Lucy Scott Narrative, Concept, Performance video’s

This video, though simple, is a good example of concept. The artist of the song remains invisible; there is no kind of performance or narrative aspect to distract from the concept. The song is moving, and the video fits this, the consistency of the balls moving, represents I think life and its on-going cycle. Colour is especially notable in this video, the vibrancy of the balls disorients yet engages the audiences, alongside the unlikeliness of a stream of bouncy balls travelling down a road. The video is more conceptual than narrative because of the lack of people to drive the narrative, though the profiles or backs of characters are included, the focus remains with the balls and their journey through the suburban streets.

The script- Before the worst. This video is a token example of performance. The entire video never wavers from the band performing the song seemingly live. The video gives the impression of the band rehearsing, the lack of audience in the stadium indicting this. The effect of the video concentrating solely on the band gives an illusion of intimacy with the band, which is important to an audience, as well as not distracting from the music, and focusing on nothing but the band.

This video, though also performance, is primarily narrative. The content on the song (the end of the relationship) is made incredibly clear through the artists of the song performing the song in a duet, and directly to each other, as though they themselves are the characters in the song. The video could also be construed as concept, particularly because of the couple being intertwined in the mural, metaphorical for being intertwined in a relationship. This Gotye video is an example of some video’s fitting conventions of many music video’s. Although I believe it’s primarily narrative, there is also aspects of concept as well as performance, because the two artists are performing their song, but are also the characters in the lyrics.