Detailed Plot AnalysisThis is the detailed plot analysis of my music video for the song Castle by Ashley Nicolette

Frangipane, also known as Halsey. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rfSHisyHdc)

My video is intended to be a visual study and exploration of power, wealth and corruption. The plot follows a young, benevolent princess who wants to reclaim power of her home kingdom from a tyrannical prince’s family.

She is seen, in the beginning to be pure and peaceful which makes it all the more jarring when her character changes due to corruption by newly found power. The beginning of my film opens with watching the princess weaving ethereally around a woodland. She looks like she is floating, spiritually connected with nature and the world around her. She is intended to be a “Snow White” type character. As she is undertaking an epic quest and requires bravery, she is seen to cross herself in prayer.

Next, she is seen to walk into a clearing which is decked out to look like a castle. There are decadent paintings and jewels around the clearing and a throne in the centre. Sat on the throne is a young prince, sat haphazardly on the throne with a smirk. He is shown to be cocky and arrogant, with his crown jauntily on his head along with a cloak and a throne. Leading up to seeing him, the princess naïvely believed that she was just going to be able to walk in a take the throne and as a result the kingdom’s power. At this point, she is regarded as a pacifist and does not want to fight the prince for his place, but also she is conflicted because she desperately wants to reign. This is the first inkling of the conflict in the princess’s heart between peace and power.

The prince’s sadistic smirk after seeing her dreams shatter causes something to snap inside the princess. To her left, she sees a priceless tiara. Realising that is she cannot take the throne and accepting the fact that she will never be able to free the kingdom from his tyranny as she is behaving now, the princess decides that she will steal and destroy a crown, even if it’s not the crown. She doesn’t want to wear it, but instead destroy it. She brings it to her face to snap it in two, hoping to find catharsis in the vandalism. This act causes a dramatic and visceral visible change in the prince’s composure, causing him to spring up and sprint towards the princess to protect the tiara from any harm. He runs, arms outstretched wildly, trying to grasp the tiara but the princess destroys it a second before the prince can reclaim it from her. The thinly-veiled desperation on the prince’s face and the satisfaction of destroying something much loved by the family she so hated caused adrenaline to invade her bloodstream. This violence, the very act the princess commit to show her resignation from power causes her to gain it and only furthers her corruption by the temptation of wealth and idolisation. In a sudden burst of aggression and defiance far removed from her original personality she reaches out to grab the prince’s arm to force him to the ground, twisting his arm, rendering him immobile from the pain. She is physically putting the prince below her which reverses the roles they have lived in for so long.

The princess, completely jaded and dissociated from her former self, then continues to further disgrace the prince, who is still collapsed on the ground. She does this at first by stealing all his royal garb. She begins methodically, starting with his cape. She moves on then to his rings, his jewels and snatches his cane from his hands. The princess finally and ceremoniously lifts his crown from his head, turning away from him. Defiantly, she walks down the length of the room/clearing to the

throne while swinging the crown limply by her side as the prince can only watch. He looks weaker now, less smug. He looks positively crumpled and hopeless.

The princess, no longer humble and no longer benevolent, makes a show of sitting upon the throne with the same air of arrogance and self-satisfaction the prince had at the start. She lowers herself into sitting painfully slowly, each muscle movement a personal, vindictive attack on the prince.

Finally, once she positions herself. She raises the crown to face-level, just like she did with the tiara. This time, she carries on raising it and dons it on her head. She glares at the prince on the floor. Sitting on his throne, in his clothes, in his crown she has been full corrupted by her latent desire for power and the pair’s dynamic has completely switched.