Blog post 6 - Carol Vernallis theory

Carol Vernallis Music Video Theory

Carol Vernallis’ music theory presents the ideas that the camera work and the editing in a music video are used to portray an artist and their music in a certain way. In terms of editing, Carol Vernallis believes that certain editing techniques break conventions of continuity editing and are now the norm for most music videos as they have become conventional to the style of music videos. This includes editing techniques such as; jump cuts, cutting on beat, juxtaposed frames, obvious edits etc... These edits usually occur throughout a music video. For example, a music video that I have been studying and that has given me inspiration for creating my own music video is called ’96 F**kries’ by UK grime rapper JME. This video shows how editing on beat is so conventional to a music video.

This music video also shows the importance of an artist breaking the 4^th wall. As you can see, JME is rapping directly to the camera and his body language is also directed at the viewer. This is also another concept that Vernallis found to be very conventional of music videos and also quite important. Vernallis’ theory also mentions ‘Diegesis’ which is the setting of a music video. In this particular music video the diegesis is quite unclear as there isn’t much variety of shot types and the background changes frequently so we are presented with only one clear base track.