Reflecion Eternal featuring Estelle
Music Video Treatment

Director: Carlos Lopez Estrada
Link to director’s reel
Labuda Management (323) 848-8425

With a song this catchy and a melody that hasn’t left my head for days, I thought that the only way to make a video for this song would be by doing something that is bold, fun and will leave people talking for days:

Song Intro:
The video starts with a silhouette shot of Estelle walking into a bathroom. In super slow motion, we see her taking a big fury coat off and revealing her beautiful figure. She turns on the water knob…. Pink water fills the tub.

“I’m gonna call my baby….”

Estelle lays inside a bathtub full of pink bubbles. On a small Television we see a soul band playing live on a Tv show. They accompany Estelle (through the television) as she sings the first verse of the song.

On the television, we see Talib rush the stage and grab the mic… he starts rapping with the soul band. Suddenly, we realize that Talib is not only on the television but in fact all around the bathroom. Moving images of him appear everywhere. We will see his reflection on the water in the bath tub, in the sink which is full of water, on a small puddle of water on the tile floor…maybe even on the water in the toilet…he is singing everywhere.

The 1st chorus hits and we see Estelle exit the bathroom and walk into her living room. Just like the bathroom, the living room also posses some kind of magic:
There are frames all around with “moving pictures” of Hi Tek and Talib (these frames will either be holes on the wall or projections of Reflection Eternal performing the song).

Estelle keeps walking around all the rooms in the house (kitchen, bedroom, etc) and finds the band performing around every corner in the house. We see them on picture frames, televisions, billboards seen through the window, newspaper ads, etc.

For the last chorus, we see Talib finally arriving home. He is wearing a classy suit and stands firmly by the door.

He extends his hand and Estelle runs up to him. They embrace and break off into a quick, modern tango dance. This will me executed in a very elegant manner…making sure that the scene fits with the rest of the video. This happens during the last minute of the video…by the end of the song, we realize that all the images that were in television before, have now come to life and are in Estelle’s apartment. The soul band, Hi Tek, Talib, the Tv host and the Tv audience are all in the same location…they have all come home at Midnight.

Style and Execution:
This will be a very fun video full of movement and interesting tricks.
The entire apartment will be built on a sound stage and all of these tricks to show the band performance will be incorporated within the house itself.

Example:

Most of these camera tricks will be done “practically” and not digitally. This is something rare nowadays and will give the video a very unique look.

Vintage
The tone of the video will be similar to the style of the song: We will accentuate the “vintage” feel of the song by making all the sets and character have a timeless look.

Conclusion
This video will be inventive, amusing and memorable. And “Midnight Hour” is an opportunity for Reflection Eternal to make a wonderful and creative statement.

Reflecion Eternal featuring Estelle
Music Video Treatment

Director: Andrea Giacomini
Link to director’s reel
Labuda Management (323) 848-8425

CONCEPT:
The video takes us through an infinite sequence of rooms in a repetitive loop where we follow the two main vocalists (Estelle and Talib) through their day as they prepare for their midnight hour appointment. The video will be edited to appear as though it was shot in one long, fluid, continuous take, without cuts. Camera will be in front of the main characters, and moving around them in a wide perspective.

THE VIDEO:
Starts in total darkness, then a little light shines through a crack in a door as it opens. The door opens all the way and Estelle enters the room and the light in the hallway spills in behind her. She turns on the lights in the room; it appears that she has just returned home.

A few beats into the song, she begins to lip synch to the song. The camera pans left and right of her, revealing elements of the room (a TV set, a couch and a kitchen table on the left, etc.) as she moves through the room going through her usual routine.

She approaches another door, opens the door and turns on the light in the next room. Where you would be expecting a bedroom, she is suddenly back in her office, working late. She closes the door behind her, walks past her desk and down a long office hallway where there are other people working. As she approaches another door, she turns off the lights behind her, and pushes that door open.

The light is turned on in the new room.

Now it’s Talib doing the walking. He’s entered the living room Estelle first entered. As the camera pans left and right we see that the house is now filled with people, who are partying. Everyone’s dancing, Hi-Tek is DJjing. Talib goes through the crowd lipsynching to his section of the song, as revelers and dancers cross his path in front of the camera.

He walks through the room and approaches the door that Estelle initially went through. As he shuts off the lights behind him, he opens the door and turns on the lights in the new room. When the lights go up, we see that we’re back with Estelle in the office. She’s walking down the long hallway again, dropping papers around and behind her.

Visual References

The video continues with the non-stop action of one of the characters walking from one end of the room to the other, and with each entry and exit point leading between the office and the living room. It’s a continuous, seamless loop of those rooms, with slight differences in each room to indicate a passage of time and to coincide with the lyrics.

The two of them are never seen in the same room, until the end when she finally walks through the door back into the first room, which is home, and he is there waiting for her. They walk together through next door, and as they open it, they find themselves in the bedroom. Camera pulls up, passing through the ceiling.

Perspective is now from above and far away, instead of circling them. It is reveled that the room is a single square room in the middle of empty black space and not connected to any other rooms or anything at all for that matter.

They switch off the lights and we go back to blackness.