Narrative

Narrative is a spoken or written account of connected events; a story.
Generally within film, narrative is used synonymously with plot and refers to the events which take place.
Narrative within music videos-
Music videos are often not narrative driven, as the main idea is to promote the song and create a memorable experience to help make the song stick in the viewers head. However many bands with more openly political messages or that focus on more serious matters such as racism or economic inequality, create music videos to match the tone of the song, to assist in the communication of the issue. For example, the band I am using for my coursework; 'Stray from the path' focus their songs around generally pressing issues and create their videos with the intention of assisting in communicating this message. 'Outbreak' a song by them, posted earlier on my blog, is about the over commercialisation of the health industry and how people (mainly in America) are accustomed to taking large quantities of pills which makes a huge amount of profit, rather than pharmaceutical companies investing in long term cures because they make so much money from producing preventatives. The video shows a family in a situation where they are eating pills for dinner straight from a plate, which is obviously an exaggerated metaphorical message.
Metaphorical techniques are often used within these types of music videos to make the narrative more interesting, making it seem more extreme, while maintaining the same message. This helps the message really hit home with the viewers due to the extreme nature.

Narrative within short film-
Narrative within short film is vital, compared to a music video in which the narrative is more optional because the focus of the piece is the song, narrative is what makes a short film worth watching.
Generally within short film the narrative is something that isn't overly complex, however just like feature films there is a huge variety of them. They range from the really abstract and original to films that rigidly embody the generic conventions of their genre.

Narrative within genres-
Conventions of narrative within comedy:

• Generally takes place in daylight, bright places, often well populated, for example; towns, cities or suburbs.
• Naturalistic approach to filming, tries to capture body language and facial expressions of characters.
• Usually stereotypes of people are emphasised and exaggerated, people portrayed as stupid and contrasted with 'regular' people.

Conventions of narrative within Horror:

• Often take place in dark places; Woods, abandoned houses/buildings or isolated islands
• Sustained shots with low key lighting to build suspense, fast cutting as the suspense comes to an end for some sort of jump scare, generally no ambient noise and sound is key, sounds like heavy breathing are isolated and amplified.

Storyboard interjection

While I've not included it in the storyboard I'm thinking of cutting in instrumentals in-between the narrative shots, this is to extend the video to match the length of the song and to break up the narrative hopefully creating a small amount of anticipation for the continuation of the narrative. The reason for not putting these in the storyboard is because I did not know how long the shots would be and didn't want to have to try and guess at the timings of the music that I would have to match up with the shots.

Storyboard part 3

Storyboard part 2

Storyboard part 1

Brief Shot ideas

• A torch flashing past the camera to imitate a search light.
• Fake news presenter for the sample intro.
• Someone accessing the bios of a computer, looking intensely at the screen.
• Someone doing a mic check.
• someone being caught on the phone at night, car headlights shining on their back.
• Riot police charging in on a breakdown.
• Hitting record.