"Elements of the Past" Treatment

Below is the treatment I have created for the "Elements of the Past" music video. For this project, I will be directing the music video and Chris will be directing the documentary. For this reason we are each responsible for the appropriate designs. My other roles include editing the music video and producing and camerawork for the documentary.

"Elements of the Past" Music Video Treatment

“Elements of the Past” is a dub track from Lenroy “Bassie” Guiste’s recently released album “Roots, Rock, Dub”, for which he requires a high quality music video that will be featured on his promotional DVD. The motifs of the video will include mystery, community, music, and Rastafarianism. These are key factors in creating a piece that represents Guiste. As well as this, it is crucial to create an entertaining and visually pleasing piece to accompany the track. This will be done through a strong narrative and a calculated choice of images, lighting and camera techniques, and editing style.

The video begins with Guiste walking into a studio without music being played and fades to black. As soon as the shot fades, a light comes on behind Guiste and shows him standing upright, silhouetted in a blacked-out studio with smoke surrounding him, holding his bass guitar. This image will portray Guiste as a mysterious icon. He then puts his hand to the strings and begins to play. As he plays, shots fade back and forth between him playing in the studio and walking through the streets of Nottingham noticing the people, buildings, and signs around him. The various street signs and buildings that will be shown will help the viewer to identify the location as Nottingham. Thus, as the viewer watches the video, the intended effect is that Guiste has come to tell a story about the city of Nottingham and share his perception of the city.

One aim of the video is to create contrast over a generally dark tone. In order to do this, the images that will be used will be a combination of grainy urban landscape and a mix of old and young people going about their daily life and doing such things as making music and playing football. In this way, a contrast is seen between the rough surroundings and the attitude of the people. Furthermore, a contrast in the emotions that are expressed by the characters will be presented by displaying characters who are feeling happy, sad, indifferent etc. Additionally, throughout the video, the lighting in the studio shots will feature the colors red, green, and yellow. These colors will maintain the Rastafarian theme, while also supplying contrasting color to the overall grey look of urban Nottingham.

The pace of “Elements of the Past” will be relatively slow, due to the mellow nature of dub music. The transitions will be primarily fades and dissolves, which will keep the slow pace smooth and evoke a sense of flowing in the video. Also, the speed of the shots will be decreased for both Guiste walking and the people that are seen. This slow motion effect will compliment the unhurried, flowing nature of the video.

Shot techniques and effects will include point of view shots and using a dolly to move the camera sideways. These methods induce the feeling of walking and seeing through Guiste’s eyes. This is significant to the storytelling narrative of the video. Other shots will be comprised of several close-ups of the bass guitar and profile angles of Guiste’s face so as to emphasize the bass element of the track and to highlight the emotion behind the song, respectively.

The urban nature and gritty style of “Elements of the Past” is intended to appeal to Nottingham residents, fans of the Natural-Ites, for whom Guiste plays the bass guitar, and reggae/dub listeners in general. These individuals range from young adults to mature adults. These are the most likely people to purchase the DVD or Guiste’s new album.

The video will be shot over the course of February 2010 and will be shot in HD, then converted to mpeg-2 format. Shooting in HD will deliver the highest quality file for Guiste to keep and also allows for the final edit to be uploaded to YouTube in HD. The video on the DVD itself will be a SD version as using an HD format on a DVD will not play as HD, thus using far more space than necessary. The mpeg-2 encoding format is the standard for TV broadcast and compresses the file less, yielding a better picture quality.

The high quality “Elements of the Past” music video brings together several artistic, nonverbal elements to emulate Guiste’s perception of Nottingham as true as possible. Through strong images, shot technique, and a dark mood, a narrative is created that paints the picture of a world through the eyes of a mysterious icon; a gritty city where people are getting on with their lives. Furthermore, the contrasting images and slow pace accentuate the grainy, yet mellow tone of the track. In conclusion, the combination of these aspects creates a strong and entertaining narrative that will appeal to the target audience.