Vernallis Theory

The music video i have chosen to analyse is 'Love the way you lie' by Eminem feat. Rihanna.



Vernallis' theory centres around 4 key concepts. These are:

1)narrative
2)editing
3)camera movement and framing
4)diegesis

Narrative:

The music video is a visual response to the song. There is a story behind the music video to explain lyrics and put a visual interpretation on the song. This narrative is not always complete with some scenes missing to allow audiences to add their own interpretation and thoughts into what they think is happening in the video. At the end of the video, viewers are unsure of the ending, eliminating closure from the narrative and therefore posing questions to the audience and leaving them wondering.
In this particular video, it's a mixture between narrative and shots of the artists performing to the camera that drive the video forward.

Editing:

The editing of the video generally matches the beat of the music and the cuts are on beat. However the general pace throughout is not even and there are hardly any smooth transitions but more jump cuts between shots. There is also a lot of cutting within the lyrics when it would be expected to stay on the same shot.
Overall the editing is foregrounded and i think very obvious rather than discrete within the video.

Camera Movement and Framing:

Throughout the video, there are lots of extremes of shot types to extreme close ups of the artists but also extreme long shots. There is a similar style of framing throughout the whole video. The video continues to go back to the master shot and close ups of the artists throughout.

Diegesis:

The diegesis is revealed fairly slowly however it ties in with the lyrics of the music and so becomes more apparent as the song develops. The actions are not always completed and are sometimes disrupted and cut. Gaps in the audience's understanding of the music video are common.
Throughout, there are repetitions of imagery used, especially of the artists and also musical phrases and the beat is constant.