Synopsis/Treatment
As the song starts, we are in someone’s kitchen. The camera tracks forward, then diagonally-right, from one side of the room to the other, from the oven/cooker to the refrigerator (i.e. the room ideally is square-shaped with the sink on the central cupboards/work-surfaces. There is a archway to the far-right hand corner, next to the fridge, where a man walks past the fridge from the kitchen into the next room, the dining room, then to his left through another archway into the living room, but all we see is the fridge, and he is out of focus, before the camera tracks to the fridge). The man has a child, maybe age 7 or 8, who is jumping around in front of him, as he walks through to the living room (out of focus) whilst checking his post/mail in his hands.
The camera focuses on a photograph (a Medium Close-up) which has been stuck onto the fridge door, the top half of the six foot-tall refrigerator. When the whistling (the introduction) stops and the banjo /guitar is played (in the song), the camera zooms-in from a Medium Close-up of the photograph to a Big Close-up of the photograph when it fills the screen.
In group production meetings, we had discussed the use of dolls in our video. Since I had a few Action Man dolls and Emily had a few Barbie dolls left (after selling most of her collection online) we discussed the idea of using the dolls in a kind of animation (like Wallace and Gromit) and then a shot where the dolls stand in a pose, and real-life people stand in the same pose, so that the cut (in editing) from dolls to reality was almost unnoticeable. In synchronised time with the song, when the banjos start I thought maybe having these dolls laying on sun beds by a swimming pool with cocktails in their hands, the male reading a newspaper and the girl getting a tan. Then the cut /transition from the dolls to the real-life actors would take place, and the main part of the video would commence. I then thought that during the main part of the video (with the actors) there could be shots, going back to the dolls, maybe just photographs or even the dolls moving in a movie at 24 frames per second.
In group production meetings, we had discussed the use of dolls in our video. Since I had a few Action Man dolls and Emily had a few Barbie dolls left (after selling most of her collection online) we discussed the idea of using the dolls in a kind of animation (like Wallace and Gromit) and then a shot where the dolls stand in a pose, and real-life people stand in the same pose, so that the cut (in editing) from dolls to reality was almost unnoticeable. In synchronised time with the song, when the banjos start I thought maybe having these dolls laying on sun beds by a swimming pool with cocktails in their hands, the male reading a newspaper and the girl getting a tan. Then the cut /transition from the dolls to the real-life actors would take place, and the main part of the video would commence. I then thought that during the main part of the video (with the actors) there could be shots, going back to the dolls, maybe just photographs or even the dolls moving in a movie at 24 frames per second.
My main inspiration for the Action Man and Barbie dolls sequence came after watching the music video for Barbie Girl, by Aqua, which for them was a big hit in the late 1990’s. And although this would be a hard task to achieve, it is possible to do; but I may have to abandon this idea of the dolls moving in the video (a mini-animation in the video) as we may not have enough time to create this little animation.
The original narrative I had drawn up was to follow a man reminiscing. The transition from the plastic dolls to real actors occurs as he reminisces because either him being with the girl is real and therefore a flashback or it could be a fantasy of his, such as the “Hottest girl in your High School” fantasy that many males dream about in today’s world.
Maybe the man and the woman together is a flashback which he has when he looks at the photographs on his fridge door. Therefore the flashbacks are a look back at a past relationship which he wished could have gone on forever. In the location where we decide as a group to film /shoot this video, other people which are not central to the plot (e.g. pedestrians) cannot see the man and the woman together, and in editing maybe the man and the woman holding hands walking together are in colour and everything around them is black-and-white until they touch the things around them, transforming the world around them from black-and-white into colour, a metaphorical transformation from sadness to happiness. I thought the most appropriate setting (the location) to use when filming the actors would be a park, where there are autumnal leaves to represent his unfortunately dying feelings for her as the video goes on.
The original narrative I had drawn up was to follow a man reminiscing. The transition from the plastic dolls to real actors occurs as he reminisces because either him being with the girl is real and therefore a flashback or it could be a fantasy of his, such as the “Hottest girl in your High School” fantasy that many males dream about in today’s world.
Maybe the man and the woman together is a flashback which he has when he looks at the photographs on his fridge door. Therefore the flashbacks are a look back at a past relationship which he wished could have gone on forever. In the location where we decide as a group to film /shoot this video, other people which are not central to the plot (e.g. pedestrians) cannot see the man and the woman together, and in editing maybe the man and the woman holding hands walking together are in colour and everything around them is black-and-white until they touch the things around them, transforming the world around them from black-and-white into colour, a metaphorical transformation from sadness to happiness. I thought the most appropriate setting (the location) to use when filming the actors would be a park, where there are autumnal leaves to represent his unfortunately dying feelings for her as the video goes on.
There are three possible parks which could be used as the setting for the first half of the video - Alexandra Park behind the College building (the location which we used for our Film Noir project last year, 1 minute walk from College); Christchurch Park (3 minute walk from town centre of Ipswich, and near to where Josh lives); and Chantry Park (near the Copdock Interchange and along London Road in Ipswich, but across river, 30-45 minutes walk from town centre).
http://chrisk-media.blogspot.com/ (my AS Media Studies Coursework Project Blog).
As Josh lives near to College if we wanted to film in an interior location, maybe for an interior shot then Josh’s house could be used, with his permission of course. An interior location also acts as a backup plan in the event of bad weather on the day of filming.
I realise that I may have thought-up a narrative based on the sadness the man is feeling, and that this mood is a massive contrast to the mood and tone of the song, and therefore it could be that the man has divorced his wife, but with the happy mood he is in he may, for instance, be feeling happy because he is about to be re-married to her; or instead they are closer than they were before, which then leads to a happy family later in the video.
Anyhow, the flashbacks will create a sense of jumping back and forth from past and present or past and future. If the flashbacks were in the past but everything else we see is in the future, then we could film the relationship as it stands in the future, but whether they are together anymore will be something I shall take into consideration.
When the man and the woman are in a park, I was thinking that maybe there could be an overhead crane shot (Wide-Shot) looking down at the ground where a park-keeper has blown the brown autumnal leaves off the footpaths and onto the grass and into the shape of a heart, a resemblance of the strength of the love between the man and the woman which we are now following.
Maybe he sleeps one night and in his dream the Action Man and Barbie dolls in his dream represent his feelings towards the togetherness he longs for with his girlfriend in real life. And to add to the humour of the video, maybe the Action Man doll speaks to him (but since the video might only contain the music, and therefore no other sounds, we might have to draw a speech bubble in editing where the doll’s speech appears). My inspiration for this part of the video came from the man who had a dream of the snow dogs lying on sun-beds talking to him, a hilarious nightmare he has, in the Walt Disney film Snow Dogs. And in the Dog "Buddies" films - Snow Buddies, Space Buddies, and Santa Buddies.
As Josh lives near to College if we wanted to film in an interior location, maybe for an interior shot then Josh’s house could be used, with his permission of course. An interior location also acts as a backup plan in the event of bad weather on the day of filming.
I realise that I may have thought-up a narrative based on the sadness the man is feeling, and that this mood is a massive contrast to the mood and tone of the song, and therefore it could be that the man has divorced his wife, but with the happy mood he is in he may, for instance, be feeling happy because he is about to be re-married to her; or instead they are closer than they were before, which then leads to a happy family later in the video.
Anyhow, the flashbacks will create a sense of jumping back and forth from past and present or past and future. If the flashbacks were in the past but everything else we see is in the future, then we could film the relationship as it stands in the future, but whether they are together anymore will be something I shall take into consideration.
When the man and the woman are in a park, I was thinking that maybe there could be an overhead crane shot (Wide-Shot) looking down at the ground where a park-keeper has blown the brown autumnal leaves off the footpaths and onto the grass and into the shape of a heart, a resemblance of the strength of the love between the man and the woman which we are now following.
Maybe he sleeps one night and in his dream the Action Man and Barbie dolls in his dream represent his feelings towards the togetherness he longs for with his girlfriend in real life. And to add to the humour of the video, maybe the Action Man doll speaks to him (but since the video might only contain the music, and therefore no other sounds, we might have to draw a speech bubble in editing where the doll’s speech appears). My inspiration for this part of the video came from the man who had a dream of the snow dogs lying on sun-beds talking to him, a hilarious nightmare he has, in the Walt Disney film Snow Dogs. And in the Dog "Buddies" films - Snow Buddies, Space Buddies, and Santa Buddies.
Because of all the flashbacks that are shown, the viewer is given the sense that he is piecing together all of his memories, just like a jigsaw puzzle, until we see why he is piecing together all these memories, at the end of the video when he walks through the park with his girlfriend, hand-in-hand.
To create the contrasts between the happy flashbacks and the sad flashbacks, I was thinking that, in post-production we could drain all the colour until it is nearly black and white for the sad memories, and maybe showing only red lipstick on the girl’s lips (in the style of the movies Sin City and The Spirit), and have saturated, “candy coloured” shots for the happier memories.
To create the contrasts between the happy flashbacks and the sad flashbacks, I was thinking that, in post-production we could drain all the colour until it is nearly black and white for the sad memories, and maybe showing only red lipstick on the girl’s lips (in the style of the movies Sin City and The Spirit), and have saturated, “candy coloured” shots for the happier memories.
Since I wanted also to create a sense of slapstick comedy, I thought that in one of the man’s sadder memories his girlfriend slaps him, so hard that his head falls off, but all we see is the ground and a pumpkin falling to the ground, bouncing off the ground and rolling down the hill, the now headless man running after his head, the infuriated girl walking in the opposite direction.
The establishing shot could be a sad moment, where in editing we have drained all the colours, and when the song starts the over-saturated candy colours come into play, when the happier part of the song starts - when the guitar is played. The guitar is being played at one of the highest-pitched frets, so I was given the impression of a swaying Hawaiian song, including girls in coconut bras and grass skirts, but seeing as this might be impossible in the middle of autumn and early winter when we film the video, I might have to abandon this idea, along with the 24 frames per second Action Man and Barbie dolls mini-animation.
Again, adding to the slapstick comedy and humour, I thought of maybe having a magic squirrel as the narrator of the video, with a conductor’s baton (classical and orchestral music), and was thinking that the squirrel’s baton could be a magic wand, with a bit of intertextuality to the recent Harry Potter film franchise. I couldn't find an image on the internet that best suited my description, but the image I did find, a spoof on the Star Wars Jedi Knights, provided further inspiration and ideas with which I am able to use towards the making of our Music Promotional Video.
The cuts from shot to shot in the video could be done through cross-cutting, or maybe a mosaic image, with each shot making up part of the mosaic jigsaw puzzle.
