Final Plot Ideas (Preliminary)

This is our final plot idea:

• The main character (a young boy) puts on his superhero mask and runs into his garden to get into his tent/den.
• The tent then transports him into another woodland world in which there will be others all dancing.
• In the middle of all the dancing and partying in the new forest the young boy will trip up/fall over in some way and as he hits the floor he will be transported back to his garden and outside the tent/den. 
• The boy will then realise he's back home and may be greeted by his mother asking wheres he been (that scene will be dependant on availability of actors).

We tried to keep our idea as simplistic as possible, this was to ensure that we didn't over complicate the meaning of the video which is simply just about the young boy enjoying himself in his own imagination when he has the safety of his superhero costume on.

Plot Ideas (Preliminary)

We spent a lot of time debating and brainstorming ideas for our music video. From the start we knew we wanted to bring in some element of dance due to the nature of the song and obviously its title. Our basic premise is a young boy is playing in his den before he gets transported to another world. Here he meets various people dancing as he explores this new world. From here we developed and expanded our idea. For example, we decided we wanted the young boy to be dressed as a superhero: using 'the safety dance' as a means of protecting himself from evil. We also decided we wanted the den to be in a garden whilst the new world will be a forest and various locations within it. What happens and where the young boy goes in this new world is still being finalised. Some of the ideas for this section are as follows:

• He enters the new world and finds a party in a clearing and joins in, eventually being hit by confetti/party poppers/paint which cause him to fall and be transported back to reality;
• He enters the new world and meets people of the new world along his way that act like guides to him, eventually leading him to the king of the land before landing back home;
• He enters the new world and meets new people with whom he plays hide and seek with and parties and dances with before landing home.

We feel our start and ending are finalised. The start is as follows;

• The young boy dressed up stands in the doorway of his house before running out to the bottom of his garden to his den/tent.
• Here he begins playing before noticing a different exit to usual in his tent. He crawls through and finds himself in another world.

Our ending will be something along the lines of;

• The young boy will be hit by confetti/party poppers/paint which turn out to be very powerful in this new world, causing him to fall over. We will use this as the transition from the new world to reality.
• The boy wakes us back at home either in his tent, or in the middle of the garden with his den in the background.

Lyrics of the Song (Preliminary)

When looking at the lyrics, we were immediately drawn to some verses in particular. They seemed to suggest the idea of another world. We ran with this idea and allowed it to guide our concept. For example;

Say, we can go where we want to
A place where they will never find
And we can act like we come from out of this world
Leave the real one far behind

The song is very upbeat and fast paced and naturally this encouraged us to want to create a positive music video that will be fun and easy to watch. The line, "and we can act like we come from out of this world", led us to look into a fantasy concept. While the line, "the night is young and so am I", has encouraged us to think about perhaps casting a child. The rest of the lyrics are as follows;


We can dance if we want to
We can leave your friends behind
'Cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance
Well, they're no friends of mine

Say, we can go where we want to
A place where they will never find
And we can act like we come from out of this world
Leave the real one far behind

And we can dance
Or sing!

We can go when we want to
The night is young and so am I
And we can dress real neat from our hats to our feet
And surprise 'em with the victory cry

Say, we can act if we want to
If we don't, nobody will
And you can act real rude and totally removed
And I can act like an imbecile

And say, we can dance, we can dance
Everything's out of control
We can dance, we can dance
They're doing it from pole to pole
We can dance, we can dance
Everybody look at your hands
We can dance, we can dance
Everybody's taking the chance
Safety dance
Oh well, the safety dance
Ah yes, the safety dance

We can dance if we want to
We've got all your life and mine
As long as we abuse it, never gonna lose it
Everything'll work out right

I say, we can dance if we want to
We can leave your friends behind
Because your friends don't dance and if they don't dance
Well, they're no friends of mine

I say, we can dance, we can dance
Everything's out of control
We can dance, we can dance
We're doing it from pole to pole
We can dance, we can dance
Everybody look at your hands
We can dance, we can dance
Everybody's taking the chance

Oh well, the safety dance
Ah yes, the safety dance
Oh well, the safety dance

Location Scout (Preliminary)

Once we came up with our idea we started discussing possible locations to film that fitted with the story and were accessible for us to film. Today I went on a location scout to Longs wood, which is in my local area to see if it would be suitable for our music video.
As well as woods there's also some open fields and areas which would be useful if we can get a drone for some aerial shots; this will also offer a bit more diversity to the close up angles that we can film in the more wooded areas and on the small trails. 
There are some different sites within the wood like the stairs, bridge and some ponds which we could use to capture more interesting shots and make it seem like there's a few different locations. 
As it had rained over the previous days the paths were very muddy and waterlogged so we will have to consider the weather when creating our shooting schedule.