This document provides a full written treatment for a music video for the song "Cupid" by Alexandra Savior. The treatment describes creating an abstract, romanticized video through techniques like soft focus, shallow depth of field, warm color tones, and fragmented, nonlinear storytelling. Locations will include industrial cityscapes at dusk and luxurious indoor settings with rich textures. Lighting, camera movements, and editing pace will build throughout to match the increasing emotion of the song. The overall narrative will portray the feeling of being in love through cinematic techniques and a constant focus on the female subject.

1. WRITTEN TREATMENT
Full Written Treatment-
‘Cupid’
Alexandra Savior

2. LYRICS
Filled in the hole in the road
We were speaking in code
Stuck in fantasy mode
Who never really liked
Coming back down to Earth
It's not that it hurt
It was just so much worse
With anyone but you
Know a shortcut,
A sure shot
I forgot
How it ought to feel
I don’t know what to do,
It’s a whole lot,
To hold back,
You know that,
Cupid shoots to kill
There's a mysterious force
It sinks in it's claws
Pulls me closer to yours
Some cosmic business
Illuminating allure
What are we waiting for
Never hated you more
Why does nobody but you
You know a shortcut,
A sure shot
I forgot
How it ought to feel
I don’t know what to do,
It’s a whole lot,
To hold back,
You know that,
Cupid shoots to kill
Know a shortcut,
A sure shot
I forgot
How it ought to feel
I don’t know what to do,
It’s a whole lot,
To hold back,
You know that,
Cupid shoots to kill

3. TREATMENT
This concept video will be an abstract, romanticised, beautiful expression of the feeling of being in
love. Throughout every shot, a delicate soft focus and shallow depth of field will lift the young girl
from her surroundings, and center her as the focus of all affections within the video. And as the
dreamy and laidback melodies of ‘Cupid’ play amongst besotted and emotional lyrics, the sequences
will play out slowly of the lead actress performing simple, human actions with little care at all, but
each action accented by a real sense of admiration expressed through the camera and various learnt
techniques.
The narrative structure throughout the video will be fragmented and non-linear, creating a
distorted sense of time as it passes, and leaving behind tradtional narrative structures as put
forward by theorists like Todorov and Chomsky.
Locations will be a compilation of industrial, grey cityscapes at around dusk/ sunset to give a natural
yet cinematic lighting and sky backdrop, and luxe, surreal, inside environment with rich textures
and nostalgic props to accent. The idea is to create a personal and intimate feeling between the two
in all spaces, laced with just a hint of confusion and aspects of modern photography. Lighting will be
high key and colourised throughout in an array of warm tones- yellows, reds, ambers, pinks. This on
top of a soft focus, shallow depth of field, and almost blurred, film roll effects, will embody the
dream-like haze that will shadow the relationship as told in the video.
These elements as described above suit the genre of music (dream-pop, psychedelic pop) so entirely,
and epitomise the surreal and perfected reality created by the music that will accompany these
visuals.

4. TREATMENT
In the opening of the video, the pace will be slow, with long shot lengths, a slow edit speed, and even
a change in video speed to be ever so slightly slower. The slow moving visuals will instantly begin
the feeling that the female is of real significance, and the slowing of time will recreate the way that
time seems to move in relationships (as portrayed in the media), as well as generally employing the
idea of softness that I want to feel somewhat evident. There will be a number of tracking shots and
pans, as well as slow zooms that will take us from medium close ups to close ups and back again, the
love interest will always be the center of these- her face, her eyes, her lips, hands, neck, etc. The
setting will be outdoors at first, to appear naturalistic and express the homemade feeling that the
footage should hold.
As the video and song build, pace across all forms: speed, shot length, edit pace, will increase very
slightly, and settings and environment will start appearing that are more sculpted, textured, warm,
and feminine, and overall more typically photographic. The emotion of the sequences will change
also- the girls expression will change, become more cheery and light, less serious, with the
occasional half smile. Elements and aspects of the more surreal kind will begin making appearances
also, those more intentional props of interest will shift the mise en scene towards the kind of
ethereal and odd vibe that seems to contrast the video’s main message and theme of love and
romance.

5. TREATMENT
Throughout the video, the narrative element of love will be prevalent in so many ways- through
the soft focus and shallow depth of field of the camera (techniques), the romantic and hazy lighting
and filters (lighting and techniques), the repeated and frequent use of close ups on the hands, face,
neck (shot types), the pans and tracks with a constant focus on the subject (camera movements), the
luxe, highly textured environments and props as well as a variety of picturesque outdoor locations
at around dusk (mise en scene and setting), combined of course with the romantic, flowing
soundtrack and slow edit pace and speed altering (sound and editing). And this is something that not
only do I feel particularly strongly for, but it is so fitting and typical of the genre, often these songs
of devotion and intense love are paired with videos that center romantic ideas around them, and the
audience expects this.
When the video and song begin to draw to a close the edit pace will have quickened significantly,
and there will be definite nods to montage editing, with some clips playing for just fractions of
seconds so as to achieve and put across the idea that time is moving quickly in the relationship, and
further, that although time changes, the way they feel for one another will remain the same. The
actress will also appear laughing, smiling, nonchalantly skipping around and posing. Essentially the
video will seem more high-spirited. In the closing moments, the video will return to a shot much
like the one it opened with- the love interest appearing aloof and distant, but this time, we will
catch just a glimpse of her smiling as we hear the final lyric: ‘cupid shoots to kill’

6. INSPIRATION: TEXTURES &
LIGHTING
The kind of feminine,
vanity related props that
will feature in the indoor
environments in my
music video.
A hugely inspiring and
rich texture that I love the
idea of utilising where
fitting.
A bokeh lighting effect
caused by the intentional
lack of focus on the
candles will definitely
take place in my video.
Another beautiful and
romantic texture that
feels so feminine and
luscious to me, as well as
glamourous,

7. INSPIRATION: FEMININITY,
PROPS & COLOUR
The rich pink tone across
the image makes for a
really beautiful and
intimate feeling. I will use
this colour similarly.
Femininity is clear in this
image, and the use of
props like Lolita and the
pink heart sunglasses are
very traditionally female.
The use of photographs is
a really attractive prop
that easily connotes
nostalgia and a sense of
pleasure in a persons life.
The gaze is so enticing in
this image, and so female
and something I plan to
prolong throughout my
video.

8. INSPIRATION: DREAM POP
GENRE
All of these images are
from music videos of the
dream pop genre.
From the mise en scene to
the camera angles, these
types of visuals will have
great influence on my
video.
It’s so important to reflect
upon the genre so as to
understand visual,
technical, and generic
codes and conventions.
The dream pop music style
fits beautifully with
abstract and concept
videos.