ELLIE GOULDING"Figure 8"

Breathe your smoke into my lungs,In the back of a car with you I stare into the sun,

Still not too old to die young,But lovers hold on to everything,And lovers hold on to anything

I chase your love around a figure 8,I need you more than I can take,You promise forever and a day,And then you take it all away,And then you take it all away

Place a kiss on my cheekbone,When you vanish me, I'm buried in the snow,

But something tells me I'm not alone,But lovers hold on to everything,And lovers hold on to anything

I chase your love around a figure 8,I need you more than I can take,You promise forever and a day,And then you take it all away,And then you take it all away

So lovers hold on to everything,And lovers hold on to anything,So lovers hold on to everything,And lovers hold on to anything

I chase your love around a figure 8,I need you more than I can take,You promise forever and a day,And then you take it all away,

I chase your love around a figure 8,I need you more than I can take,You promise forever and a day,And then you take it all away,And then you take it all away

A figure 8 is basically referencing an infinite loop. So we thought that using the Terminator and a ride that spins during the “I chase your love around a figure 8” resembled the infinite loop. Another feature of rides that spin or loop is that you can’t always be certain of when it will end, which makes it perfect for symbolising what our artist is trying to get across in the song – she doesn’t know when all this going round in circles in the relationship is going to end.

The opening verse is a direct message to the artist’s love interest. We could have illustrated the lyrics literally using “smoke” and have the artist sitting in the “back of a car” with the boyfriend. Instead, we chose to focus on having Ellena, playing Ellie, sing into the camera to make it look as if she is talking to the boyfriend.

The line “you take it all away” is partly what inspired the idea to follow a narrative of the relationship breaking down, focusing on the negative as many people would likely pair the emotion of sadness with the song. These lines take place directly before a location and time shift where a portrayal of a happy couple show the audience what is ‘being taken away.’ The portrayal of a happy, normal relationship is to create a sense of realism that the audience can relate to.

We decided to illustrate the line, “Place a kiss on my cheekbone,” literally and had Lawrence, playing the boyfriend, kiss Ellena on the cheek. This was to further emphasize it is like a normal relationship and highlight that during this scene the two characters are happy together.

During the second chorus is when the conflict comes in as we see Lawrence leave Ellena alone in the living room to talk to another girl on the phone. The audience can assume this because it is typical of young relationships to break down due to one person in the relationship seeing somebody else. We see an argument ensue and this links back to the meaning of the song, which is about the lead artist trying to “hold on to everything” and “anything.” We saw in the first scene at the fairground there was issues but a following happy couple scene showed she’d moved on from that but now another issue faces her and still she tries to fight for the relationship by arguing. The scene shows what the boyfriend did to “take it all away” and summarise what she means by “chasing” his love.

This is where the bath scene takes place and is perfect for illustrating this part of the song. The bath scene shows that Ellena is extremely depressed and by having her in the bath it shows her to be exposed and isolated. She loves the person so much that she doesn’t want to let go and instead she is ‘holding on.’ This scene of isolation and exposure invokes empathy from the audience because many of our audience will know what it feels like to want to hold on to “everything” and “anything.”

During the last two choruses we have a party scene. Parties are conventional for pop videos but also parties are where some people get together. In this scene we had our friend, Shaun, play someone who starts hitting on Ellena but we see that she is very uncomfortable with him doing so. This discomfort shows she doesn’t want to look for alternatives; she is still hung up on the same guy and doesn’t want to think about moving on. We then see Lawrence come in and knock Shaun to the floor to show that he loves her enough to “hold on to everything.”

At the very end we had Ellena and Lawrence share a kiss. The song ends with, “you take it all away” and so we could have chosen to not have the two get back together. Some might argue it would have been a much better portrayal of the song lyrics or even be more realistic. Instead we chose to link the ending to the “Figure 8.” We did this by showing that despite what the two characters went through, they got through it and still remained together. We feel this representation is much more positive and relates to the idea that ‘love conquers all.’ Overall, the ending summarises what “Figure 8” really means and reflects the deeper meaning of the song – no matter how many ups and downs or how many corners are turned, true relationships never end.