Vladimir Propp -

Vladimir Propp was born on April 17, 1895 in St. Petersburg to a German family. He attended St. Petersburg University (1913–1918) majoring in Russian and German philosophy. Upon graduation he taught Russian and German at a secondary school and then became a college teacher of German.

While analyzing the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements, he concluded that all the characters could be resolved into 8 broad character types in the 100 tales he analyzed:

1. The villain — struggles against the hero.
2. The donor — prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.
3. The (magical) helper — helps the hero in the quest.
4. The princess or prize — the hero deserves her throughout the story but is unable to marry her because of an unfair evil, usually because of the villain. the hero's journey is often ended when he marries the princess, thereby beating the villain.
5. her father — gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, marries the hero, often sought for during the narrative. Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the father can not be clearly distinguished.
6. The dispatcher — character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off.
7. The hero or victim/seeker hero — reacts to the donor, weds the princess.
8. False hero — takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess.

An example of a video that follows this would be 'Love Story' by Taylor Swift. In fits into Propps theory as the prince and princess become star crossed lovers and end up married. Most modern videos don't follow Propps theory as music videos don't often follow a story but as this is based on Shakespears 'Romeo and Juliet', it follows his theory.