Our overall idea for there to be two stories. One, is the singer, on her own, singing the story and letting out emotion. The other, is the singer in the story, this is the relationship of the man and woman, and how her life is. This will be a split screen for the whole music video. Therefore showing both stories at the same time. At the end of the video the two stories will swap, showing the character in how she wants the story to finish, and how it actually does.
The music video similar to other music videos of our genre, as it will tell a story behind the lyrics of the song. However it will also be different to the genre, as many Soul Pop artists, that we have researched, do not have a split screen story. The story side will have the generic settings and costumes for a typical Soul Pop music video. The other side will have generic settings and costumes as a performer to an audience.
The narrative we will be showing is a linear love story, which is the most popular type of narrative within our genre. The female singer will dominate it. Andrew Goodwin came up with the theory of amplifying, which we will be creating; this is manipulating the audience in relating to the artist and her music. We will also use amplifying to repeat meanings. As well as using Goodwin’s theory of a illustrative narrative which provides a literal representation of images.
We are following Propp’s narrative theory of stock characters within our music video for example; we use the female singer as both the princess and heroin within the narrative. We also include another character who is displayed as the villain by the way he treats her. This represents a patriarchal society whereby it is mainly dominated by men.
Within our music video, we have displayed binary oppositions which links to Levi-Strauss’ theory. Through this we create the oppositions of Good and Bad. This manipulates the audience to side with the artist who is the ‘good’ person.
Our narrative structure is following Todorov’s theory, which is the five stages. We have done this by starting with an equilibrium. This is where the singer in the music video is in a healthy state of mind. This is disrupted by the male in the video who dominates and changes her state of mind. The female recognises this and attempts to restore her state of mind by leaving. This brings a new equilibrium to the end of the music video.
We are conforming to our genre’s narrative convention by keeping to the codes of this genre (romance conflict). Although we are conforming, we are also challenging it due to the split screen that we are doing. This creates two stories, meaning that the real story and the story portrayed have different endings in the romance conflict.
Our music video will appeal to our target audience of young women as the narrative and lyrics of the song are easy to follow and relate to. This is amplified through the characters in the video. It will also be appealing to this audience because the singer herself is easy to relate to through her age. Secondly, the narrative structure follows the codes and conventions of today’s female modern singers.
We are engaging with the audience by creating a new type of music video through a different layout to normal Soul Pop videos. We have done this through split screen, creating two stories about the same character.
Our music video could be criticised through the images shown. The way the male character acts towards the female character could be quite aggressive for the audience to watch. Also the storyline could be quite confusing and not get across the real meaning of the lyrics. At the end of the video, the same character does the opposite action; this may indicate that overall men dominate over women and therefore, could cause some inferior reactions.
