TREATMENT (DRAFT)

FOSTER THE PEOPLE/ HELENA BEAT:2011 (directed by Ace Norton date 2011)

We need to consider that our song has a tempo of 127 beats per minute which means the visuals will need to keep up to this beat particularly in the chorus but we can we can go off beat at times around the song to keep the audience interested.

Intro- Visuals will begin before the music track plays i.e. our idea is to have a vinyl placed onto a record player which will begin to play signalling the song to play using a psychedelic feeling with a match cut to the sound. Further enhanced with fast colour changes on the black vinyl. The use of vinyl taps into the current revival of interest in this retro technology, so we think that this catches the spirit of the times.

A fade from the vinyl spinning with provide a match to a bicycle wheel. The narrative will be the band ‘Foster the People’ cycling to the recording studio, we intend to use a fish eye lens which is circular and we intend to play with idea of circular shapes in different forms. The audiences would relate to their band using bicycles because it is very much a student mode of transport, bicycles are normalised now which relates to everyone. Bicycles do in fact relate in music video such as (The Smiths- Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before and Arcade Fire- The Suburbs)

Once inside the the studio, to emphasise the beat we could have a crane shot of the drums with one shot on the top and then one from the side and then repeat with the symbols only feature the drummer snare, bass and symbol on a white background (similar to Vampire Weekend- A-Punk).

Transition change to the whole band playing e.g. Guitarist, Keyboard, Singer and bassist on, it is important to have mid shots and close ups of the key players because audiences expect to see them and record labels have to promote their product.

The music video will follow on inside the recording studio in which there will be a long shot of the band performing there song. There will an extreme close up showing on the mouth capturing the lip sync once the the lyrics begin (influenced by The Chemical Brothers- Block Rockin’ Beats)

Keyboard keys will light up in colours in the notes playing (like Billy Jean)

We are going to use a variety of props such as balloons, colour balls, children's plastic toys. We plan to write key words on the balloons.

We are going need to include lots of close up shots of the instruments playing like in The Strokes- Reptilia.

Chorus- We are going to give the chorus specific treatment using three different ways of spelling out words; Scrabble, Boggle and Wristbands. We will use stop frame animation with strong varied colours. The lyrics could appear on a Scrabble board and every time the chorus repeats it could simply relate back to the Scrabble as an idea.

Back in the studio with the plain white background we could use colour changes in the background to make it visually interesting.

Stage performance-

End- transitional fade to focus back on the vinyl as it slows down to a stop.