Narrative: Exam Question

TIMED 30-MINUTE EXAM


'Storytelling - narrative - is central to how people communicate their understanding of the world' (Kevin Williams). Explain the role of narrative in one of your productions.


Narrative is defined as 'the ways in which a story is told', which includes who is telling the story, the perspective of the story, what form this takes, and how much interaction the audience has with the characters. My music video project included elements and techniques used to define narrative, and I think that the story told throughout this was one that had a deep meaning to our audience.

The story within our music video was told by the woman, who showed how angry and agitated she was through the lyrics she was singing, and also through all the emotive body language she was using. For example, the kicking-over of the stool was placed into the video in order to show that she couldn't keep all this anger within her any more, and she had to vent it on something. This was backed up through our audience feedback too, who said that it was the key moment within the video.

We managed to tell the story through the lyrics of the song, and tied this in to our visuals. This was one of the principles listed in Goodwin's Theory - something we relied on to try and conform to making a good, quality music video. We also portrayed parts of the story through flashbacks, which were disassociated from the main narrative through a black-and-white editing effect, which automatically split the video into two sections. We wanted to make sure the video still made sense, but also that it was clear to people that this was a work of fiction, although these issues occur in everyday life, and by creating a music video that had a beginning, a middle and an end, which also interpreted the events in the past, we managed to do this.

We wanted to use our video to create a sadness through the footage, and so only used one perspective throughout - that of the woman's. We used a biased approach, and chose not give the man's point of view, as we wanted the audience to feel sympathetic towards the woman, and feel her anger too.

We also adhered to Todorov's Movement of Equilibriums. The video starts calm and soft, with the woman just singing, using soft transitions and very slow shots. This moves to the woman following the man, filled with suspicion, which disrupted the equilibrium. When the woman sees the man, she confronts him, when the disruption is recognised, and this is followed by the woman leaving him and trying to start again, which then starts at an equilibrium again.

Kevin Williams has stated that the narrative involved in telling a story helps people understand the world better. I disagree with this, as I believe that narrative does have an impact on lives, but does not necessarily shape their views on the world. It does, however, help make decisions for our audience, who can view situations in a different light, knowing full well that the text they are viewing is fictional. This is itself may force their hand into making a decision based on what they have seen, thus helping make an impact on their life.

END OF 30 MINUTES