Narrative Theory

Tzveten Todorov: Narrative theory

Russian Theorist, Tzveten Todorov, suggests that all narratives follow three steps.The theory is that successful music videos begin with an equilibrium; a balance. Then an occurance happens which disrupts that balance. In the end of the video, the problems get solved and order is restored, and there is a peaceful balance again, a new equilibrium. Some music videos, however, go against this theory and do not begin with an equilibrium, and can still be successful.

Our music video does not strictly follow Todorov's theory. Our narrative begins with no balance from the beginning, as the narrative begins with the main character addicted to gambling and the girlfriend is fed up. This is because we wanted to show that his addiction and their problems in their relationship have been going on for a long time, and there is no happiness within the relationship anymore.The occurance in our video is that the girlfriend finally leaves him, which could be a new sense of balance and equilibrium for her, as she finally gets out of the relationship she is not happy in. However, for the main character, there is no resolution for him, as he is still addicted to gambling and in a sense, his whole world has fallen apart and he has lost everything - his money, his home and his girlfriend. We did not end our video with the main character being happy and everything resolved, because we wanted to avoid romantic chliche.

There are usually binary oppositions in a successful music video; good vs. evil for example. In our music video, we have a basic binary opposition of happiness and sadness. The girlfriend in the video is sad and annoyed, however the boyfriend fails to see that he has a problem with gambling, and is fairly happy with things before his girlfriend leaves him. We have also thought about use of light and dark to create a sense of atmosphere and to show how the characters are feeling. We have used use of darkeness surrounding the man to symbolise how he is feeling and how his world is getting destroyed. We have also linked the use of light and dark to connect with the lyrics 'darker side', and we have one side of the mans face in darkeness and the other in light. This can also link to the fact he has split personalities, eg. the 'dark side' is his gambling addiction and the light side represents how he was when he was a loyal and loving boyfriend. On the other hand, the girlfriend, once she is out of the relationship and she is finally happy, we will how her in a brighter light to symbolise how she is feeling.