1. Jamara Royle
Music Video Narrative
For our music video we have chosen the song Radioactive by Imagine Dragons. The band is
of an Indie Rock genre which is why we are having a narrative about bullying as its follows
the conventions of that particular genre.
Our video begins with a 28 second montage sequence of 1-5 second clips showing a teenage
girl getting drunk; going to parties and/or clubs because she is being bullied. The clips will
become parallel to the music as they will speed up as the music speeds up; to suggest that
time is passing by. As soon as the music peaks there will be a close up shot of the girl’s eyes
opening linking to the lyrics “I’mwaking up”. There will be a pan of the room and other
shots of the room showing all the empty alcohol bottles and mess in her room alluding to
the after effects of her being bullied. We will then have diegetic sound of the girl sighing
linking to the lyrics; “I’m breathing in the chemicals” this could also infer (to audiences) how
she is fed up with her life and may want to change it. The next few lines of the song will be
like a band scene but it’s just the girl singing or lip syncing as she gets ready for school.
The chorus will show the girl walking into school and walking down the hallway being
laughed at by other students there will be a shot of another student who is indifferent and
look sympathetic. The girl will have her hood up looking to the floor trying to ignore the
jeers. The last part of the chorus will have a track and back-track shot zooming into the girls
face and back out again, where the tone of the video will be more lugubrious and also
dream like to indicate that we have gone into the girls mind.
As the song goes on to the third verse the shot will still be in her mind but she will be
walking down an empty corridor and on the walls will be images of her memories showing
her being bullied. As she walks down the corridor she will be confused as to what these
images are but as the clip goes along she looks at them and remembers the words they said
which will pop up on the screen for audiences to see what she was called. She will then get
angry as she goes along and will rip them off the wall.
There will be a cut when the chorus plays and she will be at home crying. There will be
various shots like close ups, mid shots and longs shots to show her emotion of her starting
to realize she has had enough of this treatment. In addition to this she becomes angry and
starts to smash stuff in her room and chuck her old clothing out the window. She will then
get changed into new more stylish clothes from the back of her closet and go back to school.
For the last chorus the girl will walk back into school and down the hallway with the people
who were laughing at her but are now staring at her. There will be mid shots and tracking
shot to show how she is feeling small and insecure at first but as the music builds up for the
last few lines of the chorus she will feel begin to feel more confident and ignores the people
who are staring. She will enter the canteen and sit down and the person from the beginning
2. Jamara Royle
who was indifferent to the bullying will sit down with her and there will be a two shot of
them smiling at each other.
