Planning: Outline of Narrative

As a group our task was to identify what parts of the song was narrative, concept or performance based. We did this in order to figure out what exact scenes and edits we want for each verse and chorus. Also, this would then help us when it comes to the production stage as we would have everything planned and ready to film.

This is our annotated lyrics:

Application of Theory:

Goodwin: 

• Relationship between lyrics and visuals: Visuals will reflect the lyrics e.g. “she don’t want to be saved” will show him leaving her and not trying any more.
• Relationship between music and visuals: There will be slow edits/motion to portray the slow pace of the song.
• Intertextual Reference: There will be references to George Bush and a quote of his will be mentioned. 
•  Notion of looking: There will be close-ups of the younger female character when the artist first sees her, and also at the end when the artist meets her again after several years to portray the lust.
•  Star image motif: There will be close-ups of the artist as he performs the song in his bedroom where the full focus will be on him.
• Performance, narrative, concept? Our music video will be narrative and performance based.

Mulvey: 

•  Mulvey’s theory doesn’t really apply, but the slight attraction of the girl may cause a ‘male gaze’.

Dyer:

• In our video, “star image” will be emphasised through the focus on J-Cole as he performs the song/rap.

Adorno: 

• Relation to audience through narrative of people being heartbroken which is a mainstream idea. This applies to the majority of the public as the theme of heartbreak is common in society.

Video Narration:
Starts off with artist performance on their own, in a simplistic white room. The artist reminisces on his high school days and how he loved a girl. Realised he had to give up because “she don’t want be saved” from the way she is acting around males. After reminiscing on the relationship that they shared she finds herself in a toxic relationship with a different man. The young lady realises that the artist now has money, fame and happiness and now wants him back; however, the artist is no longer interested. The older version of the girl will return at the end to J-Cole and they are standing face to face expressionless. Both the younger and older characters will wear similar clothing in order to portray the representation. There will be a clear use in Todorov’s theory with the equilibrium, disequilibrium and new equilibrium.


Overall, annotating our lyrics helped significantly as we were able to discuss what we wanted to shoot for each line in the song. As a group we were able to discuss angles, shots and movement with also the different edits we plan to use which helped us create a vision for the music video.