CAROL VERNALLIS
Carol Vernallis studied the editing and camera work closely in music video. She found that the narrative in a music video is not always complete.
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She also found that music videos have frequent edits than say in films. This may be because of the fact that music videos are much shorter that films (3-4 minutes long) and therefore use the various jump cuts and base tracks to captivate and entertain the audience throughout that short period of time.
Vernallis found that music videos are not balanced between a narrative and performance and that the narrative is not always resolved, once again this may because of the length that they are. They also often pose questions in the narrative that do not get answered. This may be done to captivate the audience by building suspense.
In the music video ‘RUDE’ by Magic, we see the protagonist fight to get the girl of his dreams and then marry her. However in the music video the audience understands that her father does not approve of the relationship. In the last shot the protagonists leaves with his now wife, though the audience do not see how her relationship with her father has ended.
EXAMPLE:
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The rule of continuous editing, usually used in television programmes (to keep a particular scene going) are broken. Carol Vernallis says that this is to draw attention to what is on the screen. Furthermore she voices that edits may be real obvious to draw attention to themselves such as special effects.
A structure is usually given to the song with the editing having a rhythmic basis closely connected to the song. This process comes after frequent base tracks have been set. Jump cuts are often in the editing process to help the video more along with the song.
A music video that I found that is a great example of Carol Vernallis’s findings is EVERYBODY HAVE FUN- WANG CHUNG.
EXAMPLE
There are also other features in the video that act as examples of Vernallis’s findings, for example in the video it is evident that several base tracks have been used as when each band member is shown in a close up singing the song it is used throughout the video.
Furthermore it is evident that special effects have been used in post production to accompany the up tempo beat of the song. In the example given of where a member is seen in a close up shot he sings at normal speed, however in the background the rest of the band members are seen playing around in a fast motion.