Music Video Treatment-What We Plan To Do

Treatment

After much deliberation, we decided upon ‘Make It Without You’, a song by Andrew Belle. We have known and planned for a long period of time that we would like to concentrate the theme of our music video on death and loss. The lyrics of this song completely mirror our ideas and we are glad to have had confirmation from the artist to entitle its use for our project.

We have chosen to section our treatment into the areas often focused upon during a music video analysis.

Camera

We have currently decided on a selection of key, central shots of which the theme of the music video will orientate. These each include a storyline to follow which narrative runs throughout in a continuum.  In addition, we have analysed the lyrics of Belle’s song (which has been published on the blog) and have organised exactly where we would like each separate narrative to take place to fit with the lyrical meaning.

The following are a few descriptions of our key shot ideas:

Man sitting alone
We intend to reinforce the idea of loneliness with a medium shot of an adult man sitting alone at a bar, perhaps from a side on view. This will connote his solitude and be a simplistic addition to embellish the lyric ‘I never cared much for the taste of gin, I still don’t know, but it’s been helping’.

Panning shot of photo frames

We feel that a panning shot displaying an array of different family photographs would reinforce loneliness and possibly infer the break down of a traditional family unit (as displayed in the photos), by a death or loss.

Woman taking off wedding ring

A close up of a woman’s hand and her taking off her wedding ring, to us, feels like the perfect shot to portray the end of a marriage and loneliness.

Ill child in bed with mother at side

This would be a very emotive shot (presumably a medium two shot), as we intend to have the child in an authentic hospital bed, with the mother at her side holding her hand for support. Here, the theme of sadness is continued, and will probably strike a chord with the audience’s emotions.

Parents swinging a young child – progression shot

We have had a particular idea of continuing one shot with the removal of one character to show the obvious effects of loss. We intend for the first shot to be a medium shot of two parents (from the back) swinging one young child between them, which will then cut to the same shot, but without the mother. We intend for the hands between the father and the child to remain swinging, but for a close up on the child’s other empty hand to follow to truly emphasize the loss.

Close up of piano being played and silhouette of lip syncing

These two slightly abstract shots will be the addition to our performance element (of which our video lacks if it was just a narrative). We intend to use technical lighting to create a superficial shadow effect for a lip syncing silhouette

Editing

In terms of editing, we are hoping to integrate cuttings of old family videos for a nostalgic authenticity. We hope that this will provide a flashback element for the audience to link with the narrative. We also have debated on putting the whole video into edited black and white to fit with the sombre and reflective tone of the narrative. We also hope to fit every cut with the beat of the piano being played. 

Mise en scene

Our mise en scene is wholly based on our characters and location of our video. We will use a range of locations, such as outdoors in the woods walking, in a house, at the park etc. We also will include characters such as an elderly couple, a married couple, a sick child, a woman leaving her husband, an a man at a bar alone. 

characters

Molly Masters