Carol Vernallis - Max Dandy

Carol Vernallis's theory (taken from 'The Kindest Cut'):

This theory closely analysis's the comparison between the editing between music videos and Hollywood films. This comparison allows us to highlight that distinct approaches were taken in the production between the two different types of media.

There were numerous analytical points that Vernallis found and stated related to the difference between music and Hollywood film videos.

The first point highlighted is that in music videos, there are various narrative strands that are sometimes incomplete, usually in this type of video, these different strands are cross cut edited together. This links to montage editing as it creates the feeling that a lot has happened within the few minutes the music video runs for. This differs from narratives in Hollywood films as there is typically one clear narrative throughout the film, with a distinct beginning, middle and end. For instance, establishing shots are used to create the distinct beginning of the film.

In Pharrel Williams music video of his hit song 'Happy' it is clear that this type of 'choppy' narrative is used as throughout the video, there are shots of various points in time of the artist and of different characters in their daily life being 'happy'. These various narratives are cross cut, and as i mentioned previously, this gives the audience the sense that a lot has happened throughout the duration of the video (montage editing)

we know that the shots are from different 

point in time through the use of costume 

change. As well as costume, location allows us to differ between the different narrative strands. The fact that some shots are in the day and some are in the night also allow us to notice the difference. This characteristic of the music video also allows us to feel the sense that time has progressed quickly and that there has been a lot that has happened during the video.

Generally, in a music video, there is an unconventionally shot order and shots are shifted between more freely, on the other hand, in Hollywood films there is a conventional shot order. This is evident in Calvin Harris's video 'Summer'.