Treatment

Narrative

Following Levi-Strauss’ theory, the music video will have a non-linear storyline, because it features flashbacks. I believe  that if a non-linear narrative is included this would engage with the audience emotionally allowing the audience to see the protagonist’s, Christina, side of the story and her memories which would immediately create a deep connection between the audience and the protagonist. Moreover, for the narrative there will be majority of close up as well as mid shot scenes which will allow the protagonist to give direct audience to the audience, this will allow the audience to follow Christina in her journey from having a loving relationship with a boy she cared about to that love being manipulated and used to his advantage. However, through the heartache there will be a hybrid of emotions from envy to anger, even though Christina knows she is being used she can not help but go back and be his ‘other women’ as long as she gets want she wants which is him. Throughout, we discussed that we would show majority of the footage of the protagonist on her own so that she has experiences on self-reflection and expresses this reflection on to the audience, again giving direct address so that they sympathise and can relate to her on a personal level.

Locations

The locations featured are; Brixton, Knightsbridge, and Oxford Circus. However, we decided to also film in spaces such as, Isabella Plantation, St. Duncan’s in the East and Greenwich Foot Tunnel. We wanted to subvert typical conventions of the R&B genre by also surrounding the protagonist with nature, as the conventions usually show the protagonist to be in a sexual environment. Having the nature scenes are to exhibit Levi-Strauss’s ‘binary opposites’ theory, as the protagonist’s mannerism is quite too sexual and dominant, and we wanted to see her in nature, because traditionally women were supposed to be sensitive like flowers, but she subverts this and acts completely different.

Character profile

The main character, played by Christina, has somewhat a mixed signal personality. At the beginning, she says “You say you got a girl. But how you want me? How you want me when you’ve got a girl?” This lyric shows that she is quite civil and doesn’t agree with affairs and ruining relationships. However, it is quite evident that she has changed her mind- “Gettin' all in your love, Fallin' all over love”. At this point she’s in love with him, but he’s not showing her the same affection. After this, she reveals signs of envy because she’s jealous of how much time her love interest is spending with his own girl, “Like is you comin' home? Is you out with her?”.  The protagonist becomes greedy and completely opposes her feelings before about the private engagement and starts to plead for more days with the man she’s having an affair with- “I gotta say I'm in the mood for a little bit more of that. I mean I'm saying what kind of deal, just two days? I need me at least 'bout four of them”. To conclude, the character profile detailing the protagonist is quite varied as she goes through many stages within the song that it’s harder to depict her actual personality. Looking back, I’ve come to release that it’s almost as if she’s going through the five stages of grief. Denial- She loves a man that doesn’t love her back. Anger- She becomes angry when she only gets her man on the weekends, bargaining- she starts begging for more days, depression- when she becomes paranoid whether he’s out or if he’s with his girl. The last stage is acceptance- this is heard when she speaks directly to the other woman and says “You're like 9 to 5, I'm the weekend. Then just send him my way. Think I got it covered for the weekend”. The symbolization of grief in this situation is actually the loss of the man, who has lost interest in the protagonist and that’s why he spends more time with his own girlfriend.

To Camera, Story, or Mix

Our music video has a mixture of to camera and story elements. To further our understanding of Andrew Goodwin’s theory of music videos being of ‘Illustrative, Amplifying, Contradicting’, we chose to use Illustrative because the lyrics of the song, follows a women sharing her man with another, which would be clearly shown in our production video. Furthermore, the protagonist’s character development is also shown when she looks directly at the camera to reveal that she was once fierce and dominant but at the end she became more accepting of the situation she was in even though she hated it, so in her own way she became submissive.

Behind the Scenes Images and Justification

Behind the Scenes Images and justification

 

This is fourth look for the music video, here we tried to make her have a hybrid of edgy and girly vibes to play well with her fierce personality. To convey an edgy appearance we thought it would be suitable to use the leather corset belt however we also thought to demonstrate her figure and her curves in case we planned on using Laura Mulvey’s ‘Male Gaze’ theory. Moreover, for this look we agreed to do her make up girly therefore Sianna, makeup artist, to create ‘a simple glamorised look’ this would then portray her feminine side and show a different attitude to her with the ‘glamorised’ look.

For this shoot we travelled to Greenwich (London) to film within the Greenwich Foot Tunnel, however we got distracted by other various locations and decided to film in front of the ocean to capture the city lights. This shot summarises the location and what the protagonist looked like during the shoot. We decided to shoot in front of the landscape because we thought of the lights creating an orb and which lured her towards it, throughout the narrative the protagonist is lonely and capturing her going towards the light of the building was a great way of conveying the idea that she’s looking for something or someone in her life that gives her light.

 

 

 

 

This location was too filmed in Greenwich, however it was filmed in a little street, unfortunately we did not see a street sign therefore it is unknown. What drew our attention towards this location was the small space and the lights above the shops which again we thought was a good example of Goodwin’s ‘star’ theory as the lights and the long narrow pavement gave the impression of a ‘runway’ and therefore would allow the protagonist to act however she would like to give her the main focus. Also, we decided that this location was also great at identifying the artists cultural background and giving a sense of her love of home, this was present through the use of the shop signs, which can be seen in the video, the signs promotes British culture such as ‘British things’, etc. Not only does this reflect on Maslow’s ‘physiological needs’, of the artist reflecting on her home but allowing her audience to know her as a British artist.

In addition, are behind the scene images of the crew in Greenwich filming in the Greenwich Foot Tunnel. What was great about this location was that we believed it to be a great way to portray isolation and give the protagonist her ‘star’ moment (Andrew Goodwin theory). However, when filming in this particular location there were complications such as the crowd, which we tried to avoid by arriving late within the evening but we still captured many shots that we could potentially use to convey isolation between the protagonist and the rest of the world so that she could give direct address to the audience.