Lyric Analysis - Miss Georgiou

add more lyrics - relate to code and conventions.

As a group we got together and analysed the lyrics to our Gabrielle Aplin song 'Salvation.' I was able to really investigate the connotations of the song and this made it a lot more interesting to be able to justify the scenes and selected micro elements into the actual song and music. Being able to go over the song and the lyrics made it suitable for us as a group to be able to display our planning techniques. We are able to identify the key aspects of the song that we wanted to display in our music video. The main theme being about love and sacrifice.

I have tried to relate our narrative to the meaning of the lyrics as far as possible as it will contribute to displaying a very typical, emotional, and honest artist. The lyrics 'while I'm wide awake' are able to contribute to the fact that even though our artist is rich and successful she is un able to be satisfied and believe in the fact that someone loves her, she portrays herself as very insecure and allows the audience to be witness her as being someone that only dreams of being loved and it doesn't actually happen. This will enable the audience to feel very relataed to this artist as they are consumed to the idea of not being loved and never finding a 'boyfriend' or 'girlfriend.' Overall this is a very common fear of teens growing up and will cause a relationship between the artist and audience. The title and chorus of the song 'My Salvation' lets the artist be viewed as someone who is relying on there other half to look after them. The audience now know that she is vulnerable in the relationship as Gabrielle see's her partner as being her saviour. This is connoted in our planned seen of the car breaking down and the boyfriend having to recue her by being able to push the car and attempt to fix it. In addition to this the line 'the darkest fairy-tale' relates to the artists fear of losing him and this will foreshadow what is yet to come. The fact that he will eventually go to war and die has been purposely inspired by this line because as a group we are able to relate this strongly to her fear of being alone. This is because fairy tales are typically seen as very happy and unite couples together, compared to dark and twisted fairy tales that lead to the two main hero's being taken away from each other.

While initially planning and annotation the lyrics, as seen above we where able to create something that allowed us to colour code the performance and narrative aspects of the song. We highlighted them in different colours and this enabled us to decide clearly where we first planned to have different narrative parts and different singing elements to our music video. It was a successful way to plan as it allowed us all to be able to connote the music video in a particular way that made it easier to envision as a music video not just a song.

The codes and conventions of the indie genre vary in a way that is able to represent them in a more neutral and natural way. Indie artists are not commonly displayed as artificial. The love theme is a typical code and convention that is displayed in the song 'My Salvation.' This enables the audience to identify this as an indie song immediately, almost hinting already to whether this song will be enjoyable to them or not. The line 'let the band play out' is another typical music line that connotes to the codes and conventions of the indie genre as it allows the audience to get an idea of the type of theme the artist wants to create, here the audience are able to see how much the artist wants to involve the typical instrument vibe into the music video which allows the artist to be seen as following the typical indie genre.

The cinematography that we came up with through the lyrics and tempo of the song was actually handheld, close up and zooming in shot. This would all be used in the end of the song where the song continues to repeat the words 'My Salvation.' the repetition of the song suggests how much of an impact it may have on the audience if the shots are quite unstable and jiggered as it create the effect of panic. We plan to have our artist 'Amy-Michaela' run frantically but at the same time it will show scenes of her partners death which will ultimately relate to the particular types of cinematography as it will allow the artist to be seen in a certain light. The audience will almost feel the tension rising as the handheld movements are shown. The close up's of our artists face will also relate to the impact of her emotions in the close up and the zooming in shots will enable the artist to be given more attention in her facial and body language.

Moving on to the editing styles there are two main elements that we have decided to use as a group through the analysis of lyrics alone. The montaged effect of the London scenes will connote with the instrumental part of the song that we have noted down on the lyrics. We believe that because the tempo is increasing the scenes should increase in size and population. For example, the London scenes will be speed up and contain bigger more grand buildings and lots and lots of people, which will be able to display the artist as a lot more tense. In addition to this at the same part of the song the pace of the shots will increase to also create and build tension, this is because at this particular moment we plan to have everything quite chaotic as the song ends, this will not only relate to the repetitive line of 'My Salvation' but also to the fact that the song is coming to an end and the narrative is at its peak for tension.

While analysing the lyrics I was also able to discuss mise-en-scene with my group. The costume that we want our artist to start wearing is a white jumper. We got this idea from the line 'all that i could see was white.' The fact that she is portrayed as innocent through the world white shows us that Gabrielle Aplin wrote this song with herself being presented as the victim. We are able to see how much of a difference this makes. As through the costume being a lot lighter it allows us to see her as being the innocent one in the group. As the narrative turns to the worst and the male partner is unable to be with her no more due to the fact that he dies in the war, we can relate the particular lighting to the line 'The darkest fairy tale' will demonstrate how the low-key lighting fits perfectly with this side of the song. Her life is turning for the worst which concludes how much of an impact the low-key lighting will have on the audience as it will guide them into believing that something bad is about to be happening. We will use this in the scene where our artist Amy Michaela finds out about her partners death. This will ultimately fit the atmosphere perfectly. The iconography in our music video allows the audience to be able to relate to the music video. The piano used in our music video is related to the lyrics through the use of the word 'band.' In addition to this the whole song's instrumental is played through the use of a piano which relates to our music video strongly as we plan to use the iconography that supports our song and its genre as music as possible. The positioning of characters will usually always be displayed the same. The male partner will be positioned above the artist Amy Michaela in music video, this is because she always views him in a more superior way because he is her 'salvation.' Finally the setting is connoted through the lyrics 'you are the avalanche' and 'you are the snowstorm.' These are both natural elements that could be seen in natural environments which has allowed us to be influenced to have a setting in natural environments, for example the cow fields and forest areas that we will use. 

The overall style of our music video is going to based on the style of narrative and performance. This relates to our lyric analysis as we was inspired by the narrative side to her song. The fact that through the lyrics she displays herself as very vulnerable allows us to be able to take this side of the artist and represent it in our lyrics. As a group through the analysis of the lyrics we are able to see how our target audience will be able to relate to our music video in a more clear light. The fact that our artist has written a song that revolves around emotions in relationships is something very common that all people go through from time to time. The audience are able to be very sympathetic and feel the same emotions as the artist and with us as a group planning the music video around the song we are able to achieve a very relatable music video that our target audience can relate well with. In conclusion to this the audience will ultimately feel a lot closer to the artist as a friend not just as a performer. Which is something that we feel will be very successful in the music video. 

When finalising the the lyric analysis I have learnt to be a lot more observant when planning the storyline. Our music video just wouldn't be as successful if we made it so that the narrative didn't fit well with the lyrics, because the atmosphere of the video would change and we wouldn't be able to see a true representation of the artists intentions of the song. This, in reality wouldn't sell as much records and the video would eventually become a 'flop', because the audience wouldn't be able to get a true representation of the artist. As an audience they may not understand it and eventually be forced into feeling very separate and distanced from the artist instead of being very close together. The annotations of the lyric analysis really help to create a successful storyboard. alongside listening to the song we where able to add specific shots and time them correctly to fit in with the song and lyrics in detail. In conclusion it allows us to have a clear vision of what we want to create, before actually committing to each shot in the storyboard.