Analysing narrative in Music Videos - Man Down, Rhianna

The video I am analysing is by popular RnB artist Rhianna for her latest single 'Man Down.' I will be specifically be focusing on the narrative theories by Todorov and Propps.

Firstly, this video certainly does not follow Todorovs typical narative structure, but rearanges the different stages which is quite unconventional and rare in a music video. By this I mean the video starts with the reperation, where we see Rhianna shoot someone. This is done because it imediately shocks the audience, leaving them wondering why she would do it and making them want to watch the rest of the video to find out.

After that stages one to three continue as normal. Meaning the normal state of equilibrium where the performer seems happy and is going through a normal day, to a distruption of the equilibrium where the audience see Rhianna being followed and then subdued by a person she met in a club, who is also the man who is shot by her in the beggining, and thena recognition that the disorder has occured when the audience realised that the man must have rapped her. Finally, the audience doesn't see the new equilibrium as frankly the video is long enough to add this. In my opinion this is a very intelligent way of rearanging Todorov's narrative model as I believe it adds to the emotional impact of Rihanna shooting the man and the man raping her because at first the audience may have felt negatively about rihanna shooting that man, like she was the antagonist, but after the audience see what happen they may feel guilty or upset feeling that way before watching the whole video.

In this video I can only identify two of propps characters. Rhianna is the hero and the rapist is the villain. Altough again as we see Rhianna shoot the man at the beggining for no apparent reason the audience may suspect her to be the villain. Again, this shows how intelligent this video is as it makes the audience think twice about labbeling the characters without seeing everything first.

There are is no intertextuality in this video.

Time is represented in a way in which different times of the day represent different things. For instance when we see Rhianna during the day time she is happy and positive, as day time is usually perceived as safe and when people feel happy, wheras we see Rhianna in the nightclub and being abused at night by the rapist. This could be because night time is often ascociated with partys and danger, especially for women.

Textual analysis of a music video-Outkast (Hey Ya)

The video I have chose to analyse is Hey Ya! by OutKast. The video was directed by Bryan Barber who has directed many RnB and hip hop videos by various artists. The genre that this music belongs to is Hip Hop. Some of the characteristics of hip hop are shown in the video, for example you can see a number of attractive girls, which you can see in many hip hop videos made by male artists.

In the video their are a number of clear examples of how the lyrics are directly related to the visuals. For example, around half way into the videos you can hear the lyrics "shake it (shake it) like a Polaroid picture." The effect of this is that it engages the reader as they might copy the actions of the people in the song. It also means that people will enjoy the video more because it is fun and upbeat, meaning the song will be successful.

You can also see the relationship between the music and the visuals. For instance during the song, when the artist isn't singing and the music temporarily stops, the artists in the band also stop moving and their is just a still camera shot. When the music starts again the camera then rapidly shows different camera shots to represent the upbeat nature of the song. This makes the video more enjoyable as a whole.

Also, when their are solo instrumental bits, for example the keyboard solo, we are shown this in a separate shot in the video to match the solo. This makes the solo stand out more and the viewer will appreciate this solo even more.

The record company are trying to sell this track as an upbeat, happy song that people will enjoy listening to and also watching the video. We are shown a number of close up shots of the main singer, and his facial expressions seem positive and it makes it look like he is a happy person enjoying performing, which suits the style and nature of the song. There are motifs in the background of the stage where the artists are performing of hearts. This shows me that they are trying to sell the band positively, as hearts represent love, which makes people feel emotional and joyful, so they are also selling the artist as joyful, increasing their popularity.

There is reference to the notion of looking, but it is no way a sexual display or anything in that nature. We can see a family at home watching the perform ace of the artists in the video at home. This again makes the band seem popular and fun to watch and listen to as the family are all dancing along to the music. We can also see screens within screens as there are close ups of all the artists including their nicknames. This is done for comedic affect, again trying to portray the artists as fun to appeal to the viewers.

The whole video is an inter textual reference to the Beatles first live performance in America on the Ed Sullivan show. They are introduced by a presenter before the start performing, the same as the Beatles and you can also see and hear screaming girls throughout the video, just like the Beatles performance. Also the clothing and technology shown are all from the era when the Beatles performed. I believe the reason they chose to emulate the Beatles may be to show their appreciation for their success, which in turn will make OutKast more popular because people will like the fact that they appreciate an old band like the Beatles. Also they may be trying to compare themselves to the Beatles as they both produce upbeat music and they both give high tempo performances.

The video starts of narrative based as we see who is supposedly the band manager ushering the artists on stage. The dialect he and the band uses is typical African American dialect. They use this because this is the way their fans know them to talk so they don't want to change to much that viewers will become confused or unhappy that they have changed too much. Next, throughout the song it is performance based. The reason I believe they chose to do it like this is to make the video more entertaining and also to build up suspense to the actual performance as the viewers are waiting to see them perform, when they finally do they will enjoy the song more.

In conclusion I believe this is a very well made and successful video. The quick paced editing really complements the song and the performance of the artists on stage. The actions of the extras also help to make the video more comedic and entertaining to watch. Overall this is a very successful video because of a number of different things which all work well to making a successful Hip Hop video.

Introduction to my A2 Course

Welcome to my blog for my A2 media studies course. Together with my partner I aim to create a music video along with a digi pack and magazine advert, then finally analyse and evaluate my work. I hope to learn a great deal about the process of creating an advance media product, and also improve my organizational skills and become more responsible and independent with my work. I will use this blog to post my work and thoughts regarding my work.

Thankyou and enjoy.