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Transcript of Treatment sheet
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