The links between my narrative and the lyrics of my song

2. Off with your head, dance till you’re dead,
heads will roll, heads will roll, heads will roll,
on the floor
My music video does not always have direct matching
connotations to the lyrics but there are some links. When
the first lyric ‘off with your head’ is sang there is a close
up, slow inward zooming shot of the females head so this
section of narrative does link to the lyrics. The repeating
lyric ‘heads will roll’ holds connotations of danger and
forewarning an upcoming event which is why I chose to
use the same shot but with different framing each time,
starting on a medium close up and ending on a long
shot. On the last shot (which covers the whole of ‘heads
will roll on the floor’) the knife, e.g the danger, is
revealed and there is a downwards tilt showing the floor,
linking back to the lyrics of the song. This camera
movement also provides a great transition to the next
scene which is from the past, allowing the audience to
recognise that time has changed. This method of
switching between times is quite conventional and
allows the audience to experience the ‘story’ in a non
chronological order. This makes the video more
entertaining and should be consumed by the audience
in its intended way due to its conventionality.
This opening sequence allows the audience to guess at
how the narrative will pan out and captures their
attention as they want to see how it will end.

3. Looking glass, take the past, shut your eyes,
you realise
The lyrics here work in conjunction with this section of the
narrative. The line ‘looking glass, take the past’ matches
up to the part of the narrative where Kate is sat thinking
about the bad side of her relationship with Jack and she
wants to forget the past and let go. This is my
interpretation of the lyrics and hopefully how my
audience will see it with the help of my visuals. When the
lyric ‘shut your eyes’ is sang the girl shuts her eyes in time
with the word ‘shut’ , linking the lyrics and narrative
together. The entire verse in general also compliments
the narrative as the girl character is deeply thinking
about the past and her relationship with Jack and is
finally starting to realise that the relationship is falling
apart. This makes my narrative true to real life and
relatable as often people in similar situations do not see
that what is happening (domestic violence) is wrong
and should not be tolerated but are ‘blinded’ by
remaining love.
This sequence helps to build the narrative (through the
lyrics and visuals) and allows the audience to
understand Kates thoughts and feelings towards the
situation through her body language.

4. Glitter on the wet streets, silver over
everything, the glitters all wet, you’re all
chrome, you’re all chrome
Although the lyrics in this sections of the video do not
directly link with narrative there are slight components
which draw the two together. The line ‘silver over
everything’ is sang whilst Kate is tracing her finger over
the knife and so there is quite a literal link between the
knife and ‘silver’ but there is no specific meaning behind
it, it simply aids the progression of the narrative. Whilst
the lyric ‘the glitters all wet’ is sang the accompanying
shot is of the girls cut finger and dripping blood. This links
with the use of glitter as blood in the original video as I
also thought this line had a more sinister meaning when
conducting my lyrics analysis. I wanted to use the
references to glitter as an innuendo for blood to help
represent my narrative.
This sequence helps to portray Kates change in state of
mind and develops our understanding of the character
as she’s no longer thinking properly.

5. Off, off, off with your head, dance, dance,
dance till you’re dead (repeated several
times)
For these sections of the song I focused my shots on
performance, particularly dance, and tried to make links to
the song within the dance moves. When the lyric ‘with your
head’ is being sang (several times) I have often used shots
of the girl grabbing her hair/head which provides a direct
link to the song but also reflects the crazy and hyperbolic
nature of the entire lyric, expressing the frustration and
anger held by Kates character. The lyric ‘dance, dance,
dance till you’re dead’ also has a direct link to the shots of
Kate energetically and ‘crazily’ dancing, which is the
representation I got from the lyric. The girls body language
and facial expressions also link well with the irrational and
crazy connotations, expressing her feelings of confusion. The
camera shots I have used also help with this as I have used
a range of framing and camera angles, such as a canted
angle. This shot is conventionally used to show confusion
and so the audience should understand this to be a
purposeful technique.
This sequence again helps the audience to develop their
understanding of Kates character and why she is behaving
in a strange and irrational way.
On the ending sequence of the video (which uses the same
lyrics) I have also made a direct link to the lyrics. Here the
shots are focused around Jack laying dead which finally
shows the reality of Kates unstable behaviour. This clarifies
the result of the opening shots and finally allows the
audience to understand the whole story/narrative.