Music video treatment
Song choice: Let’s go surfing
Artist/group: The Drums
Genre of song: American indie pop
Album: The Drums
Original video
The layout for the original music video is very bland and basic but still relates to the song and also the tempo of the tune. It consists of the band running down a dark track where nothing can be seen but the band members and the far background scenery. Throughout the video when the words ‘surfing’ and ‘nothing’ are sung, the word SURFING appears on the screen in big bold white letters for a split second.
As the video continues, members of the band slowly come out of the shadows and join the lead singer in jogging towards the lighted camera. They stop briefly when all of the band are visible and do a small performance until the lead singer once again sets off on a run. Slowly the other band members drop back into the shadows one by one until once again the lead singer is left on his own, eventually he also drops back into the shadows at the end of the song.
I personally think this video was really boring and basic with just the one camera shot all the way through. I plan on running my video along the similar lines to the original video but with a lot more in it.
My video
Genre: story / part performance
The idea I had for my video for this song ran along the lines of the title, the main character in the video would be constantly trying to overcome many odds and obstacles. Whilst doing this he will come across many different types of transport, for example scooters, on foot and by car. His overall goal throughout the video is to ‘go surfing’ and whilst trying to do this is when he faces all sorts of comedic scenes. Some scenes will be edited to be fast motion to show the viewer a sense of rush and also comedy, but with some more important scenes they will be played in normal speed. It will begin with the character in his bed waking up with the song also beginning with ‘wake up it’s a beautiful morning’. The next couple of scenes are going to be timed with the music in how they cut into one another, until he starts to run (like in the original video) and lip synchs ‘oh mama I wanna go surfing’ where we will have a close up, side tracking of his face so it is easily viewable that he is synching the lyrics. The shot will change to the other side of the street as the camera tracks him and he synchs ‘oh mama I don’t care about nothing’. After fading away the character will arrive in a new scenario as he is in search for a new mode of transport, he comes across two children playing on scooters, there will be an over the shoulder shot from the characters point of view as he views the children. The next shot consists of him wrestling the kids off their scooters as he steals one and rides away as the camera cuts to a shot of the children watching him ride away with one of their scooters. The camera will then once again have the same sequences of close up tracking shots as the character synchs “oh mamma I wanna go surfing, oh mamma I don’t care about nothing” but this time he will be performing it on the scooter. The camera then fades back into a shot where the camera pans round left as he rides the scooter around a bend then falls off, in the same shot he gets back up and sprints away into a fade out. The shot fades back in and the character finds himself creeping around a shop, one shot will have a close up of him hiding behind an isle synching “down down baby down by the rollercoaster, sweet sweet baby I’ll never let you go” , then a long shot from the opposite side of the isle seeing the character walking up the isle synching “down down baby down by the rollercoaster , sweet sweet baby I’ll never let you go”, then there will be a few random shots of the character adventuring the supermarket until he is compromised by the security guard, the music slows here and works really well with what happens, as the camera pans up to show the upper body and face of the security guard in the point of view of the character. There is a long shot of the character being thrown out and rolling around on the floor as the lyrics “oh mamma I wanna go surfing” arises then a close up will be made of him on the floor cleaning himself up whilst synching “oh mamma I don’t care about nothing”, then the fade out. We fade back in as the song edges closer towards its end the character manages to find a car that he tries to break into. The first few shots consist of the character attempting and struggling to break into the car, but eventually getting the door open. The character manages to start the car and drives down the road as we fade in and pan right following the car down the street, once again we fade into a semi close up of the windshield of the car were the characters face is easily visible to be very happy, until it starts to rain on him and he turns the wipers on. The end of the song sees the character resting his head on the steering wheel in anguish as the song fades out and so does the shot.
