Narrative — a video that has a story element usually based on the lyrics of the song.
It's safe to say that we at TikiKiti pay particular attention to Unofficial Music Videos with a narrative structure. Because our backgrounds are closely tied to independent filmmaking we understand how challenging it can be to tell an actual story with limited resources.
For this installment, we're cueing up a trio of student videos, each with a different approach to narrative.
Jaye is another promising video artist from the UK stretching her creative legs in a Media Studies class. The storyline for the song "Youth" by English pop band Daughter, is nonlinear and episodic, depicting a turbulent romantic relationship between two schoolgirls. Happy times give way to conflict and apparent dissolution, followed by a sorrowful interlude. The ending suggests that the protagonist perseveres despite learning a rough life lesson. Cynics may rightly point out that this structure has been done to death, but Jaye's viewpoint is nonetheless clear and sincere.
In "Four Walls" by Bastille, artist Rachel Marsh turns even further inward with her own personal horror movie that bears a passing resemblance to The Exorcist. The video teeters between benign footage of a seemingly "normal" teenage girl to unsettling scenes of the same girl in a nightmare insane asylum. With a song that was written about Perry Smith, one of the real-life killers profiled in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, Marsh uses the brittle lyrics as a jumping-off point for an icy plunge into madness that is both frightening and heartbreaking, thanks to deft execution and editing.
Finally, Lucia Timberlake's take on The Bangles' "Manic Monday" provides a playful tweak on our expectations, by seemingly sabotaging a song that celebrates rushing out the door to face another workweek. Here, she focuses on a nameless adolescent boy getting ready for school.
Instead of the breathless frenzy the song describes, the kid takes his sweet time, prepares breakfast, washes the dishes, and brushes his teeth. It's 100 percent mundane, but there is movement as the story is shot from different angles and flowing easily with the music, effectively subverting our anticipation of significant action taking place. Well played Lucia!
It's noteworthy that all three narratives are set in plain ol' reality (though Rachel's video turns darkly inward), with action seemingly derived from everyday routine. It shows pragmatic minds at work. Chaos is easy. Imposing order on the universe is far more difficult.
