Print Productions - Album Cover

Planning - Potential Images

Potential images from Connor Southwell

Planning - Moodboard

Moodboard from Connor Southwell

Planning - Fonts

Fonts from Connor Southwell

Print Productions Case Study 2 (Florence and the Machine)

Album cover 2 from Connor Southwell

Print Productions Case Study 1 (The Killers)

Print production case study (1) from Connor Southwell

Planning - Narrative Structures

Narrative structures are integral to anything intended on using a narrative in any form of media. Adopting certain narrative structures and sticking to them can dictate the direction of a narrative and manipulate how they are received by the audience. Some offer room for a twist to engage and emotionally connect the audience to the narrative, whilst others opt to use fragmentation and techniques like cross cutting to cause disorientation. There are many ways to tell a story and these would be tapped into by myself to create an interesting and engaging narrative.

Firstly, a technique I am keen of adopting in my music video is that of flashbacks and they are injected between scenes to aide with the contextualisation of the narrative for the video. As my video is surrounding the theme of relationships and love, one whereby people tend to look back on past events, and by inviting an audience to look back upon the relationship, the emotional interior is there to be judged and the audience can see the ‘beginning of the end’. Furthermore, it shows a jump back in time to a significant time in the past and thus allows characters to reflect upon events that may have impacted the situation they find themselves in today. It also coincides with how people tend to memorise certain events which make them feel happy or sad, and we could compliment this through the use of monochrome filters to reflect negative moments and use colour grading to make the positive moments more noticeable and fanatical, this creates clarity for our audience and also allows them to feel an emotional connection should they wish to engage with the video in that way and in that regard, it would make our video more coherent and relatable whilst complementing the lyrical aspect of our song. By combining the happier and more regretful, vicious points of the relationship, we create a blend whereby our protagonist remains confused and is looking back and reflecting whilst evidently feeling serious regret, this concoction of emotion is something we want to display through our audience and by using flashbacks, it certainly allows us to do that. By potentially adopting a frenetic cut presents an opportunity to illustrate how crowded our protagonists head is with emotion.

In regards to the style of narrative we want to use, there are an abundance of options which would all benefit our video and make for a strong conceptual element. By potentially using a fragmented type of narrative structure (non-linear, multi stranded), we could use this as symbolism to reflect the state of the relationship at this period. However, this has the potential to be untranslatable to our audience and could lead to potential confusion and disengagement surrounding our video, thus something like a linear, closed or open narrative could be easily to create meaning and easier to translate to our audience. By meticulously planning and ensuring the quality of our acting, shooting and work in post-production means we could achieve a more complex style but in a manner whereby it is simple and not confusing nor conflicting to our audience. By using a non-linear style of narrative, we can achieve our chosen intentions and ensure there is an emotional connection between audience and the video. This style also allows for a cliff hanger or ‘non-ending’, which is symbolic to the seemingly ‘never ending’ pain which is all-encompassing our protagonist following a hurtful and frustrating break up.  This style is used to ‘mimic the structure and recall of human memory’ and by doing this, it gives our video a greater symbolic and psychological weight. Not only does this style create an emotional response, but also one which requires a greater psychological power and requires the audience to use their intellect as oppose to being reliant on a more passive emotional response.

The equilibrium and disequilibrium within a narrative can cause effects which can provide a narrative with greater meaning. For equilibrium to be achieved, two opposite forces would have to be balanced, evidentially, disequilibrium is in direct contrast with this idea. Disequilibrium would align itself more so with the non-linear style of narrative structure we are seeking to adopt. By using disequilibrium, we can present a relationship which has concluded but behind that break is emotion and a desire to resurrect the good moments and a longing to create that. Through isolated and close up shots of our performer, we can create this sense of disequilibrium and enhance our video by adopting it to create a sense of brokenness and fragmentation which coincides with the state of their relationship. It also goes against Todorov’s theory of narrative and this makes for a unique and also intriguing perspective which makes for an engaging music video.

Overall, with the combination  of this music video we have a multifaceted and engaging video which requires our audience to combine the passivity of an emotional response which occurs naturally and that of a more intellectual response, and by combining the two, we have an active audience who can think using logic and reason but also feel.