Play Proposal
GENERAL INFORMATION
- General Summary: Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of the most critically acclaimed plays of the 18th century England. It features an ensemble of diverse groups of characters who explore the nature of different kinds of romantic love and the volatility between real and imagined worlds. The piece blends romance with humor as a way to balance the plot conflicts brought about by the different scenes in the play.
- Project Description
I plan to create a music video that will be based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I will adapt the music video by editing and translating much of the difficult words and language used in Shakespeare’s original text while retaining the overall meaning in order to suit a contemporary audience. The aim is to tap into the power of imagination in the audience by treating the main ideas and themes in A Midsummer Night’s Dream as of paramount importance. The material, in this case, the genre and form of the music, take secondary importance.
DETAILED INFORMATION
- Reasons for the proposed music video:
A music video based on the ideas and themes in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is rather remarkably timely particularly if you consider the volatile world we now live in marked by increasingly polarizing society and emerging issues such as climate change and championing the inclusion of minority groups. Since the video is based on the play by Shakespeare, it will offer a humorous view of these hot issues with the aim of challenging their irrationality akin to porous boundary reality and fantasy.
- Technical Aspects:
Ideas for the show: The visual elements of the music video will entail a colorful set design featuring elements of hyper-reality and fragmentation so as to bring out the theme of reality versus illusion. To do that, I will employ strategies such as jump shots instead of continuity editing, on-location shooting in a city and forest, and long takes.
The music video will also feature inter-textual elements such as references to Shakespeare’s words in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, although I will improvise the dialogue. However, as for sound and lighting, I will do a post synchronization even of singing and dancing scenes as well as hilarious sound effects. The aim will be to bring the dreamy setting of the music video more to life. Besides, the music video will feature a few props and characters as a way to enhance the minimalism where imagination supersedes material.
As for the costume, the characters will dress in exaggerated clothing, including miniskirts and platform heels, as a way to represent the rebellious and aggressive nature of love. The video will also include ideas of swapped gender roles and minority groups, including people of color. This specific adaptation is relevant in today’s political climate of activism, social movements, and regressive leadership.