Narrative music videos are very popular with audiences across all genres. Some follow the song, with a storyline that relates to the lyrics, but it is a common thing throughout the Indie genre to make a quirky music video telling a story that has little relation to the song at all.
Narrative music videos are often more memorable than a simple performance video showing a band on a stage and work really well to promote a new song. The more interesting a band makes their video, the more people are going to talk about it. This helps to generate more interest and hype about the song.
Some common things seen in Narrative music videos are:
- Fast paced cuts, as the video is only 2-4 minutes long, these are needed to fit in the full story
- Intertextuality- references to existing films/videos/tv show. This creates a humorous feel, making the video more entertaining to an audience
- Mimic certain film genres - e.g horror, romance, thriller etc. This again makes it humorous and entertaining
- Sometimes band members are featured in the video to play the characters in the narrative
Here are a few examples that I have found of narrative music videos throughout the indie genre
Foster The People - Don't Stop (Colour on the Walls)
This video features American actress Gabourey Sidibe alongside members of the band. In the storyline Sidibe plays a driving student who unknowingly lets a con man (played by Foster) into her car, thinking he is the DMV examiner. The con man and the student fight for control of the wheel as the car moves, and ends up attracting the attention of two police officers (played by Foster the People members Mark Pontius and Cubbie Fink). They end up on a car chase around Hollywood, which ends when the con man gives himself up to the police and the student drives away.
The video title is shown in an interesting way. A close up shot of a sign on the doorway at the beginning of the video. Choosing to present the title of the song in this way, rather than using text put in on video editing software could possibly be seen as the band relating to an "Indie" audience, sticking to old fashioned techniques, rather than using modern software.
Despite the fact that the actual storyline of the video doesn't seem to really relate to the song, there are some references. For example, the paint explosion leaving the car brightly coloured fits in with the "Colour on the Walls" part of the song title. The word "stop" is also featured numerous times throughout the video in time with the lyrics.
The use of mise en scene throughout this video is also very interesting. Old fashioned items are seen throughout, from the tatty old Toyota Tarcel, to the fake moustache and cheesy haircuts. All of this creates a retro feel, appealing to an indie audience.
In 2012, this video won the award for Best Television Short 2012 at the 3D Creative Arts Awards in Hollywood.
The Shins - Simple Song
This video is a perfect example of a narrative music video that follows Tzvetan Todorov's narrative structure.
The Equilibrium
The beginning equilibrium of this video has a very dull feel, the fanily look sad and appear to be mourning the death of their father, watching a video of him telling them his will from a television screen (Print screens right). The video begins with diagetic sound, and then the non diagetic music of the track overlaps.
Disruption
It is then announced in the will that the finder of the Deed to the house will be the one who gets it. This causes a violent race between the family featuring flashbacks of their childhood throughout the video. This also raises the enigma of who is going to win the race. This keeps the audience interested and watching for more. It is then revealed when the deed is found that none of the children will get the house, and it is due to be demolished within a matter of seconds.
New Equilibrium
After the destruction of the house, a new equilibrium is presented, where the family are happy. This is a great contrast to the sad expressions seen in at the beginning of the music video. (Print screens above)
Alike the Foster the People video, old fashioned mise en scene is used to create a retro feel. You can see this immediately in the opening shot, featuring an old fashioned television with a tape player, The wallpaper also gives an old fashioned feeling. This video has the title edited in, in a retro style font, this is very different to the title seen in the Foster the People video.
This narrative also has little relation to the song lyrics, but the video features the band members playing the part of the family, this becomes apparent in the last scene when they are shown together playing their instruments as a band as the house crumbles down around them.
At the beginning, this is also shown when The Shins lead singer mimes along to the words of the song. Some audiences may see this shot to be quite controversial as a close up shot of a dead body singing could be seen as uneasy viewing for certain audiences.
Transitions between scenes from he past and present are really effective with flashes that give the effect of an old video tape. This again restores the retro feel, capturing the attention of an indie audience.
Contrast in lighting is used between shots from the past and present throughout the video. This creates a feel that the past was happier than now
