“As a short form with few words, a music video must fulfil competing demands of showcasing the star, reflecting the lyrics, and underscoring the music. If a director wishes to insert a narrative within such confines, she must employ certain techniques and devices”-Varnallis, C. Experiencing Music Video: Aesthetics and Cultural Context (2004).

This week’s reading provided helpful insight on clarifying the difference between Narrative and non-narrative music videos. Narrative videos are those in which a visual story is featured, and usually reflect the lyrics of the song within that story. The most common form of music video is the performance/narrative mash up: a video comprising in segments of the artist performing alongside a narrative. Examples of this include A-ha’s Take On Me and Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun.

Learning what the difference is between these two distinctions in music video has helped me gain a better understanding of the options my group and I can pursue when creating our own. From my own research, I have realised that I much prefer narrative music videos as I am very much a story teller, but I can see the merit in the more abstract non-narrative videos too. I guess I will see which kind we go with when it comes to drafting our music video in class next week!