Writing a music video script is a fascinating mental exercise. Some of the questions that one must grapple with:
- Will this video accentuate & complement the themes of the song, or will it be a short film using the song as mere background music?
- Are the lyrics to be used literally i.e. if the song says (as “Chicago” does), “I drove to New York/In a van, with my friends,” ought one show a van in New York?
- Does the video take place in time to the song’s rhythm? Does the editing correlate to the song?
I can think of good, solid videos that take every possible route. So there is no “right” answer. But my tendency, for this song, is to say: the video will follow the song’s theme; it will not literalize the lyrics, or even the song’s plot; I will probably edit slavishly to the rhythm of the song, but I need to storyboard it first.
The song, for those who don’t know it, is about the futility of the belief that you can solve your problems geographically. Or, to be lest vaguely poetic, it’s about how you can’t run from your mistakes and fuck-ups; they’ll follow you to Chicago, or New York, or however far you drive. My current thought is to have two chronologies: the present in Chicago, and flashbacks to wherever the protagonist is running from (central Indiana? Possibly. I hate myself). Mr. Jack H___ had an intriguing idea about the structure of the flashbacks that I may or may not use.
The song is structured with slowish verses and upbeat choruses; I will almost certainly set the present to the choruses and the flasbacks to the verses. This means the song would end in flashback, which is thematically appropriate.
I’m sort of tempted to eschew a narrative for the present, and do a travelogue of the city, approaching night. Maybe. I’ve got time to think about it. And for the flashbacks (especially if I shoot in fucking Indiana), I might not have a “big event” that drives the protagonist away, but just a sense of flatness and boredom.
Flashbacks will not be in full color. Whether they are desaturated or completely monotone is to be seen. Hell, they might be oversaturated. The point is, they will look funky.
More as I get that far.