Production Treatment

THE MUSIC VIDEO:

The Killers – Mr. Brightside

DURATION:

Duration of the video is three minutes, forty-eight seconds.

AUDIENCE:

The target audience of the video will be those who enjoy indie/alternative music, and enjoy music videos being basic narrative (no unexplained narrative or disjuncture). A scene early into the video consists of small amounts of intimacy between two characters; therefore this may be a little unsuitable to small children.

RESUME:

The narrative of the video consists of the protagonist post-breakup seeing his ex girlfriend with her new partner. After seeing this, he sees her and her new partner’s faces on every individual he passes. During this, he begins to run, as obviously this wouldn’t be something he wants to see, and through it he sees more and more people. The climactic moment of the video is where he ends up on the roof of a building, with a contemplation of jumping. This will also be the end of the video.

SUGGESTED ELEMENTS:

· Performance of the video will basically consist of the protagonist lip-syncing while running through the streets of Manchester, and ending up on the roof of Ashton Under-Lyne arcades.

· The two key locations are the Arcade roof, and the entrance to an apartment in Northern Quarter, Manchester. Which streets we use are not really relevant, and therefore will be decided at a later date.

· There wont be much in terms of SFX, except for a potential scene where six or seven people will use the faces of only two people.

· Costumes consist of five or six changes of clothes so that when the protagonist sees his ex and her partner in faces of other people, it looks much more convincing.

Video Ideas

Part of the initail idea for the music video is to incorporate the faces of the protagonists' ex and her new partner's faces onto the body of every passer by he sees. This was inspired from the Aphex Twin video - 'Come To Daddy', where there are several children witht the face of whoever is singing the actual song. Below is the video: (Written by Sam Alexander)

Arctic Monkeys - Brianstorm

This is a pretty straightforward amplification video (in accordance to the terms of the media theorist, Craig Davis), incorporating performance, but with no narrative at all, although many cuts to different shots (dancing girls, images related to the lyrics etc.). Lighting in the video is constantly quite dark, with flashing floodlights periodically, possibly evoking mystery for the band. Even though the majority of the video is performance, you do not see any of the band’s faces. There are a lot of close up shots of the band, although very few from the front. This is aided by the general dark lighting. This is purely the band’s discretion, as in 2007 they had reputations of being camera-shy. Agreeing with Goodwin’s theory, this developed a motif for the band at the time. Not seeing the band has no apparent link to the actual narrative or music. The entire video is produced in a studio although no special effects are particularly incorporated, adding to the ‘raw’ stereotype of the genre. This supported Goodwin’s theory that music videos represented genre typical characteristics. Though, unusual to indie/alternative music videos, ‘Brianstorm’ makes use of dancing girls periodically through the video, perhaps as a shout of the band’s individuality at the time, or a mock of the usual music video stereotype. As much of the video uses videos within its own video, there is little more mise en scene to comment on. (Written by Sam)

The Verve- Bitter Sweet Symphony

We decided to watch the video of The Verve’s song ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ because throughout the video you see the protagonist walking down a street. We want to use the same kind of idea, but we want our protagonist running. Also we will be using different camera shots. However, the ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ video gave us ideas of shots of the feet and P.O.V shots.

Written by Liam Amos

Storyboard Planning 1st scene

1^st Box – The protagonist, (Liam) is standing in a dark room. Extreme close up of his face looking down and upset.

2^nd Box - Liam is walking down a hallway of his house lip-syncing in a middle shot as he comes out of the front door looking frustrated, also in the middle shot.

3^rd Box – Liam looks across the road and sees his ex girlfriend (Katie) with her new boyfriend (Sam)

4^th Box – Liam turns away looking upset in, middle shot as he walks away down the street

5^th Box – Liam walking down a busy street. This will be a long shot. All the people have his ex’s face and her boyfriends face too. There are extreme close ups of the faces at this point. Liam barges into a man in passing by accident as he turns to apologize he sees Sam’s face on a random man’s body. Liam panics and runs down the street. Tracking shot.

By Katie Maher

Storyboard ideas

A potential climactic ending to the video has been suggested in the form of the protagonist ready to jump off the roof of a building. Inspiration for this idea come form the Arctic Monkeys song 'Leave Before The Lights Come On', where the video starts with the protagonist standing ready to jump, and repeats this at the end. Although, we want the roof to be the destination in our video rather than a big feature. (Written by Sam Alexander)

Below is the video for 'Leave Before The Lights Come On'

Mr Brightside first ideas

• Extreme close up of protagonists face, zooms out to a long shot of him in a dark room.
• Protagonist stands up and runs out the room by the 2nd verse.
• 3rd verse shows protagonist running, mix of close ups and medium shots.
• Runs past flashes of protagonists ex with her new man in 3rd verse and 5th.
• Constant cuts to close ups to show protagonists emotions.
• Cuts to pans to show him running.
• Last 4 lines show protagonist running up stairs and then get to the roof of a high building thinking about jumping.
  

Chosen Song

After long dleiberation, we restricted our choices to a short-list of four songs. Three of these songs
are the work of The Killers; 'Mr. Brightside', 'Bones', and 'Read My Mind'. The other being the Arctic Monkeys song 'Brianstorm'.
We weighed out the pros and cons of each song and came to the decision of using 'Mr. Brightside' as it has an easy-to-follow narrative, thus sparking several potential video ideas. As a group we felt this will help ensure a successful coursework piece. Written by Sam, Liam and Katie