Treatment

Chosen Song: The Inbetween – Beartooth

We chose this song because, upon hearing it, we could easily picture a narrative to go with it and there are a view key lyrics that we would be able to play with.  We also knew what audience to target it at and thus new what would appeal to them and how they would be able to relate to it.

Genre: A Metalcore music video following a narrative of a young couple

Target Audience: Young adults, specifically 13-19 year olds of non-specific gender.  It is likely boys will interested in the video because it will feature a male performer, but girls will also be able to relate as the main character within the narrative is female.

Character breakdowns

Our video will feature three characters and one performer:

•          A male antagonist: Playing the role of an abusive boyfriend
•          A female protagonist: Playing the role of the abused girlfriend
•          A female extra: Seen being stared at by the antagonist

The main female and male characters will be playing a wealthy couple in their mid-20’s.  The female character will be a ruffled blonde, potentially played by either Alice Van Hees or Elena Cullum at this moment in time, who will be seen wearing fur coats and elegant dresses throughout the video.  

We decided we wanted to feature a wealthy couple to emphasize that you can still have everything, money, power etc. and still be unhappy. We also wanted to highlight how toxic abusive relationships can be and stress the need to remove yourself from one as quickly as possible. 

Our male antagonist will be seen in various suits throughout our video as shots reveal both the happy couple and the more abusive sides of things.  We will also see his obsessive side as he rages over a text his girlfriend receives from another man and his own disloyalty, by seeing him stare at the figure of another girl as she walks past the couple, prompting their first on screen fight.  The girl herself, played by our female extra, will only feature briefly in skin tight clothing.

Narrative

Our narrative will follow the lives of a young couple, showing them happy and in love versus scenarios where the girlfriend is being scared and abused. It will also contain shots of the girlfriend packing, running away and looking free on top of a large hill. This narrative will be in an order where scene of the past are going forward but scenes from the present/future are going backward until they meet in the middle, with a shot of the girl packing.  This narrative will also be divided by shots of the performer.

(A more detailed narrative with a drawing can be found on a separate post titled “Narrative”)

Star image

We decided our star image will be for our performer, who, although only seen in brief scenes throughout, will become a main feature.  We will emphasize this image through a variety of close-ups and shots where he stares directly into the camera. This eye contact will create a direct address with viewers and subtly create him as the main focus of the video.

Intertextuality

Our video will not contain a lot of intertextuality because we want it to stand as unique piece.  However, we have planned to film a scene where the girlfriend stands in a bright red dress against a black and white background as a possible reference to the film “Sin City.” On the other hand, whether we decide to keep this shot in the final cut we are not sure of yet, as we fear it may look out of place.

Research

Our research consisted of watching other music videos and linking them to theories and deciding what theories we believe our video could be made applicable for, and watching the music video of a similar band to see what genre conventions our video should contain.  A key film in influencing our production was “Memento”, whose narrative order we decided would be excellent to emulate in a music video as it would make it unique and stand out from other productions.