Narrative

Narrative is first and formost a structure
Narrative = Story + Plot

Tim O'Sullivan (1998) argues all media texts tell us some kind of story. through careful mediation, media texts offer a way of telling stories about ourselves - not usually our own personal stories, but the story of us as a culture or set of cultures. Narrative theory sets out to show that we experience when we 'read' a story is to understand a particular set of constructions, or conventions, and that is important to be aware of how these constructions are put together.

Narrative: Structure of a story
Diegesis: The fictional space and time implied by the narrative - the world in which the story takes place
Verisimilitude: Literally - the quality of appearing to be real or true. For a story to engage us it must appear real for us as we watch it (the diegetic effect). The story must therefore have verisimilitude - following the rules of continuity, temporal and spacial coherence.

That Thing You Do directed by Tom Hanks (1998)

Follows conventional syntax for special and temporal coherence, continuity editing keeps the continuity of the spacial and temporal coherence. close up of guitar on stage, shot reverse shots show where band is on stage, close up of singer includes shot of drummer behind his shoulder creating s and t coherence.
Narrative montage; symbol of drums turns into the record on a record player, moving on a map of america signifies travelling across america playing their song. Shows chart positions, 4 weeks have gone by.

Bordwell and Thompson (1997) offer two distinctions between story and plot which relate to the diegetic world of the narrative that the audience are positioned to accept and that which the audience actually see. They based this on Russian film theory:
Fabula (story) is all the events in the narrative that we see and infer. the fabula is defined as the chronological series of events that are represented or implied.
Syuzhet (plot) everything visible and audibly present before us. Syuzhet is considered to be the order, manner and techniques of their presentation in the narrative.

Tzvetan Todorov 

THE NARRATIVE CAN BEGIN AT ANY POINT.

Song For Whoever - The Beautiful South

There are two levels of diegesis, time and spacial coherence all over the place, song about writing songs to make money, spotlight signifies importance of character (blancmange is the star), the appearance is the most important, blancmange narrative and band performance element come together and the blancmange is eaten.

Tim O'Sullivan et al (1998) suggests narratives have a common structure, starting with the establishment plot or theme. This is then followed by the development of the problem, an enigma (Roland Barthes 1977), an increase in tension. Finally comes the resolution of the plot. Such narratives can be unambiguous and linear.

Kate Domaille (2001) every story told ever can be fitted into eight narrative types. Each of these narrative types has a source, an original story upon which the others are based. These are the following:

• Achilles: The fatal flaw that leads to the destruction of the previously flawless, or almost flawless, person, e.g Superman
• Candide: The indomitable hero who cannot be put down, e.g Indiana Jones
• Cinderella: The dream comes true, e.g Pretty Woman
• Circe: the Chase, the spider and the fly, the innocent and the victim, e.g Smokey and the Bandit
• Faust: Selling your soul to the devil may bring riches but your soul will eventually your soul belongs to him, e.g Wall Street
• Orpheus: The loss of something personal, the gift that is taken away, the tragedy of loss or the journey which follows the loss, e.g The Sixth Sense
• Romeo and Juliet: The love story, e.g Titanic
• Tristan and Iseult: The love triangle, man loves women...unfortunately one or both of them are already spoken for, or a third party intervenes, e.g Casablanca

Levi Strauss (1958) ideas about narrative amount to the fact that he believed all stories operated on certain clear Binary Oppositions e.g good vs. evil. The importance of these ideas is that essentially a complicated world is reduce to a simple either/or structure. Things are either right or wrong, bad or good. There's no in between.

Micheal Shore (1984) argues that music videos are: recycled styles, surface without substance, simulated experience, information overload, image and style scavengers, ambivalence, decadence, immediate gratification, vanity and the moment, image assaults and outre folks, the death of content, anaesthetisation of violence thorough chic, adolescent male fantasies, speed/power/grils and wealth, album art come to turgid life, classical storytelling motifs.

Green Day - Basket Case

Set in the 1975 film 'One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest' - by associating themselves with this intertextual reference they are associating themselves with antiestablishment ideology.

Arctic Monkeys - Leave Before The Lights Come On

Band don't appear at all. Female actress craves attention by pretending to be about to kill herself, the shoe she kicks off signifies a one night stand, she wants a long relationship but the man doesn't so she tries again.

Andrew Goodwin (1992) argues that in music videos, "narrative relations are highly complex" and meaning can be created from the individual audio-viwer's musical personal musical taste to sophisticated intertexuality that uses multidiscursive phenomena of Western cultere. Many are dominated by advertising references, film pastiche and reinforce the postmodern 're-use' tradition.