For Mala, phase 1
One circle of light. A spotlight, a deejay's stage, the sun, a ring of dancers. Always the same circle.
Mala, this is the plan, built on the skeleton you liked and on everything you told me after it. I listened to your song file from start to end and placed every part on your own kicks and breaks.
Three things changed: the opening is now made for deejays, the festival crowd is in, and the message of the song has its own picture. They are marked new.
The pictures are sketches of the direction, not final frames. The times come from your file, 3 minutes 26.
Nine parts. The two bright ones are the dancers: first as the hook, then as the full tribute.
0:00 to 0:20
No slow start. On your very first kick we are already here: the dancers in the air against the sun. Then four hard cuts, one per bar: the dancers, your shadow in the circle of light, the crowd with its hands up, the title.
A deejay sees in five seconds that every cut sits on the beat. That is the hook.
From you: "if you fail to grab DJs attention in the first 20 seconds, we will surely lose them." So the strongest picture in the film now comes first.
0:20 to 0:38
Your shadow alone in one round light, moving with the beat. At 0:33 your kick drops out for about five seconds, and the light holds its breath with it. When the kick comes back, so does she.
From your own video, the shadow part you like. This is where the look comes from.
0:38 to 1:04
Your track fills out here, so the picture does too. The same round light is now behind a deejay, and thousands of hands go up to it. One person and one light, moving a whole field of people.
From you: the Defqon crowd you sent, and "how DJs influence people". I made it gold and in silhouette so it lives in the same world as the rest. It comes back at the peak.
1:04 to 1:20
Your kick fades away and the track lifts. In that space the stage disappears, and the same round light is a real sun on a horizon. The one big change in the film, and it happens on your own build.
1:20 to 1:46
The kick is back and your voice comes in. A gold field, a huge sky, arms wide. She stays a shadow against the light the whole way, so it is never about a body, only about the feeling.
Your words on screen here: "Change your destiny. Whatcha want you can be."
1:46 to 2:03
Your chant. The circle of light becomes a circle of people: dancers around the drums at sunset, every step on your rhythm. When your kick drops out near 1:56 we stay on feet, hands and dust until it returns.
From you: "I would like to pay tribute to our native African Tribal Dancers." You already met them in the first 20 seconds. Here they get their full moment.
2:03 to 2:32
The two verses with your message. She sends a line of light out from her hands. It travels all the way round and comes back to her. The circle again, and this time it means something: what you give is what returns.
The calmest part of the film, so the words can land.
Your words: "Whatcha you cause and whatcha you do, sooner later returns to you." And from your order form: "allowing the universe to guide you".
2:32 to 3:07
At 2:32 your track goes almost silent for six seconds. The screen goes dark with it, only a thin ring of light left. Then your kick lands at 2:38, the loudest stretch of the song, and everything meets: she stands in the middle of the dancers, cut against the festival crowd. Two crowds, one circle.
3:07 to 3:26
The kick stops and your voice repeats the title. She walks on above the clouds toward the light, and the circle slowly closes on your last note.
Everything else is a yes or no on each part above.
You offered to let me bring the tribal part or the chorus in early. My honest advice is to leave your track exactly as it is. Deejays know music to the bar, and this plan already brings the dancers in on the first kick with pictures alone.
If you would still like the chant heard in the first 20 seconds, tell me and I will plan that version.
You asked for more time on this, so take it. For now I have planned only the song title at the end of the first 20 seconds and your name on the last shot. A few of your lines appear on screen in two places. Say the word if you want more, less or none.
Your words, and what they mean for the film.
very simple but very powerfulOne idea, the circle. Nine pictures, hard cuts, no busy effects on top.
They are precision peopleEvery cut on your beat. The big changes sit on your own breaks at 0:33, 1:04, 1:56 and 2:32.
absolutely no sexy innuendoLoose flowing clothes, shadows against light, nothing posed for the body. Spiritual from the first frame to the last.
whichever way as long as it's legalNo clips taken from YouTube. The dancers and the crowd are made new for your song, or come from properly licensed footage.
my love for dance & techno musicThe deejay and the floor are part of the story, not decoration: the same light that guides her moves the crowd.