Narrative Theory applied to my product

My friend and I put together this presentation on Todorov and Freytag's theories. In the presentation I look at how Todorov can be applied to my music video.

Narrative Theory

 

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Genre theory in relation to my music video

Genre Theory

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I created this presentation whilst studying genre theory in relation to my music video. I began to look at genre theory a while ago here and is something, along with other theories, I keep in mind while creating my products in order to make sure my products fit/subvert conventions to attract my target audience.

Representation: Readings of my music video

To begin with my decision to use a dance remix song instead of a mainstream song was so that I could produce a more abstract, post-modern video as well as going against the norms for dance videos and use more mainstream conventions, using elements from both to create a mash up of both genres which so far has worked well. I made this decision as I wanted to take a fresh look at music videos and, through subverting the genres, understand further the conventions of music videos by both following them and breaking away from them.


Looking closer at my video so far, the main person that is being represented is a strong female who knows her own mind and can review a relationship clearly and honestly. But more than that anyone who has ever been through a break-up is represented and so this gives it an even wider audience. I've managed to convey these representations by showing my female protagonist on screen for the majority of the video and she is confident and assured, as well as thoughtful which is more positive outlook on a break-up than many of the mainstream outputs.

An example of a negative iconic break-up song- Sinead O'Connor's Nothing Compares 2 U

Readings
The preferred reading of my text is that the audience watching would feel good after watching it and feel more confident in themselves that, while some relationships may have been great you can often be better on your own. I would also like the audience to be inspired by what they see and be entertained by the energy of the editing and the beats and want to buy the song - which is ultimately, as I explored here, what music promo videos are for, to promote the song.
I am going to try and undertake some audience feedback to try and find out how the audience reads my video to look at different readings as well.


Also in terms of narrative and structure, Tzvetan Todorov's Equilibrium theory tells of an initial calm period which is then disrupted before ending with re-equilibrium. The song begins with a more negative vibe and then ends more positively which I've tried to reflect in the video. I don't have much equilibrium to begin with to try and contradict the norms of narrative and it just about works. However, I would like to film a few extra scenes with my female protagonist to provide a clearer narrative for the audience. This would be done with either filming the artist sitting on the beach looking at an old photo of her relationship or through filming a few flashback sequences: either having a very short prelude to the song or to place before the first chorus of the video. 

Postmodern Exhibition

On Wednesday 26th October, I went to the V&A to visit the Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990 exhibition. It was really interesting, informative, inspiring and thought-provoking. (Click here for a BBC video of the exhibition.)

I took lots of notes during the exhibition and learnt a great deal while there.
The exhibition took you through the beginning of Postmodernism right up until (and past) it's death. 

"After all, since it is fairly dead, we might as well enjoy picking over the corpse" - Charles Jencks
As I entered the exhibition I was greeted with this quote and a definition of Postmodernism, in that it "defies definition" but is the most controversial of recent art movements. 
One way of describing it was that it is "like a broken mirror, a reflecting surface made of many fragments". It's key principles were complexity and contradiction and it "shattered the established ideas about style", bringing "a new self-awareness about style itself".

"Whoever decides to abandon the modern movement can choose between Versailles and Las Vegas" - Italian Critic Bruno Zevi in 1967. Zevi was essentially saying that the primary ingredients of Postmodernism at the beginning were ("both/and rather than either/or" - Robert Venturi) high classicism and 'low' pop culture.

Robert Venturi and his partner Denise Scott Brown are very influential architects and in 1972 published a book called Learning From Las Vegas. They also used a lot of collage between the 60s and 70s that used 'Historicism' whose central aim was "to replace a monolithic idiom with a plurality of competing ideas and styles." This was the start of moving from modernism into postmodernism. 

Giulio Paolini's sculpture of L'altra (The Other Figure) from 1984 stood out to me as it plays on the high classicism of the past, but gives it a melancholic edge that is more sad and introspective. 

I have looked at Robert Rauschenberg in the past and have always admired his work so it was interesting to see his work 'Estate' from 1963 feature. 

This follows on the theme of collage, but is developed into 'Bricolage' which is a cut and paste technique.
Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss defined a bricoleur as "someone working with 'oddments leftover from human endeavours'. 
Therefore if modernist objects were based around utopia, progress and machine-like perfection, postmodern objects seemed to come from a dystopian and far-from-perfect future. 

The exhibition used this clip from Blade Runner (1982) to show this change in thinking, as it dwells on the possibilities and consequences of living in a 'post-human' age.

Moving into the 1980s Postmodernism developed into the New Wave movement. It was the dominant look of the 'designer decade' with vivid colours, theatricality and exaggeration. Everything was a style statement. This change reflected the desire to combine subversive statements with commercial appeal. Magazines and music were the most important delivery systems for this new phase of postmodernism. 

Italian design group Memphis became the forefront for postmodern design and architecture and was started by Ettore Sottsass. The created a 'new international style' and a period style of 'brash colour, vivid pattern and expressive form'.
Meanwhile the energy of the post-punk subculture was broadcast through music videos and cutting-edge graphics. 

It was a few thrilling years where image was everything.

Boy George was part of the New Romantic movement that was huge during the 1980's. Dancers, art directors, choreographers, pop stars, drag queens and nightclubbers were all the unlikely authors of some of postmodernism's most influential style statements. Blade Runner's investigations of identity (Rachael's belief that she is human, when in fact she's a replicant, synthetic life form) are often cited in discussions of postmodern experience. 

Gender was explored, as boys and girls started dressing as each other. Annie Lennox is an example of a pop star who challenged gender norms, showing that androgyny wasn't incompatible with mainstream appeal. 
MTV was launched in 1981 (which I've looked at previously) and so the rise of music videos meant another platform for postmodernism and were vital in broadcasting postmodernist ideas to mainstream culture.
Viewers were presented with a series of celebs posturing before the camera.
There were many examples shown in the exhibition which demonstrate the wide range of musical styles in which postmodern techniques were explored from hiphop to new romantic to techno.

1982

1988

I found looking at the different music videos really useful and made me look at editing my video a little differently. 

"If postmodernism means anything is allowed then I was all for it."

- David Byrne (Talking Heads)

Postmodern graphics and photography involved bricolage, fragmentation and quotation.

Peter Saville was responsible for a number of Joy Division and New Order's album art, where he used 'found' art images.

Magazines such as 'The Face' and 'i-D' produced many postmodernist covers...

By blending the avant-garde and commercial they were a postmodern phenomenon. 
April Greiman and Jayme Odgers used cut and paste to produce posters...

Paula Scher produced posters for Elvis Costello...

Money, however, became a huge issue in the 1980s due to living in Thatcher's Britain. 

Andy Warhol 'Dollar Sign' 1981

Warhol's ironic acknowledgement of his own works market value exemplifies postmodernism in its final stage. Postmodernism collapsed under the weight of its own success. It participated in the culture obsessed with wealth and status that was the undoing of the movement. 
"Money doesn't mind if we say it's evil, it goes from strength to strength. It's a fiction an addiction, and a tacit conspiracy." - Martin Amis

'Protect Me From What I Want' by Jenny Holzer, Times Square, 1985

By the end of the 1980s postmodernism was no longer a radical subcultural style. It had gone mainstream.

Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola Logo by Ai WeiWei, 1994

Ai WeiWei used a 2000 year old urn for the piece above. Ironically after he'd defaced it and turned it into contemporary art it became even more valuable than before.

Postmodernism left behind a set of unresolved intellectual provocations. It was marked with a sense of loss, even destructiveness, but also a radical expansion of possibilities. 
In the permissive, fluid and hyper-commodified situation of design today, we're still feeling its effects. In that sense, like it or not, we are all postmodern now.

The exhibition closed with New Order's video for Bizarre Love Triangle (1986).
The bizarre editing effects and montage style is very influential and the symbolic images make it a memorable postmodern music video. 

How are audience theories compromised by the development of Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 has developed extensively over the last decade, allowing audiences that had previously only consumed media to become active users through user generated content such as social networks and YouTube. Not only can audiences consume but they can also create and share their own media products and essentially become the ‘producers’ themselves. This change in roles has meant that audiences have a much more thorough understanding of media content, how and why it’s made and their target audiences. Audience’s no longer like to be passive consumers and be manipulated by the media but instead want to share their own opinions and shape what exactly they are consuming.
The Hypodermic Needle Theory would be a great example of how much Web 2.0 has compromised audience theories. When it was developed in the 1920’s and 30’s audiences received the information passively, which the media ‘injected’ to them unchallenged. This was how the idea of ‘mass media’ was developed as the audience was seen as one mass all consuming the few media products available, giving out the same message. Today, however the idea of a ‘mass audience’ can’t fully be applied as there is such a diverse range of media products available, such as the millions of websites and hundreds of television channels which all have various messages. Only really saturday night television such as the X Factor or soaps which are watched by millions of people can be termed as a ‘mass audience’, however as these programmes are multi-platform and indeed, have voting lines, the audience is still very much involved and in the case of X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent very much have a say in what they are watching.
The next theory that may also not fully work today, could be the Two-Step Flow. This is based on the idea that the media has a sender (producer) which relates the content to the opinion leader who then sends it to the consumer (main audience). For instance with Web 2.0 the producer (a part of the audience) can instantly send their content out into the world to the consumer so in this case often their is no opinion leader. However in order to be successful often an opinion leader is needed to point consumers in the right direction. This can be in the form of social networks or important bloggers or users that are ‘opinion leaders’ whose followers are open to what they suggest to consume.
Yet, however modern the audiences and the ways of consuming C Wright Mills’ functions of the media for the audience can still apply. His four functions were; to give individuals identity, give people goals and aspirations, give instructions on how to achieve thus goals, give people alternatives if they’ve failed i.e. escapism. Most television content can fit into this theory. Soaps, sitcoms and some dramas are escapism, whereas documentaries, DIY and cookery shows can help give people goals and the instructions to achieve them. Online a lot of YouTube content is aspirational, the online community can help form identities and the fictional and comedy shows can help achieve escapism - all of which created by users. The fundamentals of pleasing an audience will remain the same whether a product is created by a professional producer or a ‘consumer’ producer if they want to be successful at reaching audiences. In fact, there is a fine line between professional and amateur online as those ‘consumers’ that are successful can often turn producing content into their full-time jobs thus becoming the professional. Through the development of Web 2.0 the lines are blurred between ‘audience member’ and ‘producer’, making it even harder to define them. Indeed the reason for the millions of websites and hundreds of television channels is due to the realisation that audiences are no longer one mass but are all individuals wanting different things, which can be hard to cater for. Audiences can also be the biggest critics as they can interpret media texts differently, being producers themselves.
The uses and gratifications theory is another indication of how audience needs have changed. In 1974, Blumler and Katz believed that audiences have four basic needs when choosing to consume a media text; diversion (escapism), personal relationships (identification), personal identity (comparison) and surveillance (world awareness). Clearly these cannot all be applied today, as audience needs can be far more complex than this, and perhaps only developed these ‘needs’ as a response to the media they already experienced.
The reception theory is the most contemporary theory, having been developed in the 1980’s and 90’s and is based on Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model of the relationship between the audience and the text. A media product begins by being encoded by producers, then it is decoded by the audience. There can be many readings of the product by the audience, which are based on each audience members background, experience, class, age, gender, ethnicity etc.
However, the producers can create a ‘preferred’ reading using codes and conventions, so the audience can understand the general meaning of the text and generally agree on the meaning of the code.

Semiotics

Semiotics
Semiotics is the study of signs and is the process of understanding signs and codes, interpreting what they signify.
There are three main figures who have a strong connection with the development of Semiotics; Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes and Charles Sanders Peirce.

Ferdinand de Saussure

(1857-1913)

Saussure was a Swiss linguist who is one of the founders of 20th century linguistics and semiotics. His concept of the sign/signifier/signified is the core of semiotics.
Signifier = the form which the sign takes
Signified = the concept it represents

 Denotation and connotation describes the relationship between the signifier and signified. 
Denotation (1st order of signification) is the literal meaning of a sign.
Connotation (2nd order of signification) is the socio-cultural and 'personal' associations of the sign, which are determined by 'codes'.


Charles Sander Peirce

(1839-1914)

Peirce was an American philosopher, mathematician, scientist and logician. He was also a founder of semiotics and called his general study of signs semiotic or semeiotic, which he began writing about in the 1860s, around the time when he devised his system of three categories. Later, in 1907 he defined semiosis as "action, or influence, which is, or involves, a cooperation of three subjects, such as a sign, its object, and its interpretant, this tri-relative influence not being in any way resolvable into actions between pairs".

The three basic elements to semiosis are:

1. A Sign

2. An object (subject matter of a sign and an interpretant)

3. An interpretant (the sign's more or less clarified meaning) 

In order to understand or interpret the object the mind needs to be familiar with it, so as to know what a sign denotes.

Roland Barthes

Semiotics became especially important in the late 1960's, party due to Roland Barthes, an important intellectual figure, who developed Semiotics further through his book 'The Death of the Author' and collection of essays 'Mythologies'. In 1964, Barthes declared that "semiology aims to take in any system of signs, whatever their substance and limits; images, gestures, musical sounds, objects, and the complex associations of all of these, which form the content of ritual, convention or public entertainment: these constitute, if not languages, at least systems of signification"

He looked at how the audience interprets meaning, which is influenced by each individuals own background and experience. 

Jean Baudrillard

Baudrillard built on Saussure's ideas that meaning is given through systems of signs working together, but he argued that meaning is created through difference - through what something isn't. He felt that the excess of signs and meaning in late 20th century had caused society to become a 'hyperreality' of itself. It is a 'simulated' version of reality, where the media can shape and filter events and experiences so that consciousness can no longer truly define what is actually 'real'. The media's 2D version of the world has become naturalised to us as we have grown up to read their images as realistic.

Representation
This then leads to representation as, after all, media texts are a representation of reality; the process by which the media present to us the 'real world'. If this reality is in fact a 'hyperreality' this can seriously impact society, leading to issues such as stereotyping because, for many, how they see the world is through the media's non accurate portrayal. The process through which the media represents issues, ideas and events, is called mediation.

Audience Theory

The Audience Theory
The word Audience stems from the latin word 'audire', which means to hear/sound.


Hypodermic Needle Theory

Developed in the 1920's, the Hypodermic Needle Theory was first to explore how mass audiences react to mass media. It suggests that audiences passively consume information from the media, which 'injects' the information like a drug, unchallenged. As the theory was created when mass media was quite new - radio and cinema were only a couple of decades old, therefore audiences were one mass consuming the same product, via the same message. It was then a good way to reach the 'mass' and governments discovered how powerful the media was to communicate a message. A particular example of that was 1930's German propaganda, used to indoctrinate the 'mass audience'. 
The basis of the theory is that media passes into the mass audience's minds, with no thought of individual audience members. This suggests that the audience hasn't got individual minds and opinions, but can be easily manipulated and changed by media producers.


Two Step Flow

The Two Step Flow Theory was first introduced by Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet in 1940's The People's Choice. It was a step forward from the Hypodermic Needle Theory as mass media had been going for many decades now. They suggested that the audience wasn't as passive as previously thought, but is instead filtered through 'opinion leaders' who have influence over the messages the mass audience get from the media. The media, no longer a direct message from media producers to the mass audience, instead worked by the media producers information being filtered by the opinion leaders (e.g. politicians) who then sent their own message to the consuming audience. This indicates that the media could be used for indoctrination (like in WW2 Germany's case) of the audience. As the power of the media had decreased slightly the Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet concluded that social factors were an important factor in how audiences interpreted texts - referred to as the 'limited effects paradigm'.

Uses and Gratifications

In 1948, Lasswell developed four functions that media texts have for individuals and society: surveillance, correlation, entertainment and cultural transmission.
So in 1974, Blulmer and Katz expanded on Lasswell's theory, showing that individuals choose a media text for the following four reasons; diversion (escapism), personal relationships (emotional attachment with the characters), personal identity (finding your life reflected in media texts) and surveillance (useful information about the world). 


Abraham Maslow

In 1943 Maslow, an American psychologist, identified five levels of 'need' for each individual person. Since then his theories have been used by media producers to help them with audience research - what their audience really wants and needs in media texts. 


Media's functions for the Audience
An extension of the uses and gratifications theory and Maslow's hierarchy of needs is C. Wright Mills' four functions of the media for the audience. Media texts give individuals identity, aspirations, instructions on how to achieve those aspirations and also escapism. 


Active Audience

In the 1950's and 60's, media theorists began to realise that audiences actually made choices about the texts they were consuming. Not a passive 'mass', audiences were made up of individuals members who actively consume texts for various reasons. This realisation was a huge development for modern audience theories. Audiences had their own beliefs and opinions, therefore it was suggested that the media reinforced them, instead of persuasion or even indoctrination. Audiences were no longer really seen as a 'mass' but instead made up of different social groups and that audiences found meaning in texts through these groups. Thus audiences have an active role in their consumption, actively interpreting media texts, bringing their own meanings.


Reception Theory

In the 1980's and 90's the active audience concept was expanded further, developing in the Reception Theory, which we use today. Theorists found that individuals received and interpreted a text because of their individual backgrounds, age, class, gender, ethnicity, class etc, which affected how they read the text. Based on Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model of the relationship between audience and text. First, the media text is encoded by the producer, then decoded by the reader. There are multiple readings of the text, but by using recognisable codes and genre conventions, the producers can connote a 'preferred' reading to the audience, so the audience can understand the general meaning of the text and generally agree on the meaning of the code.

Narrative Theory

The Narrative Theory
The definition of narrative is based on the latin word NARRE, which means 'to make known'. It is a story or account of events or experiences which are connected, sequenced and logically presented.

Each media product has a narrative focus, which usually follows traditional structures, while less-mainstream products often subvert them. For instance post-modern films, like Pulp Fiction and Memento, use a dis-jointed story structure and fragmented narrative. 

Aristotle

One of the first 'narrative theories', he felt that a narrative should be made within a 'unity' of time, place and action, i.e. it should all take place in the same location, in real time and will all the action moving towards a logical and moral conclusion. 

Tzvetan Todorov

He proposed a basic narrative structure. It begins with an initial situation - equilibrium, a calm period before the calm is disrupted creating a state of disequilibrium. Then there is a renewed peace bringing the chaos to close, ending with re-equilibrium. This is the simplest form of narrative. He also believed that we should look at the narrative form and different character perspectives. This reflects how the producers ideologies will outline the focus of the narrative and that different institutions and audiences have different expectations and intentions. 

Vladimir Propp

In 1928, Propp studied Russian fairytales, where he found that there was always 8 character types in stories. They are: the hero, the villain, the donor, the dispatcher, the anti-hero, the (magical) helper, the princess and her father. The characters can be a mix of these types e.g. the false hero could also be the villain. He also identified only 31 narrative functions for these characters. 

Claude Levi Strauss

Levi Strauss developed a narrative structure based on narrative tension from opposition or conflict. These Binary opposites are sets of opposite values which reveal the structure of media texts and work at an ideological level, e.g. good is the opposite of evil. Macro opposites would be a protagonist/antagonist and action/inaction. Micro opposites would be good looking/ugly and witty/humourless.

Roland Barthes

Barthe's identified many codes that the audience then decodes.
- Enigma code (where the narrative will establish enigmas and sets up questions as it goes along, which are then solved and answered later.)
- Semic Code (where events, characters, actions, settings etc have various meanings in different cultures.)
- Symbolic Code 
- Action Code (understood by cross reference to other narratives in our culture)
- Cultural Codes (understood through our interaction with the wider world.)


Exceptions to the Theory
Arthouse cinema doesn't always follow these theories. For instance, there isn't always a clear cause and effect relationship between events, the main protagonist doesn't always have a motive or screen time isn't always used for a narrative function. As short films have such little screen time, to make an impact there are usually few characters (thus against Propp's theory) and a scenario that is interesting or funny such as below...

Genre Theory

The Genre Theory
Genre is "a recurring type or category of text, as defined by structural and thematic criteria" (David Duff, Modern Genre Theory).
Examples of Genre...

Key Components

- Stock characters

- Stock plots, situations, issues and themes

- Stock locations and back drops

- Stock props and signifiers

- Music and sounds

- Generic conventions

Paradigm

A paradigm is a stereotypical example or model, which can be used to sum up or signify a genre. It could be used as short-hand for film makers to ‘sell’ or discuss the genre of film.

Audiences & Institutions

Genre is very important as audiences can easily identify films and know what to expect when choosing what to watch. They find genres satisfying as they develop certain expectations when watching certain genre films, and if these expectations are fulfilled, will find satisfaction in recognition and predicting what will happen next. So, for instance, if someone was a fan of horror films, the trailers and posters for the film would carry the iconography and signifiers of the genre so that person could easily see the difference between that and a romantic comedy. 

Institutions also depend on genres as an immediate communication with the audience, therefore can use a familiar format/characters/situations, without much explanation as the genre characteristics are easily recognisable to audiences. They can use short-hand iconography and visuals using black and red colours for horror films on the posters, or a pink poster with a man and woman smiling standing back to back - typically signifying a romance film. This way it is clear to everyone what ‘type’ of film it is, making it easier for media producers to sell the film and audiences to consume it.

Genre Limitations

There are also problems with genre. Defining it can be hard, for instance it can often be hard to differentiate between a thriller and a horror film. Audiences can also get quite bored with seeing the same genre formulas again and again. This is why films that stretch and mix genres are often so well received. Therefore limiting films to one genre can often alienate some potential audience members, such as a romance film is stereotypically seen by females and an action film stereotypically seen by males.

Rick Altman

Rick Altman, Professor of Cinema and Comparative Literature, wrote a book called Film/Genre, where he puts forward a Semantic/ Syntactic/Pragmatic approach. 

Here is an extract from his book; "Whereas one Hollywood genre may be borrowed with little change from another medium, a second genre may develop slowly, change constantly, and surge recognisably before settling into a familiar pattern, while a third may go though an extended series of paradigms, one of which may be claimed as dominant. As long as Hollywood genres are conceived as Platonic categories, existing outside the flow of time, it will be impossible to reconcile genre theory, which has always accepted as given the timelessness of a characteristic structure, and genre history, which has concentrated on chronicling the development, deployment and disappearance of this same structure."

1) Semantic

Conventions that communicate to the audience the genre

e.g. shooting style, music, props, locations and characters

2) Syntactic

Relations between these elements and structure or narratives in genre

e.g. romantic comedy - The audience expects the potential lovers not to like each other, then through a series of meetings and problems the film culminates in their successful relationship.

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 has impacted on audiences through things like user-generated content. Audiences can be active consumers of texts, and thus can manipulate genres and generic conventions for their own pleasures. 

e.g. YouTube - reworking of film trailers

An example is The Shining below...