Narrative structure in music

videos, - Royal Bloods

Figure it out
Thomas Cutmore

What is meant by the term by narrative

structure?
According to Claude Levis Strauss narrative structure is where Constant creation of conflict/opposition
drives narrative.
This theory relies on the concept of binary oppositions. Binary oppositions in film could vary from light
to dark, love to hate, still and nomadic/movement.
In music videos and other media texts, narrative structure can be shown in many aspects, from
- Flashbacks and prolepsis; - developing a story through transporting the audience through different
time zones to generate a clearer code (open) or to create more of a mystery (closed)
- Montage; - Use of images and clips to create an intellectual and emotional reaction from the audience
- Continuity editing; - Where editing smoothly moves from take to take, creating a logical coherence of
the product
- And Bathes codes open and closed texts: Open where the video gives the meaning/purpose distinctively and the audience is able to tap into
the video throughout and understand the meaning
Closed where the video challenges the audiences perspective or gives a more unclear picture,
causing the audience to think more over what the music video really means.

Royal Bloods Figure it Out music video

background information
Royal Blood is a recent rising British rock duo, consisting of only two
members, - Mike Kerr (bassist and vocals) and Ben Thatcher (drums).
Their song Figure it Out was firstly released as a single on the 18th of
August 2014, which took the 3rd place of their self titled album, which
was released on 22nd of August 2014
The songs genre is hard rock, post grunge and garage rock.

The narrative of the music video

The music video holds both a closed and open text because as the music
video progresses, more is shown to the audience to (and ironically as the
song title says) figure out what the plot of the music video. The way the
video holds a open narrative is where the audience see that the girl is a
criminal because of the crime she committed (i.e. murder). However, the
video also holds a closed narrative as the audience do not know what she
did until the end of the music video, where actually, she isnt the only
criminal, to which challenges the audiences perspective on the video as
they believe that the video evolves around the female.
The way the music video using the two tone colour overlays create a
transformation of two worlds which hold two different meanings; - the
basic reality or what everyone sees, and then what the girl sees and what
actually happened.

Screenshots of the use of two tone to

create open and closed texts

Screenshots of the two tone used to

create open and closed texts

Flashbacks and prolepsis used.

In the music video there is a use of both flashbacks and prolepsis
throughout (however so near to the end to where the girl
remembers her escaping the back of the van, which then cuts back to
real time of her continuing her action). This is used in this music video
to turn the tables in what the audience already believe in and
causing them to have that un expected yet almost memorable
surprise as they realise their judgements of the female actor was in
some aspects wrong. The flashback also leaves the audience on a
loop as the end is the beginning as after it shows the girl
experiencing the flashback, within the flashback it shows the girl
leaving the van and entering the shopping market from the flashback,
which then ends the video.

Screenshots of flashbacks/prolepsis

Continuity editing used

The music video uses a great deal of continuity editing to smoothly
join the two visions of the scene to create a confusion of reality which
we can believe in and even though it doesnt make sense in
understanding it, we can visually see that there are two sides to this
conflict. If the editing was less smooth then it would create a more
complex and confusing trial for the audience to grasp and follow (as
confusing it is in its plot already).

Montage
The constant contrast between everything in the music video which
at the same time is synced to the beat of the music as the music
almost acts like the tool in changing the perspectives in the music
video, and with the shots/images and the music itself, it almost
indulges the audience into the music video, sharing our emotions
with it as it intrigues us into wanting to know what is going on and
what is going to happen at the end.