I want to present Daniel and Timothy from REACT in a very slick and classy finished piece. This is not your average dance/pop video. It's rich and colourful, using a palate of blues and greens. It's photographed with style, mostly using a locked off camera and concentrating on the positioning of subjects and surroundings in the static frame.

We will shoot in four distinctive locations in Manhattan. Capitalizing on the architecture from the city streets. I want to still get the feeling of a journey, so we will move through each of the 4 locations.

We will also photograph a different girl at each of the 4 locations. The girls should be a real mix, but I want to stay away from the obvious model types. Each girl will be a great dancer, and we'll mix the styles from hip-hop break-dancing style through to more modern jazzy and street styles. I want them to be striking in a very individualistic way, rather than all conventionally beautiful. They should also have some attitude which should come out in their street styling. We need to make sure that they seem attainable to the boys, and neither too young, old or too untouchable.

The boys will be photographed in a mixture of portraiture, where we shoot a number of stylish vignettes and the boys' vocal performance -- playing with framings, focus, split diopters. Other performance pieces will give the boys a chance to perform directly into the lens -- this should include their vocal performance and some simple cool dance moves. Other non-sync shots will include running past and away from the camera in extreme slow motion and the wipe device we'll use to get between the girls, the boys and the different locations.

We never photograph the boys and the girls together. Each girl only appears in one of the locations. We cut between locations and between the boys and girls in the locations by someone placing a hand or both hands over the lens. A different hand then uncovers the lens and we are at a new location or have cut from the boys to one of the girls. This wipe device can be extended to, for example, a pair of hands coming in from the sides of the screen to cover the lens when the boys are on the glass bridge, then one of the girls has her hand over the lens -- she pushes the camera away from her and we reveal her in a new location.

To interject a weird element to the video, some of the dancing scenes of the girls and the boys will be shown in reverse.

I'll shoot the piece on crisp, grain-free saturated colour 16mm film. The look will be beautiful and sexy. Slow motion, reverse and dark rich colours will add to the overall enigmatic vibe of the piece. I'll use diopters and post effects to blur and smear parts of the frame. (For a photographic reference, please see my Blue Amazon piece).

The boy's performance to camera should be upbeat, but not too pop and in your face. This will be helped by the way we photograph them, as well as the way we grade the film. There are photographic elements -- we shoot in some places more like a stills shoot -- just making the boys look fantastic. The girls help lead us through the locations and inject a second element for the viewer as well as some humour and attitude. By making the grade very lush and vibrant, emphasizing greens and blues, concentrating on a very photographic style will give the video a modern and classy look.

<< back to treatments