Music video theory: Carol Vernallis

Carol Vernallis

I have looked at a couple music video theories in order to better understand them as I create my own music video, most notable Andrew Goodwin and Richard Dyer. This week I am looking at Carol Vernallis, who developed her theory of music videos in her book 'The Kindest Cut - Functions and meanings of Music Video Editing' (2001). 

Vernallis' theory focuses on 4 key concepts that all relate to how a music video is constructed:

1. Narrative

2. Editing

3. Camera movement and framing

4. Diegesis

'On Melancholy Hill' - Gorillaz

I have chosen a music video by the virtual band 'Gorillaz' to analyse, going by the criteria Verallis' created. I will be looking to see if the music video deviates or adheres to her criteria.

1. Narrative

The narrative is not always complete - it may be a partial, fragmented narrative

The music video tells a narrative that is chronological, but in two separate storylines. The first being a girl escaping a ship and the second being a group of people in a submarine. These two narratives are fragmented and cut between each other as the video goes on. The submarine narrative ends on a cliffhanger which still feels somewhat complete, but the other narrative ends incomplete. We can infer that the submarine narrative is complete, as opposed to the other narrative, as we see a wide shot of 2D, Murdoc and Cyborg Noodle standing before the 'Plastic Beach', as opposed to the shot of Noodle in the boat, which tells us this is the end of her storyline.

The video is a visual response to the music

 We see shots of fish and submarines underwater which serves as a visual response to the calming tempo and melody of the music, however not all of the music video feels like a visual representation of the song, particularly the slow-mo shots of Noodle with the gun and the beginning of the video on the ship with diegetic sound such as alarms and horns. 

(These jellyfish are also a reference to the Gorillaz song 'Superfast Jellyfish', which is on the same album)

There may not always be a clear resolution (closure) at the end

The video ends on a cliffhanger with a wide shot of the characters finding the 'Plastic Beach' island. This is conventional of Vernallis' music video theory.

2. Editing

Editing may match the musical phrases or the beat

This is unconventional here as the editing does not always do this in this music video, however, the shot of the submarine swimming past the camera and fading into the blue of the sea, followed by the other submarines, fits the beat of the song and the instrumental music coming in after the verse.

Camerawork

The master shot (or other establishing shots) is used frequently, as are close-ups.

The video contains lots of establishing shots of locations that are key to establish the numerous locations the characters go through in the space of the video. Examples of this are the ship, sea and submarine, Plastic Beach and Noodle on the raft. 

Close-ups are also used a lot in this videos so the viewer can get a good look at the characters and their costumes. This is the main appeal and focus of Gorillaz videos so the video uses this to keep the attention of the viewer on the cartoons and their designs. This makes the video feel more like a short film that uses music as a element to accompany the narrative, rather than vise versa.