A Day To Remember

“All signs point to Lauderdale”

A treatment by Jacob Egan & Liam Walker On behalf of Reckless Records

Concept

The performances of the characters will play an important role in our video, the victim playing the underdog role, eventually overcoming his bully in the end, and in turn grabbing his dream girl. The main character will be the victim; the camera techniques and editing will be following his struggles over a normal day of school. The idea is to place the audience as a fly on the wall in the whole situation, siding them with the bully’s victim, making them feel sympathetic towards him. Gradually building up to him overcoming his fears and standing up for himself, winning the audience over. As stated before the performance will be key, the audience needs to believe he is tired of running away from his problems and is ready to stand up for himself. It fits to the genre in a way that the victims are rebelling against the normal bully situation where most would shy away from standing up to them, which is similar to pop punk refusing to adhere to the normal rules.

Performance& Narrative

The performance of Liam will be key in delivering the feelings and emotions of the protagonist in the video. If the feelings of Liam’s character were not put across well then the narrative would not make sense as the story is about him overcoming the bully and rising above him. The video we are going to make will feature three main parts, with each of these scenarios key in telling the story. The three scenes will be the opening sequence which will be the constraint scene, followed the conflict scene which then in turn will be followed by the resolution scene, one of the main parts of the story.

Constraint:This scene will feature Liam feeling personally victimized by the bully, who will be seen actually pushing the protagonist. The high angle and low angle shots used in this scene will be used to show Daniel’s authority over Liam at this point in the narrative. The performance of Daniel will also be very important in this scene, as the audience needs to believe that he is in control of Liam, that Liam is scared of him.

Conflict:In this particular part of the video, Liam begins to stand up to the bully but not in a direct way. As he sees another person from his school being bullied by Daniel he decides to step in. Instead of one of them being tormented in front of many others both of them now are involved and it doesn’t end well for Liam as he is placed in a bin. But his efforts do not go unnoticed. The high angle and low angle shots used in the constraint scene will no longer be apparent as Liam begins to stand up for himself and do what he wants, regardless of the outcome. The camera shots would in fact be at eye level between the two to show the fact he isn’t in control of him anymore.

Resolution: As a result of Liam standing up for another person in school, the girl he’s had a crush on for a long time invites him to her house party. Whilst at the party Liam chooses to go all out and impress the girl regardless of the outcome and what might happen to him, this is where the live shots come in to the video, with close ups of band members playing the song as Liam sings. Long shots of the whole group are key to fit into the genre conventions as other videos from analysis of the genre show multiple shots of the band playing together. Also the editing will be used to show the genre with fast cuts to imitate the guitar in the song. The performance of Liam needs to be that of a confident one, performing in front of a crowd of people to impress the girl.

Camera & Editing

A variety of camera shots as well as different editing techniques will need to be used throughout these scenes. The various techniques used will need to fit to the genre most importantly, with lots of fast pace cuts to link with the pace of the beats in the song, the camera shots will e extremely important in portraying the situation for the audience, giving them the fly on the wall feeling, as if they are there watching the narrative unfold in front of them.

Constraint:As stated in the narrative part high angle and low angles will be key in this particular scene to show the power of the bully and how miniscule Liam is in size to Daniel. Close ups may be used to show the facial expressions of both Daniel and Liam as he feels the force of him pushing him away, the fear on Liam’s face. A wide shot of the two squaring up could be used to show the conflict between them. To follow the song the editing will be jerky and fast, matching the drums and guitars as much as possible. As well as these cuts Liam will also need to lip sync to the lyrics of the song.

Conflict:As in the constraint scene, close ups will be very important in this scene as the feelings of both the characters are changing, Liam feeling more comfortable and able to stand up to Daniel than before. The movement of the camera will not be steady as this would not reflect what was happening at the specific time in the video, canted angles and quick pans could be used to intensify the scene. Again Liam will be lip-syncing in this scene.

Constraint:Group shots will be included into this part with the band all playing their instruments together as well as close ups of various singular members within the group. Close ups again will be a main focus to convey the emotions of the characters within the narrative. To adhere to the conventions we will try edit the video so that the beat of the music video cuts with the actual scenes, with Liam lip syncing the words to the song throughout this part also.

Lighting

As we will be filming most of our music video within a studio as well as other parts we will try to use natural lighting as much as possible, however, within the studio to gain a better picture for our video we may have to use unnatural lighting to make the band stand out more so then with natural lighting in place. Key lighting will be needed to highlight the band and most of all Liam the lead vocalist who the narrative will be mostly based around.

Props

To make the music video look as realistic as possible we are going to need real instruments for the band to play along with the music along with a microphone for Liam to be able to sing into so we can lip sync with the actual audio from the song we have chosen. Also other props may be used throughout the video but we have yet to find any other means for props within our video apart from the obvious band instruments.