Riptide - Narrative Codes and Conventions

1.     Are there any elements of coherence in the narrative? (Potential theories/ideas to use: Todorov and Postmodernism) 
The music video shows no coherence in the narrative and doesn't relate to Todorov's theory due there being no clear narative and things like the setting is left a mystery and scenes have no sort of relation at all which relates to having a disjointed narrative the idea of thing being left in simulation (make belief) 

2.     What ‘message’ does the video contains? Refer to Barthes in your notes.
The video contains the message of the pressure of women suffering from relationships or society as the left hand man lyric are presented with male hands doing aggressive moments like cutting and pulling and when we are shown the woman hand during the same lyric we are presented with her self harming herself which is a metaphor of self abuse due to rebellion and prolonged pressure. She is showing aggression like the males, but in a different way as she shows aggression to herself and the men showed aggression t other objects. 

3.    It is a convention of music videos to have song lyrics interpreted on screen. The overt way the lyrics are interpreted in this video challenges this convention. Analyse the opening line: “I was scared of dentists and the dark” explain how this interpreted on screen and analyse the semiotics (Barthes)of images, which accompany the lyrics. 
They presented the scene with dentist as a torturing scene as we see he facial expression of the woman shows she is in fear and the mouth piece refers to her being silenced and the strong lighting on her refers to the harsh hot conditions connected with torturing. 

4.    This overt graphical representation of the lyrics is repeated throughout the video. Make a list of the other overt interpretations of the lyrics.

Lyrics	Image
"Taken away to the dark side."	Dragging body
Running down to the riptide	Running girl
Head to new York city	Plane in air flying

5.    There is a reoccurring montage used at the start of the chorus of a woman running before it cuts to a close up the sea. What ideas are being communicated by the use of this montage?

The montage is relating to the lyrics running down to the riptide as we see a shot of running and a shot of a riptide. 

Chorus 1
Chorus 2
Chorus 3
Chorus 4
Chorus 4
	Challenge:  What significance does the movement of the waves have in relation to the previous shot?

6.    The opening shot uses cinematic style credits and information about the music is presented with a title at bottom of the screen. This title is similar to a “billing block” which is often seen on film posters or in trailers. Explain why this style might have been copied for film and summarise audience response it creates. Is the video presenting itself as a short film or a music video? How could this be related to the type of music video it is?

It could be to promote the music video as a film as we don’t see many conventions of a indie folk music video and the music video doesn’t include the artist at all so this could be them trying to present the music video as a short film. The audience reaction to the cinematic style credits would be to think they are watching some sort of film production as it is unusual in a music video.  

7.    The video has intertextual referencethe western, Thriller and Horrorgenres(particularly Wes Anderson films). List the intertextual references you can spot and analyse the semiotics of each. 

The use of the woman performing the song has a silver mic which was a common convention of a Jazz music video we also see the dragging of a dead body which we can link to a horror.