carol vernallis- functions and meanings of music video editing

Vernallis

Carol Vernallis Functions and meanings of music video editing theory

By Laura Knowles

Carol Vernallis is a theorist who in her work, The kindest cut explores how editing in film and in music videos differ from each other.

She talks about things such as continuity, editing as a whole, meaning, sound and visuals and their relationships, and the star image.

The four main categories that she talks about are camera (including its positing, movements, and framing), editing, narrative and Diegesis (which refers to the world created within the music video).

Camera:

Vernallis suggests that in music videos, close-ups are very common shots used to show the band/artist or the people playing parts in the music video and the importance of them and the way that they look. This ties in with Rickard Dyers theory as it demonstrates how the record label want artists to be looked and to be a big selling point. Vernallis also suggests that establishing shots are also used very commonly in music videos, which show the location. For example, this may be used if a video is set in New York, as it is a well known city that people will know as soon as they see it.

More on camera:

She also suggests that in music videos, different shots are mostly cut to the beat/pace of the song. This therefore brings more attention to the artist/band as it makes the audience more interested with what is happening in the video. An example of a music video which this can be seen in is Adeles music video for her song Rolling in the deep, where shots of glasses on the floor, a performer, and shots of Adele (the artist) are using in time with the music and to the bass of the song.

She also argues that the framing in music videos is very distinctive, however this depends on the genre of the music.

Examples:

An example of a music video which commonly uses close-ups of the artist is the music video for the song Stay by Rihanna and Mikky Ekko. This music video shows lots of close-ups of Rihannas face while she is in the bath while looking emotional. Obviously, here this may have been used to show the audience the emotion on her face, although it is also something that is important to Rihannas star image, meaning that her looks are something that is important to her success (people like to talk about how she looks and what shes wearing). This is also different to the man in the music video, who isnt shown as clearly and his face isnt focused on as much (portraying that the look of Rihanna is more important that the look of him).

Another example:

An example of a music video which uses establishing shots is the music vido for Bastilles song Pompeii.

This music video uses a variation of these sort of shots to show the location of the lead singer of the group (which seems to be an abandoned/bleak looking city landscape).

This may have been done to fit in with the genre of the song (indie pop), as this is also a common convention of music videos form this particular genre. (To see more about conventions of this genre, visit my previous exploring genres and sub-genres blog posts).

Editing:

With regards to editing in music videos, this theorist states that music videos usually break the rules of continuity (unlike what would be seen in a TV show or a film). For example, bands and artists will usually do things such as change their clothes multiple times in a music video and include different settings when they do so, therefore disrupting the rules of continuity. However, I believe that this is not necessarily done as much in narrative music videos, as they still have a story to go along with. An example of a music video which breaks the rules of continuity is Katy Perrys music video for her song This is how we do, as it keeps going to different shots where the artist is seen in a different outfit and in a different location, with different people.

She also states that another recognisable editing technique used in music videos is jump cuts, as music videos usually go straight form one thing to the next, while cutting the different frames to the beat/speed of the song/music.

Diegesis:

This theorist argues that the diegesis is something which is revealed slowly throughout the music video and its story, thus allowing it to develop and making it more interesting for the audience members. For example, in the music video for the song Oceans by Seafret, it is revealed nearer to the end of the video that the main character in the music video actually has super powers, even though the audience members may not necessarily see it coming.

She also argues that music videos are also sometimes in a way left uncompleted, which makes the audience member want to know what happens next

Narrative:

The narrative is usually a visual response to the song and what the artist/band wants the meaning to be presented as. For example, a lot of different meanings can be interpreted from a song, but the artist/band will choose what story they want to tell.

She argues that the endings of music videos may not be clear and may make the audience think more or try and figure out what the meaning was. For example

She argues that the narrative within a music video is sometimes disjointed, therefore causing the audience to pay more attention to the song itself (which usually happens more commonly in bands music videos).

She states that music videos will usually have a theme to the narrative that the band/artist chooses to portray. For example, the music video for Katy Perrys song California gurls was obviously done in a way in which it fits with the lyrics in a fun way, showing some girls in bikinis, fitting with the lyrics Daisy dukes, bikinis on top.

The End.

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carol vernallis- functions and meanings of music video editing

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