Background to the song – Misery by Maroon Five

Misery is a song written by Adam Levine, Jesse Carmichael and Sam Farrar, it

was released as a digital download on June 22nd with A&M/Octane Records

via ITunes (store). It was the second single of the album ‘Hands All Over’

(released September 21st 2010) the album later reached number 1 in the US

billboard. According the Adam Levine the song is about ‘the decay of a relationship’, he was quoted by MTV news as

saying ‘Misery is about the desperation of wanting someone really bad in your life but having it be very difficult. Kind

of what all the songs I write are about, I’m not treading on new ground but I think a lot of people (including myself)

deal with that all the time’. The song was also promoted in the trailer for the film ‘The Dilemma” in 2011.

The Music Video – American Version

The original version of the video was filmed in May 2010; directed by Joseph Kahn; the bands lead singer Adam

Levine was quoted by MTV news to have said the video ‘Focuses on violence, rather than sex, where the female lead

attempts to torture and possibly kill her lover’. Interestingly the female lead is also Levine’s current girlfriend (Anne

Vyalitsyna). We intend to perhaps use this idea of genre conversion in our video although the gender balance will not

weigh quite so heavily (and in the case of the males fatally) on the females side. However other conventions of the

pop genre will be stuck to. As we are not entirely sure if the narrative will be diegetic or not our shots are not yet in

any sort of order. However this will be planned at a later stage and improvised somewhat when we are syncing it

together with the music.

I hope that our video will give a less violent edge to this song and bring home the more sorrowful side of what Levine

quoted to be ‘the desperation of wanting someone really really bad’. As two male leads we intend to perhaps lead

two separate but parallel narratives each with it’s own story and different message. Furthermore because we look

very different perhaps we could be two ends of the spectrum of relationships. We will be two different characters

and we may incorporate intertextualities from other ‘love songs’ but reverse these to show how love is not

Treatment Sheet – Misery by Maroon Five

necessarily always a good thing. Colour will be used somewhat like in a Noir movie

where it is rather grey but then bold colours are used on certain props for symbolism

effect.

A few ideas we may choose to include are:

- Using iPods (or other electronic screens) to jump between the two different

narratives.

- Perhaps using a bus window in the dark (as a strong reflection is shown here)

to bring the two narratives together, or the two narratives on the two different sides

of a window/screen.

- Perhaps if filming only by night is unavailable than to change the footage

through editing to look darker (maybe a grey scale).

- The shot I personally have thought about the most is the introduction shot; the

male lead (perhaps myself) leaves a female character (evidently a love

interest/partner shown through a kiss) the camera follows the lead onto the bus and

onto the back seat where he sits and then the camera zooms into his iPod (as he

chooses the song ‘Misery) this is when the song begins and the camera zooms into the screen to which there

is a jump cut where the narrative starts at the beginning of the relationship of the male lead and female

character and the video then ensues a parallel narrative that leads you up to the

end of the relationship (the bus exit seen earlier).

Video Location

There are several settings we are hoping to use for our music video, including the studio

at college for any film that needs editing highly in post production (such as IPod

transition shots), a bus or car (preferably at night) for the introduction scene, the Marina

in Hartlepool (also at night perhaps) for some other scenes, also we hope to include a

few other settings. The reason for this is as it is most likely going to be a diegetic narrative it seems only natural that

a person would not stay in one place for several months so this use of setting change will show the process of time

throughout the narrative of the relationship.

Costume Ideas

Because the video is most likely to be a diegetic narrative highly eccentric costume would not be coherent, as most

people do not go dressed around as clowns or anything like that. However there are ways to use costume seen in

recent pop genre videos for the costume use in this genre is usually simply fashionable; so the use of ‘current

clothing’ instead of our own might be a wise choice here. Perhaps if there are any scenes where the lead is getting

ready for the day or it is the early morning or night there could be fitting costume use there such as pyjamas or

slippers.

Casting

Our casting will mainly be of ourselves and perhaps friends and family (for scenes were there requires more than

two people) the reason for this being is obviously that we cannot afford to hire anybody. However we will still be

selective of our cast perhaps picking people we know study performing arts or people we know are comfortable in

front of a camera as if we pick somebody who isn’t it will make our entire storyline seem unbelievable as the

watcher will not be immersed in it as it will not feel natural.

By David Leighton