Group Ideas Updated

To collate our research as a group and to group together our ideas for our narrative we decided to have a group discussion about everything. We split this down into four main sections:

Brief narrative and red thread theory:

When we sat down the first thing we decided to do was gain a brief idea of our narrative so we could develop it. So we began by collating our favourite parts of our individual research to see if we all wanted to explore it in our narrative. The main aspects we decided were:

• We wanted to explore homosexuality but to prevent it from becoming a typical cliché narrative, we decided to add a plot twist of introducing a male character. This is because the indie audience don’t enjoy stereotypical plots and therefore, this challenges stereotypes. We then decided that to make one character of both bisexual, homosexual and heterosexual would allow us to explore all representations.
•        We also decided that we wanted to have a motif running throughout the video to conform to Barthes’ theory of symbolic codes as it appeals to the indie genre. Therefore, Liv made the connection that as we had decided to name our artist ‘Luna’ that there was a myth that featured a god with the same name. It also represents people being in relationships with people they belong with so it would be interesting to use throughout our narrative.
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Character types:

Overall from this we decided that we would have three main characters:

• The victim:  this will also be the same actress as we use for our artist as it allows us to make a more personal relationship with the audience and it also conform to our previous research. She will be represented as the victim as the person she was in love with and shared her red thread with, has an affair and she is left alone. She will also be the lesbian character.
• The princess/villain: the other female character within our narrative will either be presented as the villain or the princess depending on how we decide to represent her. This could be because she could be shown as innocent and helpless in the situation (as in who she is in love with) or she can be represented as the villain because of the affair. She is originally lesbian but the audience eventually realise she must be bisexual/homosexual.
• The villain: If the female isn’t represented as the villain, the male character will be as it will seem as if he has ‘stolen’ her of the actress. If the female character is represented as the villain, the male character will be less of a focus within the narrative. He will either be bisexual or homosexual.
• The other characters we decide to use in our narrative will be whichever friends/family we have available at the time. This is because they will mainly be featured in the first part of the video when the red thread theory is becoming established. Therefore, we could use the same actors/actresses without the audience realising. For example, we could use the same two people if we do a shot featuring only their faces and then another shot using only their hands. If we change the costume and setting, the audience will not know they’re the same people.  

Live performance:

For live performance we decided that we wanted to use the Lorde ‘Sober’ cover as our main inspiration. There was also the idea to use multi-coloured candles in the background to represent the colours of the LGBT community flag as we will be exploring this within the video. We ideally want the setting to be outside and to have live instruments however this could prove difficult because of the weather and lack of access to instruments.

Narrative in detail:

For the narrative in detail the main ideas we came up with were: 

·        to use an establishing shot of the homosexual lesbian couple as a low angle shot with the sky in the background. This could be using high key lighting to symbolise how happy the artist was. This can be juxtaposed at the end of the video with an over the shoulder shot of the artist looking at the heterosexual couple. This shows how the story has progressed throughout the narrative.

·        To introduce the red thread of fate idea at the very beginning of the narrative. We want to do this by showing the red thread on couples in everyday situations to make the artist seem surrounded by people who belong together. This will help create sad and sympathetic tones when she ends up having no string.

·        We want the bisexual character to meet the male character in a library. This helps to explore the representation that the bisexual character ris confused and trying to find herself. However, we will challenge this stereotype when she realises she isn’t confused and she has found what she really wants. She has discovered herself. 

What I need to do next:

To help me gain specific research into micro aspects of which we will include in our narrative I need to:

• Research the red thread of fate theory.
• Research colour palettes.
• Research how homosexuality is represented throughout other music videos.