First Draft of Treatment

Amanda & Mia Music Video Treatment

On

“Save The Pain”

FIRST DRAFT

A music video of a typical heartbroken R‘n’B song however with a twist, the singer isn’t the broken hearted girl, she tells the story of another.  We begin with a close up of a glass of water and the camera tracks the glass as the actress brings the glass to her lips and takes a sip and continues with her make up for a girls day out in her bedroom.  There is a cut out of the singer standing alone singing bits of the song and dancing along in a non choreographed manor. This music video is of a girl who ends up being left by her boyfriend and we try to portray this in the narratives which will follow through the music video at different intervals, this would also successfully confirm to main R’nB music video conventions that have narratives as well as challenge them because the singer is not the actress. Where the narrative of the past is shown it will be filmed in black and white which will have great significance of the past and of dividing the narrative from the singer’s solo bits. There will be many cut outs of the singer singing along (in colour) but in two different locations one will be a long shot at the top of a roof overlooking the city of London reinforcing the singer’s British background whereas the other cut out will be a mixture of low angle close ups and mid shots against a plain white or black background. There will be two different rather revealing outfits for these shots which will all represent the glamour of a singer’s life as well as the sex appeal. Just before the last verse begins there is a scene were the girl walks in a cafe with her friends giggling and having fun, when they enter there will be a Point Of View shot were the boyfriend will be in focus (mid shot low angle) holding another girl’s hand over the table and there will be a change of focus to a long shot of the group of friends entering the cafe. When the girl looks at her boyfriend there will be a high angle mid close up and shot reverse shot at which point the music will stop completely and there will be a heartbeat sound effect to emphasise the tense emotions being felt, as the girl discovers she is being cheated on and the boy gets caught. After this scene there will be a straight cut to a mid long shot of the girl walking out the door crying. This will be followed by many straight cuts to the singer and her solo scenes against the plain background and the rooftop background.

Research on Female RnB Videos

Conventional RnB videos tend to have more of an American feel to them. We want our video to be instantly recognisable as an RnB video, however we also want to incorporate British themes in it. During brainstorming we came up with ideas such as the use of a Union Jack as a backdrop in some of our shots of Lizzie, or the use of British documentary style footage. We will explore these ideas further during planning.
During my research I have found that typical female rnb videos have many common forms:

- They usually cover a range of emotions
- Tend to have a narrative perspective with a story that links in with the lyrics
- Usually have a lot of emphasis on females and what they go through
- Males in female rnb videos are generally shown in a negative light and are commonly used to show what
men put women through
- Males can be shown in a positive light, but this generally happens only in love songs such as Beyonce - Halo where the man in the video is likened to an angel both through the song lyrics and through the use of soft lighting which creates a 'halo' like effect around the actors head
- Close ups of artists face throughout video
- Fashionable costumes, sunglasses and high heels - portrayal of being rich and successful
- Flawless looking make - up for females
- Unchoreographed dancing such as pointing at camera while swaying side to side and miming lyrics and running hands through hair and down body
- Sexy/minimal clothing for females to attract the male gaze
- Low angle shots of artist to make her seem empowered - young women look up to/idolise artist
- Usually when the female artist is black the male in question is also black


BEYONCE - IF I WERE A BOY

Beyonce's police officer costume makes her seem powerful and like a positive female role model.

- The use of black & white is here used to create a mellow rnb feel but to also portray an alternate reality where beyonce has switched roles with the actor in the video
- Beyonce here features in her own video, as she is a global superstar this automatically makes the video appealing to all of her fans
- This video complies with the convention of the use of narrative in rnb videos however the male in the video is shown in a positive light & we empathise with him even though the song is about men not understanding women. This challenges the covention until Beyonce and the actor switch back and Beyonce is left vulnerable while the man is shown in a negative light which is the usual form

This is an image of Beyonce after the switch back has taken place. The high angle shot makes her look vulnerable while the male actor stands and is shot from a low angle.

This shot was designed to attract the male gaze, Beyonces cleveage is in the very centre of the shot, making her appear sexually attractive and available. The top lighting highlights her chest and puts everything else in shadow.

This shot was created to permit the male gaze. The male police officer is shot from a low angle to show his superiority and the police uniform makes the male audience think "if it's ok for him to look, its ok for us". The male audience is encouraged to look at Beyonce's backside, notice the road sign behind the male officers head, the arrow is pointing to Beyonces bottom! This officer is white which challenges thr typical conventions of female rnb videos where the black woman is seen with a black man.

In conclusion Beyonce uses a combination of empowering shots with shots that permit and even encourage the male gaze to keep her appeal open to men and women. We will attempt to use these techniques in the production of our music video. This video both sticks to the forms and conventions of female rnb videos however parts of it also challenge them. We will also include this teachnique in our video. If I were a boy has 4,243,092 hits on youtube and is clearly a very successful song.

LEONA LEWIS - BLEEDING LOVE



Close up of Leona's face, wind blowing hair, use of top lighting makes her face appear symmetrical and more visually attractive. Use of heavy eye make up looks very sexual. Conventional RnB female video.

Leona Lewis acts in the video as a narrator of other characters stories that match the lyrics of the song "Bleeding Love" - heartbreak. She does not star as a character. We are going to use this omniscient position in our video. The video cuts between images of Leona's face and body in various outfits to the stories of the lovers. We are also going to use this aspect in out video, although we will only have one story.

This shot challenges the convention of female RnB videos. The male in the video is usually the one who hurts the female. In this however, it is the woman that is unfaithful and we empathise with the man who walks in. This shot was constructed to attract the male gaze, the womans clevage are a focal point of the shot. The male gaze is a tool used in most videos which we will also use in ours.

Looking for an unsigned artist

Today we verified our unsigned artist, after spending a week browsing facebook.

Her name is Elizabeth Abiola aka Lizzie, she is a 19 years old Nigerian female unsigned artist. We thought she would be perfect as not only does she live locally but she aspires to become a singer and feels confident that our music video that we shall produce for her will help her grab the attention of record labels such as, 'XL', who have signed many British artists like Dizzie Rascal.

Elizabeth Abiola

Today she sent my partner, Mia,  her lyrics to the song she is going to sing for her music video, we have decided to rerecord her song as the old version is poor quality. So today I will go look at a studio we might use for this. We do have a few we might use already but we are going to find the best suited one for us and start recording as soon as possible.

Her song is an R'n'B song about love and being broken hearted, a very mainstream idea which we will not only follow the main R'n'B conventions throughout our video but also challenge some too.

I am confident that Lizzie is  marketable as not only is she young and talented but she is a very realistic representation of todays youth and I believe that this will appeal to many young females who could idiolise her image and relate to her songs while many young males will find her sexual appeal attractive and watch her videos and listen to her songs because of that. This is used with many well known R'n'B artists such as Beyoncé, Alecia Keys as well as many British female artists such as Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke.

Alexandra Burke

We want her to have the same 'look' as Alexandra as her manufacterd pop image has appealed a wide audience however we would like to challenge the conventions of 'pop' singers as Lizzie would have her own R'n'B sound and this would challenge pop and R'n'B conventions as well as conform to some.