Can't Stop Music Video Plan

Red Hot Chili Peppers – Can’t Stop

Tom Raby

Pitch Treatment

(Background Image)

Summary of the video is based off the lyrics from the song “music the great communicator, use two sticks to make it in the nature”. Music being a vibrant show of emotion, I feel it would be good to put that into a video format.

 

The paint and the instruments are already owned, bonus paint can be purchased with ease.

Opening: 0:00 – 0:22 features Guitarist playing the opening riff in darkened room – there is an abandoned house which I am interested to use, but a regular room lacking any major light source would also work – the guitar I would like to line with glow sticks, and perhaps some glow in the dark decals. From 0:17-0:22 as the drum line increases in volume and the guitar becomes slightly more aggressive it might be an idea to add low flashes of light behind the guitarist as it starts to increase, however, as the drumming becomes more prominent I would like to switch over to a makeshift bucket drum kit lined with wet, glow in the dark paint. The drumming for this does not need to sound like the actual thing, just be hit with the beat of the drumming.

0:22-0:33 personally I would like to have a shot of the band running through a narrow part of the woods – I do have the exact spot in mind and can get photographs/videos to showcase the area – whilst the band is running my favourite idea is to have them running through red smoke, which can be achieved from some smoke grenades which I have used in the same area before. They can be acquired from paintball vendors and are perfectly safe. I understand that I may not be allowed to do this, so my backup plan would be to use spray paint for the band to run through, perhaps in white coveralls and their respective mask, or to be lining the trees with colourful thread, but that would depend on whether the thread would show on camera.

Verse 1: 0:33-0:44 back to the dark room, this time featuring the opening band with a mid-shot, this will show mainly the instruments of the band, but some dim lighting on the floor looking up at the band would be appropriate, the guitar will still be lined with glow sticks and the decals, bucket drum still with the paint, singer just entirely coloured in neon paint, holding glow sticks and for the bass I would like to change the strings for the glow in the dark, multi coloured strings which are available. Opening the scene with a mid-shot, but then moving onto close-ups on the individual band members, though primarily focusing on their respective instruments. Again, the key point to this video is the vibrant attitude of music.

0:44-0:54 this scene would be back over in the woods, the lyric which inspired this song has its own upcoming scene, in which I would like the band to turn the woods into their instruments. For this to happen, the band needs to experiment with getting their characteristics onto the instruments, so this scene is to feature the band painting their makeshift instruments. The guitar I would like to go off of Flea’s bass from the video ‘Otherside’, in that he uses a supposed telephone pole, obviously not using one of them, but I would like the guitarist to use coloured thread as the strings, using a split tree as the head and saddle, painting the co-operating parts of the tree to work in accordance with the colourful theme, I would quite like a pink and purple tree with multi coloured thread, see which colours work together. The singer would be hit with paintballs – not via a gun, slingshot- and this can later be edited to go to the beat, as well as paintballs I would like the glow in the dark paint and maybe spray paint if we can get a breathing mask. Drummer would get a log to paint and some drum ‘sticks’. The bassist I would like to have a large, thick branch which will be painted to look like a child’s makeshift instrument, can easily cut one to be somewhat the shape if we find the right size, will cut the outer layer off to be painted easily so that it is brighter. Respective close ups.

0:54-1:05 on the grassy field near my house there is a significant slant at a few points, I would like to have the camera looking up from the ditch portion and have the band ride down on children’s bicycles and creature rocking horses, it should slide down the hill quite easily, it is fairly steep at points. The characters can decorate their rides; but they should be colourful enough. I think it would be okay to just have them riding down in a group for the first part, then have close ups and a two shot at one point, perhaps leading to them beginning to push each other off their vehicles to beat the others to the bottom. 

1:05-1:13, for this scene, seeing as the instruments have dried down a little for the upcoming chorus, the bass is the most prominent out of the mix, because of this, I would like to have the drummer incorporated with the bass. I would like to have the drummer hitting the bass strings with the glowing drum sticks whilst the bassist frets the notes, and have the drummer tapping out the beat on the body of the bass. Set in the dark room or darker part of the woods with a two-shot.

1:13-1:16- close up of guitar playing this little riff, lit by numerous glow sticks, could use a flow in the dark pick.

1:16-1:21 feature jump cuts in time with the claps, singer featured in the centre of the frame with their back to the trees, I would like this to be a stop motion portion, the singer is to clap when it appears in the song, and with each clap the rest of the band is to move to a new spot and do a pose.

1:21- 1:26 drummer, front and centre beneath a dim light. This should be a close up to hide the other band members, when the primary drum hit sounds at 1:24 I would like the other band members to step out from behind the drummer, two to the side, one maybe from underneath, pan out to see them all.

1:26-1:36 field again, stop motion dancing locomotive style, keeping in form, otherwise doing whatever pose they want, each character doing their own to stand out. Moving off from the left, coming back on further away from the right hand side and moving over to the left.

1:36-1:47 for the beginning part I would like the bassist to be playing with a regular base, then a few seconds into it I would like the bassist to pause where they are then cut to them in the same position but playing the woods bass, from 1:45-1:47 I would like to have a mid-shot on the drummer playing on the log drum.

1:47-1:57 For the first half of this, an idea might be to move from a mid-shot, some small distance away from the drummer and have still shots where we eventually move closer to the drummer and finish the scene with a still image of the paint being hit up into the air off the bucket.

1:57-2:07 mid shot of the vocalist’s character with spray paint’s haze coming in from off screen, this will be where the most colour for this character will come from. This is in place of John Frusciante’s backing vocals. Just the solid mid/close up shot and it being coloured in with various colours.

 

2:07-2:16 loading up the ball pit grave, have the guitarist with the bag of multi-coloured ball pit balls near the grave, shots from the side, then as bassist pushes into grave, from the front as to face the grave directly.

 

2:17- 2:27 using just the homemade instruments. Opening with a close up on the guitarist, then bassist, drummer and finishing up on the singer. All close ups, maybe a wide shot to show them all.

 

2:27-2:38 for this I feel it might be an idea to have the characters dress up, to maybe have the drummer in drag posing as a wife of the bassist who is reading a paper, then have the drummer ruin the paper with paint and tackle. Or have the two without costume just stop motion, turn based over reacted karate fighting along with the claps.

 

2:38-2:48 this part of the song is mainly focused on the bass line, as is the case, it would make sense for this part to do the same. I would like to have the videos over lay with each other. With each note the bassist plays for the video to move to a quadrant of the screen and stay there. Do this for every note in each bar then reset on the next. Or, if at all possible, have the bassist play in one spot for 4 notes, then with that location have them paused, then have them be playing in another spot at the same time as the paused version remains. Really, I just mean to overlay the image.

 

2:48-2:58 possibly have the notes of the bars painted onto leaves and bushes around the bassist and have them press them in accordance to the beat. Another idea is to have the fretboard positioned right up to the camera in a horizontal position at the top of the screen, and then to have the bassist fret the notes and have the band dancing in the background which will be featured at the bottom of the screen.

 

2:58-3:10 guitarist stood with the guitar low down on the strap with the bassist behind them holding the bass in front of the guitarist and each playing the other’s instruments.

 

3:10-3:20 a close up of the vocalist Voguing

 

3:20-3:30 for this I want the guitarist to be playing the tree string guitar to play the solo, I would like some distance on this. An idea for a shot would be to have the camera do a long shot, placed on top of the strings, watching the guitarist play the piece.

 

3:30-3:40 decorate the ball pit grave with the painted baby head, painted cross and other colourful toys, throw more randomly as I want things to be faster now, this would be a wide shot.

 

3:40-3:50 I want the band, whilst on the children’s rides to jump over the ball pit grave and dance around it. I would like to see if we could have a stop motion spin jump over the grave if possible, if not, video would be fine.

 

3:50-4:02 colourful smoke going, bassist swinging off a tree branch to go through, guitarist running through with large stuffed bear, drummer tackling vocalist through from the unseen side to the other side of the smoke.

 

4:02-4:12 pacman toy close to frame as to look larger than drummer, attempts to eat drummer, only for them to be saved by golden man who then fights off pacman.

 

4:12-4:22 all band members switch instruments, they each get a shot on their own of them destroying the other’s makeshift instrument.

 

4:22-4:29 vocalist emerges from beneath the balls in the grave to a close up.

 

4:29-END Close up of a pumpkin, pumpkin either smashed by sledge hammer or blown up