who was played by myself, is the focus of the narrative in that it is centred on his pursuit of the heroine, who was played by Katy. The heroine also acts as a MacGuffin as she is a plot device who is a form of a motivator for the protagonist to pursue. There is little explanation given to the viewer on why she is important, yet she continues to drive the story forward. It could be argued that the mask is also a MacGuffin as that is an object that the protagonist also pursues as he wasn’t to find out who is underneath it, it also left at various locations to inspire the protagonist to continue his journey which eventually culminates in him finally catching the heroine.

Flashbacks and foreshadowing are used in my video to establish the character’s relationship. The first flashbacks show the heroine putting the mask on. This in unison with the picture of the two characters on the bedside table show the viewer that they know each other and that the protagonist isn’t just pursuing some random masked girl for the sake of it. The last flashback of the video is of the characters standing next to each other, the shot cuts, it returns to the two with the protagonist looking frustrated at the heroine. The shot cuts again and then back to the scene with the protagonist standing alone. This represents how the protagonist lost his love through his anger and connotes on how love is full of obstacles that must be overcome for there to be a happily ever after. The photo on the bedside shows how the characters had a good relationship before this moment, making the viewers happy when they finally reunite and rekindle their love. Flashbacks are often used to show personal growth or the loss of something, mine are used to do exactly with this, the loss of love between the two characters and then eventually the growth of their love.

Todorov has the most famous theory when it comes to describing narratives of medias. His theory on equilibriums has 3 distinct stages, which is partnered with a 5 stages of how the narrative progresses. His theory states; that a media text begins with a “state of equilibrium”. This means that everything appears to be balance and calm (the bedroom scene before the protagonist drinks the spiked drink). This is followed by a disruption, also known as a disequilibrium (protagonist drinking spiked drink and waking up at the market whilst tripping). Finally, a new equilibrium is produced by the end of the narrative by a character overcoming the disturbance and restoring the balance (protagonist and heroine reuniting and walking off in unison). From this it is easy to see that my narrative follows this structure. The stages and how they fit into my narrative are, the equilibrium is shown in detail so that the disruption is obvious (seen through the extended bedroom scene where everything is normal until the drug is taken). There is a disruption to this (the beginning of the trip, seen especially through the effects placed on the protagonist. There is then a recognition that a disruption has occurred (protagonist looking down at his hands in the market and saying “What the f***”). This is followed by an attempt to restore balance and repair the damage that was caused by the disruption (the protagonist following the heroine to try and discover what has happened). And finally a new equilibrium is achieved (the restoration of balance with the two characters being reunited and the protagonist finally gaining control again and no longer tripping)

Mindmap of initial ideas

Moodboard

Storyboard

 SHOT TYPE 1- Shot from behind Katy's shoulder- wide angle, can see cody in bed and glass on table next to bed. 2- close up shot of glass and 'tab' being put into glass, also includes shot from above glass. 3- close up shot of cody's hand taking glass. 4-shows cody drinking from glass, putting it back and then looking at his hands. this is a mid shot. 5- close up of window frame.
CAMERA MOVEMENT 1- Possible zoom in on glass/katy- cut or pan to Cody. 2- static shot. 3- static shot. 4- Pan out to show cody as well as the glass. close up to more of a mid shot. 5- shot zooms to become a close up.
DIALOGUE 1-5  No dialogue.
NON- DIEGETIC SOUND 1-5 the only sound present is the soundtrack.
LIGHTING 1-5 natural lighting. 

SHOT TYPE 1- Mid shot- shows cody's upper body after panning out from square light (close up.) 2- mid shot of both characters. 3- long shot-shows both characters in full and their surroundings. 4- mid shot. 5- zoom in- becomes a close up. 

CAMERA MOVEMENT  1 -starts with pan out. then becomes mid shot (static.) 2 - static. 3- static with several cuts. 4- static mid shot. 5- zoom.
DIALOGUE 1-5  no dialogue - cody says 'What the F***' under his breath.
NON- DIEGETIC SOUND 1-5 the only sound present is the sound track.

LIGHTING- 1-5 The lighting present is mainly natural.

 SHOT TYPE 1- close up to mid shot. 2- long shot - shows mostly background. 3- more of a mid shot. 4- same as shot 2. 5- mid shot 6- mid shot to close up (zoom.)

CAMERA MOVEMENT 1- zoom. 2-static. 3- static 4-static. 5 static. 6- zoom 
DIALOGUE 1-5 no dialogue present.
NON- DIEGETIC SOUND 1-5 the only sound present is the sound track.

LIGHTING- 1-5 The lighting present is mainly natural

SHOT TYPE 1- fairly long shot, changing angles with cuts. 2 same as 1. 3- long shot of door frame. 4- same as shot 2/3. 5- mid shot of door/cody.

CAMERA MOVEMENT 1- tracking shot. 2-5 static shots.
DIALOGUE 1-5 no dialogue present.
NON- DIEGETIC SOUND 1-5 the only sound present is the sound track.

LIGHTING 1-5 The lighting present is mainly natural

SHOT TYPE 1-4- mid shots. taken @ same angle etc. 5-long shot.

CAMERA MOVEMENT 1-4 stationary shots. 5- tracking long/wide shot. 
DIALOGUE 1-5 no dialogue present.
NON- DIEGETIC SOUND 1-5 the only sound present is the sound track.

LIGHTING 1-5 The lighting present is mainly natural

SHOT TYPE 1- long shot 2 mid shot- can see cody's top half of body. 3- long shot 4- mid shot 5- close up of mask. 

CAMERA MOVEMENT  1-5 camera is stationery.
DIALOGUE 1-5 no dialogue present.
NON- DIEGETIC SOUND 1-5 the only sound present is the sound track.

LIGHTING 1-5 The lighting present is mainly natural
(SHOT 6 IS A 'FLASHBACK WHICH USES VARIOUS SHOTS FROM THROUGHOUT THE VIDEO.)

Pitch

A love story about a protagonist who pursues a masked heroine through Norwich culminating in him discovering her true identity at the end.

Annotated Lyrics

Artist Permission

Shooting Schedule

Alice concluded a shooting schedule for our group, which lists all the shots our music video needs in the order we film them in. All of the shooting days require the same actors, crew, props, costumes and transport. This is because our music video only involves 2 actors (2 members of our group) and the events within it happen in one day, so the actors are wearing the same costumes for every shooting schedule.

Prop List · SLR Camera · Tripod · Mask For the final shooting day (Additional): · Photo Frame · Photo of the two actors (for the photo frame) · Glass of water · Drug (Beroca vitamin sup.) Despite that our prop list is very short, it means that there is less to remember when it comes to shooting the footage. I like it how our idea for our music video is creative and unique, yet it only displays the use of one prop – the mask – which behold significance in the video.

The last shooting day requires 4 additional props as it is when we are filming the introduction of our music video/narrative. Because the setting of this is based in a house, it is easy to access a photo frame, glass of water and a drug. The picture for the photo frame can be printed off at our school by connecting the mobile to a computer using a USB cable. Therefore, all of our props are essential to create the narrative, yet they are easy to access. Our group was also planning to use a GoPro camera to film some hand-held shots, as we thought these would add realism to our music video so the audience can see from the actors’ perspectives. We experimented with Katy’s tripod but the footage was blurry and lacked good quality. Therefore, we decided not to use a GoPro for our video.

Shooting day 1 Location: Market Place, Norwich Date : - Start/end times: - Transport: I can easily access a bus to Norwich due to frequent bus timetable and a bus pass. Katy and Ben can either get a bus or a lift to the city and Cody can cycle into the centre. Actors Required: Cody and Katy Crew required: Ben and Alice Equipment needed: SLR Camera, Tripod Costume, Set dressing: Our actors are required to wear all black. The set does not to be decorated as we are filming the actors walking through and around the Norwich market. Shot numbers (from storyboards):

Shooting day 2 Location: The white word building and the top floor of St Andrews car park, both in Norwich Date : - Start/end times: - Transport: Bus, car lifts and cycling (Cody) Actors Required: Cody and Katy Crew required: Ben and Alice Equipment needed: SLR Camera, Tripod Costume, Set dressing: Our actors are required to wear all black. The set does not need to be decorated as we are filming in a public area. Shot numbers (from storyboards): - Notes (things to remember): This is the time to film shots that have different angles e.g. high angle shot, close up

Shooting day 3 Location: St Andrews car park, Norwich (and the Norwich market to film transition shots) Date : - Start/end times: - Transport: Bus, car lifts and cycling (Cody) Actors Required: Cody and Katy Crew required: Ben and Alice Equipment needed: SLR Camera, Tripod Costume, Set dressing: Our actors are required to wear all black. The set does not need to be decorated as we are filming in a public area. Shot numbers (from storyboards): - Notes (things to remember): Consider the possible reflection of the camera being shown on the door (whilst filming the shot of Cody opening the door), and give plenty of time for filming this scene as time will be wasted waiting for people to walk through the camera shots.

Shooting day 4 Location: Ben’s house, Poringland Date : November 9th Start/end times: 3.30 – 4.00 Transport: Bus, car lifts and cycling (Cody) Actors Required: Cody and Katy Crew required: Ben – Alice is not required for this scene as Ben knows how to use her camera and it will take less than 30 minutes to film. Poringland is a long car journey from where Alice lives. Equipment needed: SLR Camera, Tripod (as well as the additional props) Costume, Set dressing: Our actors are required to wear all black. More consideration needs to be taken with the set than the other shooting days because it is inside a bedroom – therefore, it is important that the bedroom suits the character it belongs to.

Costumes

Actors

ACTORS When it came to choosing who we wanted to act in our video, we decided to keep the actors in our group as we thought this would be easier as we knew, as a group, what we wanted to achieve, so instead of having to relay our ideas to other people who may not understand the kind of things we wanted do with our video, we decided to use myself and Cody for the main actors for our video. In a similar sense, we decided not to ask people to be extras for our video as all the locations we are using are city centre locations that are always highly populated with people which works well with the distorting concept of our video. We chose to cast people of our age in the video is essentially about two teenagers, ones who is fixated on the thought of being in love with a certain girl, who may be a figure of his imagination.

MALE CHARACTER Our male character is a seemingly secretive and closed off person. Cody can easily achieve this, with his costume; it’s extremely easy to create the representations we wanted. Cody isn’t a drama student which we thought, for both characters, could cause issues, but we realised our roles are simple enough that it will be easy to create the images we wanted to, regardless of whether we are drama students.

FEMALE CHARACTER I am taking the role of the female character. This is a fairly simple role, and as I'm not a drama student, it is easy for me to carry out. Our female character is a very illusive and, in a sense, mysterious character in that we, as the audience don't know if she actually exists. Although, I’m 17 and Cody is 18, we felt this would fit perfectly with what we were trying to achieve with our portrayal of our characters, as like many teenagers, we are showing them to be extremely closed off and secretive people who are extremely susceptible to ‘love’ even when it doesn’t really exist.

Locations

Song Possibilities / Strengths & Weaknesses

When deciding our song that we would create a music video for, we created a web chart that measured our shortlist of songs on their; broadness of genre, distinctive lyrics, sound recording quality, distinct beat, use of different sections/chapters, and changes in dynamics/intensity.

We came up with a list of 4 songs;

19 again - Shiners
Tidal wave - Tempesst (NEW chosen song)
Sometimes - Family friends
If the birds wish to fly, let them fly - Corey Bowen (our chosen song, until he deleted all copies of it from the internet and shut down all of his social media pages without explanation)

Each song had strengths and weaknesses to them and we decided in the end to go with Corey Bowens song.




Strengths
- Distinct lyric "You make me feel 19 again"
- Professional recording quality
- Change in intensity, although not for very long

Weaknesses
- Whole song is one chapter, no significant changes, makes it hard to introduce new elements into the music video.
-Beat is good but not very distinct, hard to find a place to cut on.
-Not a broad genre






Strengths
- Unique genre and sound, very psychedelic.
- Professional high recording quality.
- Distinct lyric "Riding on a tidal wave, floating in from out of space"
- Different chapters, song intensity slows at a later stage in the song which could be used to progress the music video, it then picks up intensity again as the guitar rifts begin, this also acts as a different chapter, along with the chorus the song has 4 different chapters.

Weaknesses
- Hard to find a distinct beat which could be cut on.







Strengths
- Distinct part of beat which could be used effectively for cutting.
-Style of song changes throughout, different sections are very useful for adding in new elements.
- Professional recording quality.
- Hybrid of genres, more able to be creative with ideas

Weakness
- Lack of a distinct lyric
- Hard to make a music video for, not much to focus on and pick out from the song.







Strengths
-Distinct lyric, "If the birds wish to fly, you should let them fly"
-Changes in the dynamic of the song, easy to identify chapters. One of the reasons we chose this song is that it has many changes in the dynamic which help to create chapters and this makes it easier to introduce new elements to the music video.
- Not the most distinct beat I have ever heard but there is a part of it which will work well to cut to.
- Most hybrid genre out of the shortlist, mixes indie/rock/psychedelic & even a bit of electronic into one.
- Professional recording quality

Weaknesses
- Could possibly have more lyrics to help create the video around.

Test post

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