Treatment

The Target Audience

This media product is aimed to appeal to fun-loving audience members between the ages of 16 and 24; in order to target this demographic, a culmination of factors, not only the song choice, will be employed to do so including elements of the mise-en-scène, intertextuality and music video promotion.

The Artist's Background

The Wombats are a Liverpudlian indie-pop band which formed in 2003. The band’s musical progression, throughout albums, has maintained a continual refinement of their signature indie dance-pop sound, which has consistently attracted young people, appropriate for the demographic I aim to attract.

They are considered best-known for their songs such as ‘Moving To New York’, ‘Let’s Dance To Joy Division’ and ‘Cheetah Tongue’.

The Performative & Narrative Elements

Although I am planning to centre my music video largely around a narrative concept, I aim to also include frequent moments of lip-syncing; as it is a feature which is common through a large amount of other music videos, lip-syncing is an element I will include within my own to engage the audience and cement the key messages within the lyrics and visuals in which I hope to promote successfully.

Equipment

Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-HX350 Digital Camera, Tri-Pod.

Costume

Because of the fact that within indie-pop music videos, costume is vastly not a predominant part of the visuals, resulting in a more naturalistic fashion approach, I intend to place my characters in more casual clothing to heighten the sense of verisimilitude in opposition with the supernaturalism of the narrative. Moreover, to promote the ‘effortless’ image we commonly see within indie and indie-pop media products, in regards to makeup and hair, I aim to create less intense looks for the characters.

Lighting

Although the music video will be shot in mid-late evening, I aim to counter-balance the darkness with spots of bright and colourful artificial lighting in order to create an upbeat atmosphere, typical of the pop genre, to nullify the potentially gloomy visuals.

Location

In order to meet the requirements within the brief, sections of the music video are planned to be filmed in a benign town-alley setting in combination with a more suburban field-like area. Though contrasting filming locations, a constant is that they are generally recognisable settings to heighten the verisimilitude in order for the audience to relate to and thereby engage with.

Colouring

Though presented in a jovial tongue-in-cheek way, given the thriller-like narrative and dark background, I am going to amp the saturation of the shots to retain the fun-nature of the music video to interest the young, fun-loving target viewers.

Editing

Given the high-energy sound of the song, fairly fast-paced editing will be used, a technique in order to keep the audience engaged and suitably match the feel of the music video. I am also thinking of adding brief sections of diegetic sound to bridge certain visuals and the song. From a structural plan, given that I will not have access to a camera gimbal, I choose to stabilise my footage post-production by using editing software such as Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects to edit the shots for a higher sense of professionalism and a cinematic feel.

Intertextuality

As a reference to another media product, I have chosen to emulate the iconic ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ under-lit chin shot. I have chosen this as it is an image easily recognised and accessible, not only to a 16-24 year old demographic. Furthermore, the chiaroscuro lighting will deepen a sense of eeriness I hope to evoke as well as integrating well with the darkness of the rest of the shots.

Social Representation

To fulfil the requirements of the brief to present two contrasting representations, I am employing both male and female characters within my music video. This will thus appeal to the majority of 16-24 year olds as they can easily identify with the characters given that there will be no gender bias. Moreover, as a more visual juxtaposition of representation, I am including a contrast between living and 'dead' characters as part of the music video's plot, which could be interpreted as another difference in representation (though not necessarily explicit).