Discuss concepts of narrative storytelling techniques and structure with reference to

specific videos.

In the video by Coldplay ‘The Scientist’ the storyline is shown non-linear, this means that the story is told backwards, you start at the end and end at the beginning. During the video there is a Protagonist, this is the character that leads us through the story, most videos do have some sort of protagonist. In this example it is Chris Martin.

Narrative StructureThe Narrative is the Plot and the Storyline.

The Plot is where the story is going and how the story is shown.

The Storyline is what happens during the video.

Another example is Gnarls Barkley ‘Who’s Going to Save My Soul’The Protagonist is used to direct the audience through the video and keep them watching.

Narrative Structure

Antagonist

Protagonist

Both of these videos are shown in a linear storyline which is when the story is told beginning to end.

Also in videos there is the opposite of a Protagonist, and Antagonist, this is the character, or element that is bad, for example in the Death Cab For Cutie video of ‘Grapevine Fires’ the Protagonist being the boy on the bike leads us through the story showing what is going on, and the Antagonist (the bad element) is the fire burning down the houses and destroying the peace.

Narrative Structure Another way of using narrative in a video is by having an equilibrium – disequilibrium – new equilibrium structure.

For example in the video ‘What’s a Girl To Do?’ by Bat For Lashes you can argue that it does fit with this theory and that it doesn’t.

It starts by having a girl cycling down the road on a bike, then people join her and other things happens, and then at the end she cycling on her own again. By saying this it does fit, but because the disequilibrium doesn’t change as much as it should, for example not having anything bad happen or the story change to much means that the disequilibrium in the theory doesn’t fit.