Group Final Idea: Synopsis and Treatment

With our deadline for course work approaching, my group and I began to panic about our first initial idea. Although it would of been brilliant if it were achievable, we experienced some difficulties during the production stage. Firstly, it was hard to get together 3 different sets of people who were happy to be filmed being intimate and who had enough time to spare to be in our video and the idea of a split screen was too out of reach, especially when considering our time limit. We did actually do a test of split screening where we had to have a grid on the screen of the camera and keep the actor only on one side, for example, when we filmed the female we had to make sure she was on the left hand side of the grid at all times - and using a different camera, the male must stay on the right hand side at all times. After filming we could merge the two takes together to create the split screen effect, but of course to film a whole narrative like this would be very time consuming and difficult to create the exact look we were hoping for.
With that idea scrapped, it was clear my group and I had to come up with a different idea for our narrative quickly, as by this point we were starting to film the band performance.

Final Synopsis: The final idea for our music video would involve a band performance in the college studio, we would have prefferd to locate them somewhere more adventurous and perhaps outdoors but we had to think about practicalities and budget, not to mention we were filming in the middle of winter! Although we have a basic set to work with, our knowledge of lighting and mes-en-scene would help create a professional, interesting 'stage' for the band to perform on. Soft and hard lights would be used in a way to A/ focus on important areas (mainly meaning the lead singer) and B/ To create depth from the black curtains surrounding them, making the band step out from the back ground instead of blending in. The band would be dressed in casual, yet a little more dressed up than everyday clothing - like they effortlessly look 'cool' which would be part of their star construction. Their set-up would be the typical band set up, with the lead singer at center front, drummer at center back, lead guitarist one side and the other two guitarist on the opposite side. We would get as many shots as possible - using different angles, depths and camera movement in order to make sure our video is exciting and fast and also to make sure each band member gets camera time to do their thing and get recognition. Like many similar bands to House, we would like band members to be fun and energetic in performance, with hopefully some sort of interaction with each other to show their closeness, again which wold help their star construction.

Our music video would not only involve a band performance, and like other videos, we would need a narrative. Not straying too far from our first idea of a young couple growing old together with shots of kissing throughout, we decided to get a large variety of kissing and hugging shots from the general public or family members. What we wanted to portray through this idea was a general feel of love and affection, from all age groups and all different reasons to love, it would be quite a personal, emotional and light hearted montage throughout the video which would suit the music and topic of 'Kiss Me'. When regarding mes-en-scene and props, we must consider that our band would only be in a small college studio and not many props would be needed - just having the band stand infront of a black background with spot lights and stage lights surrounding them would be enough, and would also bring all attention to the band - the idea of our video is quite simple and 'home made' as it is, so I think the simple set fits into this theme. We would not really be able control the set, location or props of our narrative montage because we are just going to be asking the general public if they would be happy to quickly kiss for the camera (of course after explaining the reason why we are filming!) - but we're not anticipating a certain location because again, we are after a natural, home-made sequence.

(Group work done by Emily Stansfield)