The Pitch

I recently pitched an idea for a music video to one of my favorite music groups, Over the Rhine. I'm friends with their friends. They forwarded an email for me. I don't think it's going to happen. Anyways, I think it's a pretty decent idea that I'm going to copy and paste here....

The election is everywhere. You can't take a pee without hearing or reading about it. Everyone is interested and feels the weight of making the right decision. It's only going to get more intense. This song is the perfect retreat from the madness. It's the waldorf salad in the middle of a seven course meal. It's a clever, idealistic vision of a changed future. For some it might even be a safe, protest song. So my pitch is to add visuals to this brilliant song.





The setting is a 1950ish county fair. Cotton candy booths, ring toss, ferris wheel, stringed lights, striped tents, people everywhere. The overall feel is a warm, retro, nostaligic dream (think Darjeeling Limited meets Big Fish- see pic). There's a political "rally" happening on an elevated stage with an audience gathered to hear the band play. Obama-esque posters are all over for the named musicians. The topics of this election could be tackled in a dreamlike way. For example, maybe next to the cotton candy booth is a guy selling pinwheels to power your mp3 player. So as the kids run around the carnival listening to the incumbent song they wave their pinwheels around as wildly as they spin thru the crowd. Maybe there's a guy who's riding a stationary bike that powers the ferris wheel and the kids give him the headphones which causes him to pedal faster. There could be a booth letting everyone see the jukebox who's going to the moon. A passionate rocket scientist in a lab coat pointing skyward and making hand motions of the sound waves traveling through space.

The whole time the song is being passed from person to person and group to group thru the carnival. this outbreak causes people to share their elephant ears, old folks start to dance/sway with each other, the guy in charge of the ring toss starts giving away the stuffed animal prizes. All the while cutting back and forth to the band on the elevated stage. The warm, nostalgic setting of a carnival, along with combining antique and current technology (mp3 player + pinwheel) captures the idealistic vision of the song in a mutually clever way. I hope...