MUSIC VIDEO TREATMENTTravis Scott - Zombies

STYLE OF MUSIC VIDEOMy music video will be a combination of narrative and performance lip-syncing. I want to make sure there is a relationship between the music and the visuals, with the movements and cuts matching the beat as much as I can. I also want to have a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, to an extent, as I will include lip-syncing and the visuals may relate at points. I will follow the conventions of music videos from the hip-hop genre so my video is recognisable as hip-hop. This will include some of the iconography, however, I want to challenge some of the stereotypes of rap videos, particularly in the representation of women. As my video will be based around zombies, in a social commentary style more than a literal way, I will include intertextual references to films of the zombie sub-genre of horror. I think my video will be classifiable as ‘the enhanced performance’, one of the six central genres of music videos, as theorised by Jon Gow, because it is a combination of performance and narrative. The first half of the video, minus the cutaways to performance, will have a black and white filter on it, creating a bleak look, however, the performance parts and the ending of the video will lose the filter so will be more vibrant, to contrast with the style of the first narrative part.

0:00-0:27

[Intro]And the kids sing,Yeah, I like that, I like that,Yeah, kids sing,

A majority of shots in the music video will have a black and white filter over them. Shots without this filter will be specified. The song begins with a slow build up of the beat, which sounds like a machine starting up. To accompany this, I will start my video with a slow motion clip of a teenage boy seemingly rising from his bed unnaturally like a zombie and adopting a slouched posture and matching zombie-like facial expression. I will achieve this by using a slow motion effect and by reversing footage of the main character falling backwards onto a bed. After this opening shot I will then begin a sequence of shots from different angles, put together using a combination of continuity editing and elliptical edits, showing the character moving through his house doing his daily morning routine. The editing for the sequence will be quite fast paced, aiming to disorientate the audience.

0:28-0:54

During this hook, the sequence of the teenager doing his daily morning routine will continue, using mostly close up shots of his face, broken up by shots from other angles of the teenager moving in a slouched over, typical zombie-like way. The boy will brush his teeth at one point before heading for the door of his house. This sequence will end with the boy leaving his house by the end of the repeated hook.

[Hook 1]We will understand if they don't,We don't want they bullshit no more,

(x2)

0:55-1:10[Verse 1 (Part 1)] Alright, alright,She take too many martinis, she slip straight out bikini,She let me grand slam outside the Denny's,How we gone get Oscar proud if they pay us pennies?I'mma need my dollars now, stack it till they envy,Ya feel me?

The visuals for the first verse will start with a performance style cutaway to the same teenager, looking more confident and moving with the music, lip syncing in a wide open park in full colour without the black and white filter. The camera movement will be hand-held and will follow the boy as he moves around, doing stereotypical gestures associated with the Hip-Hop genre and staring directly at the camera, creating direct gaze with the audience. This shot will only last for the first two lines of the verse, but will be intercut with the narrative shots throughout the first verse. These narrative shots will be a continuation of the sequence in the beginning of the song, using an elliptical edit, cutting the time between the teenager leaving his house to ending up sitting on a bus staring into the camera in a close up shot, similar to shots used earlier on. The journey itself will be represented with a series of shots, in the same composition, with only the background changing out of the window as the bus heads for the city. This sequence will have fairly slow-paced editing and will be intercut with the aforementioned performance-style lip-sync scene.

1:11-1:37[Verse 1 (Part 2)]

The kids they need that,

I get that feedback, sit back, relax,

I'm on that relapse,

Yo ass gone die if you blow my high,

I been over coastin' just was beatin' in my lotus,

All that loud talk like your dope we never notice,

You ain't feelin' it, nigga, cause you sober,

I'm ballin' in the game with players, you behind the coaches,

Come take a trip on my lair by the Third Coast ‘n’ Come floatin‘,

La di, da, di, da, di, all the kids shout at the party,

The second part of Verse 1 will be a continuation of the style set up in the beginning of the verse, intercutting the narrative sequence of the boy, behaving like a zombie, travelling on the bus with a one take hand-held, fluid movement shot of the same teenager lip-syncing the verse in a different location.

1:38-2:07

[Hook 2]We will understand if they don't,We don't want they bullshit no more,

(x2)

This second repeated hook will be visually accompanied by shots showing the teenager walking through his college to a class and sitting in it. Using elliptical edits between shots and static camera movement, I will show the teenager sitting in class in a zombie-like trance.

2:08-2:20

[Interlude]You know when I was fourteen,I wanted to do a lot of kick ass shit,Yeah,

The interlude will act as a turning point in the teenagers monotonous routine that he has got into as he is triggered to break out of his zombie state and become a “normal” person. The boys face will become more expressive and he’ll look around as if he has been awoken and his posture will become more upright. With this change in character the black and white filter will fade away into normal. The camera movement from this point will be more free and hand-held than it previously was as the teenager decides to leave the classroom because he has realised that he is doing a subject that he doesn’t enjoy and has, therefore, decided to break free of academia.

2:21-2:49[Verse 2 (Part 1)]

Pornographic, so dramatic, cinematic,

Diamond flashes, so drastic, dress so classic,

Roll that cabbage, get put in casket, you dope fanatic,

You the baddest, I'm sarcastic, we both laughin’,

I'm the baddest, I'm out in traffic foreign gym baggin’,

Stuffed in suburban, twelve bitches straight out the beauty pageant,

You know Reebok keep La feet hot, they be shipping package,

GL 600 or the palace that collab with classics,

The purpose of the visuals for the second and final verse is to show the teenage boy exercising his freedom having escaped the monotonous cycle that he had been stuck in, forcing himself to do things he didn’t enjoy just so he could get a stable, boring office job in the future. The camera movements will be very free and natural as he leaves the college, moving with a new found confidence.

2:50-3:16[Verse 2 (Part 2)]

Tell me what you need, I got everything green,

Money, money, money trees, I buy everything,

That bitch need no wedding ring, she need a bean,

That boy walked in mall, that boy he need a beam,

I done fucked her twice you bought her Fendi things,

I done sipped the act now I’mma leany fiend,

I can do this by myself, don't need no team,

I got all these kids and all these kids gone sing,

Part two of verse two will continue the sense of freedom with hand held camera movement, struggling to keep up with the boy as he runs from the college. There will then be an elliptical edit to him arriving at the natural open park setting which the performance style cutaways have been filmed at. Once he is there, he’ll start lip syncing to the song, in the same style as the earlier cutaways, dancing around and looking altogether happy to have escaped the life he didn’t want to be a part of.

3:17-3:45

[Hook 2]We will understand if they don't,We don't want they bullshit no more,

(x2)

Marking the end of the song, the final hooks will be done with the boy physically picking up the camera, facing it towards his face in close up and lip syncing the hook. When the hook is over and the instrumental end of the song starts, the teenager will return the camera to the stand/cameraman and have some shots of him laughing and dancing as the music and visuals fade.

INSPIRATION (NARRATIVE PT. 1)

INSPIRATION (NARRATIVE PT. 2/PERFORMANCE)

LOCATIONS

COLLEGE/CLASSROOM PARK

BUS TO CITYBEDROOM/HOUSE

For the park space I will need to shoot in a location that is very open and natural to contrast with the three enclosed locations in the beginning of the narrative. There are a few suitable looking options in Norwich which I will need to recce, including Marston Marsh (top right) and Earlham Park (right)

I will shoot in City College Norwich for the scene in the classroom and the walking out of lesson that comes after. Being in a city, it’s a perfect location for my video as it is looks very urban and built up.

I will use my own house and bedroom for the video shoot because I am of roughly the same age as the main character so my room already has the appearance that I need.

There is a regular bus that travels between my village and Norwich, which works with the narrative as the teenager travels to a city to attend his college.

EQUIPMENT• The main piece of equipment I will need is a camera to shoot the video with. • A dolly, a fig-rig and a tripod to achieve the stable shots I need.• Make-up to make the ‘zombie’ teenager look surreally drained and tired.

CASTI will need only one actor to portray the main character of the teenage boy.

INTENDED AUDIENCEMy intended audience will be male 16-24 year olds in some form of education or employment so they might relate to or be inspired by the narrative of my video.

SHOOTING PLANI plan to shoot my video during the month of November mostly. I want to capture almost an entire days’ worth of light as my video represents a day, meaning I will film the parts at the correct times of day including the morning and afternoon. I want the weather to be cloudy for most of it, but possibly sunny for the end of it as the character escapes the monotonous cycle that his life had become. The cloudy weather should not be rare as I will be filming during Autumn, however, the sunny weather may be hard to come by but I should be able to get the shots still.