First Music Video Idea

First Music Video Idea

Fast Car- Tracy Chapman

The lyrics to this song tell a narrative tale, which is based around poverty. It tells the story of an unknown person who suffered from poverty. There a clues in the lyrics about the plot of the story and I thought of the idea of: 

A family of three, a mother, a father and their young teenage daughter. They live in a small rented apartment, that is unclean and not fit to live in. The mother of this teenage girl divorces her jobless, alcoholic husband, forcing this young girl to have to quit school in order to take care of her dad. This girl grows up into an adult, and leaves her hometown with her partner in the hope of making a better life. The girl falls into the cycle of poverty, as her life begins to mirror her mothers: her partner is unemployed and becomes an alcoholic. She is left alone in the house while her partner spends time drinking with friends. Overall, she has to come and face poverty instead of chasing empty dreams that aren't possible. 

It's a tragedy portraying poverty, and the idea of this song is to try and raise awareness, but unfortunately its hard to get out of poverty. 

The music video for this song definitely has a performance within the video. The setting should be set in an old abandoned house/apartment, where there are only a few basic rooms, with dirty surroundings and not much food or water. The film should start by showing the young teenage girl walking down a desolate long street, portraying her being alone in the world, although she can't escape from her misery and metaphorically showing that the world keeps on going on which seems like forever and she cannot take another route, she is stuck on the same road till the end.

At the beginning of the music video, I think there should be an establishing shot of a young woman playing the guitar in an empty, desolate room, with nothing but her sitting on her chair. They'll be close ups of her fingers playing the guitar, and close ups of her face. As well as the idea of the young woman playing the guitar, I think there should be a story to go with it as well and should keep cutting back and fourth to the woman in the room and the family in poverty, as though the young woman in the room is the narrator. 

The costume should consist of natural colours, to convey the misery of poverty. The clothing of the family should be worn out clothes, to show they are poor and only really have the clothes that they are wearing.

The props will consist of the guitar that the woman plays, the alcohol bottles showing the dad is an alcoholic.