Carol Vernallis Theory Analysis

Carol Vernallis is another music video theorist that says there are four stages that make up the creation of music videos and that they can all be broken down into these stages. The four are, Narrative, Editing, Camerwork and Diegesis.

The Narrative of a video is essentially the story that takes place throughout the course of the video. There are several other elements that also factor into the narrative.

-The Structure of the narrative may not always be clear, it might be out of chronological order or cut away to the performance. This is done often by bands that want to put an emphasis on the performance of the song over the story.
-The music video must fit in with the genre of the song and the overall style. It should be presented in a manner that fits with the established "look" of the band/artist.
-The story is not always what moves the video forward, this can be done by the performance as well as the music itself.
-The story might have an open ending that lacks a clear resolution to pose questions to the viewer.
-The video should be a visual response to the song.
-The narrative of the video may be presented through a montage, rather than a more continuous compilation of shots to make the story.


 The editing is what pulls the video together and can have an impact on the overall style of the video.
-The editing can help give the video it's own style. This can be through use of colours imposed on the footage as well as a unique way of cutting.
-Some edits can be much more "in your face" and draws the attention of the viewer to make it more obvious than standard continuity editing.
-A convention of music video editing is to break the rules of continuity editing.
-Music videos can be edited to mach the beat of the music, i.e. cutting on the beat.

Camerawork in a music video is also something done in different ways to more traditional styles of films. The overuse and under use of particular shots don't line up with how other types of videos prioritize shots and the framing too is also different.
-The particular style of how the shots in a video are framed may be used specifically for one video to give it a certain distinct look,
-The camera may move around in time with the melody, beat or lyrics of the song.
-Extreme shots are used very frequently in music videos, both extreme close ups and wide shots.

The Diegesis of a video is what is shown on screen to the viewer.
-What is on screen, be it the performers, characters or items may move around to be in time with the music, especially true of performers or dancers.
-Sometimes the diegesis might be revealed to the viewer slowly so that the viewer doens't always have a clear understanding of what is being shown in the video.
The viewer may also not understand what is on screen due to gaps in the performance or the narrative.