Initial Treatment Ideas for Take Me Out by Tom Milsom

CONCEPT

 

- Teenage lifestyle

- Summer

- Diametrically opposed ideas

- Independently created - professional but not commercial

CATEGORY

Drawing from Lara Schwartz's idea of the eight categories of music video, our video will mainly be based on an overlap of a performance/concept style. However, other categories are addressed, for example we are considering using animation as a cutaway, as well as possibly having our performer dance. Although it is not a story based video, we will have a vague narrative, as well as using gag aspects, for example distorting characters' faces, although, unlike a gag video, it will not be intentionally humorous. Many music videos feature aspects from different categories, for example Michael Jackson's Thriller, which is a hybrid of dance, performance & narrative.

LYRICAL INFLUENCE

 

'Take Me Out' is a very emotionally charged song, and the sensitivity & introspective nature of the artist is apparent throughout. Milsom addresses summer multiple times in the song, which is the main idea of our video. We intend to create a piece that takes aspects from Milsom's fascination with summer, as well as the more poetic, contradictory parts of the lyrics: for example, he addresses light and darkness in the same line, which we could use in the video to create interesting juxtaposed shots.

 

EMOTIONAL CONTENT

 

Tom Milsom has explained the lyrics to this song, saying that it is about his reliance on the idea of summer curing depression, and that if it doesnt make him happy, he may as well be dead; the phrase 'take me out' has more than one meaning, the most obvious being the idea of him going outside into the light, but also that to take someone out means to kill them. Using this idea as a framework for the video, we have decided that the main narrative will be documenting the performer's journey through isolation, depression, darkness & angst, through to light, lucidity & happiness.

 

THE ARTIST

 

Tom Milsom has a background in poetry & creative writing, which clearly influences the lyrics to this song. The use of sibilance and other literary devices gives the song a very poetic feel, and his sensitivity and introspection is apparent.

 

CHARACTERS & CAST

 

Drawing from the lyrical content of the song, and the way that unlike many other pop songs, it does not directly address one gender as the focus or love interest of the performer, we have decided that the main performer will be an androgynous-looking, perhaps slightly effeminate male, of about 17 or 18 years old. We have considered Tom Milsom himself as the main performer, but it is likely that we will use someone from our school, who also has a background in performance & dance, skills which we can use to our advantage when filming the video.

 

CULTURAL SUBTEXT

 

Our video will be heavily based around stereotypical 'teen culture': hanging out in groups of friends, the strange transition from childhood to adulthood, the isolation many teenagers feel as being in the 'inbetween' stage of life, as well as the conflicting emotions teenagers often have. We have researched the theme of depression in teenagers, and found that teenage boys are the most likely demographic to commit suicide. Without the video being too morbid, we want to include this as a theme, perhaps in cutaways or overlaid clips.